“It’s better if unarmed civilians surrender”

 In audio recordings obtained by NOW, Assad's favorite nun [Mother Agnes Mariam] shows how she convinced starved civilians – many of whom have now been arrested – to leave besieged Moadamiyah

 "The US State Department has evidently not flinched in offering this humble, pot-smoking emissary of God a visa, a courtesy that for some reason it did not choose to extend to Paul Conroy, the Sunday Times photojournalist who was badly injured covering the siege of Baba Amr and who has recently published a book about the last days of his colleague Marie Colvin’s life that he’d like to tell Americans about."

 I'd say the pot-smoking might be one thing in her favour. She's also the source for the Russian claim that the rebels gassed themselves in August. Practising Catholics might be embarrassed that she's in communion with the universal church.