"For three months, the sensitive, soft-spoken, mustached artist, with a wretched cough from exposure to mustard gas in WWI..."
or
"For three months, the soft-spoken, bearded cannibal ..."
or
"For three months, the soft-spoken, bearded terrorist..."
"For three months, the soft-spoken, bearded Gestapo agent..."
Just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Heck, I've never even heard the press use such sensitive lines when refering to the "good guys," who are for the most part soft-spoken. Has anyone here ever heard a presstitute say "The soft-spoken George Bush/Reagan/Rice/Cheney/etc..." or the "soft-spoken Republican...?"
Of course, if we were going to go in and bomb Syria, a terrorist country if there ever was one, then the press would quickly jump to the defense of Syria.
What they never say though, is that the people we turn over to these countries also happen to be citizens of these same countries, or are wanted in those countries for earlier crimes and so, they BELONG in those countries.
The "soft-spoken, bearded man with glasses " is NOT the scumbag Al Qaeda recruiter. He's a moroccan that was in the Damascus jail at the same time who was released after 3 months. "He felt lucky to have been beaten only on the soles of his feet with cable wires".
Nowhere in the article does the author describe Zammar in "sensitive lines" as you call them.