boy, have times changed....

...At home, Mr. Assad's [that is, Hafez al-Assad, former Syrian dictator] longevity in office rested on a rigid intolerance of dissent, most starkly illustrated by the slaying of thousands of residents of Hama in February 1982 to end a swelling Islamic insurgency. His was a suspicious police state, barring modern instruments like the fax or the Internet that might somehow become tools to help undermine his government.

- from here.