How do you insure that your army shoots the opposition? You shoot them if they don't.

Syrian soldiers shot for refusing to fire on protesters is the headline in the UK Guardian.

Syrian soldiers have been shot by security forces after refusing to fire on protesters, witnesses said, as a crackdown on anti-government demonstrations intensified.

Witnesses told al-Jazeera and the BBC that some soldiers had refused to shoot after the army moved into Banias in the wake of intense protests on Friday.

Human rights monitors named Mourad Hejjo, a conscript from Madaya village, as one of those shot by security snipers. "His family and town are saying he refused to shoot at his people," said Wassim Tarif, a local human rights monitor

It's a lesson for dictators everywhere. To make sure that the military stays loyal, you shoot the ones who are not. Dictators who get a conscience get overthrown and usually end up dead themselves.

In the Middle East we are now seeing the difference between rulers who are hard and those who have become soft.  The softest of the lot, Egypt's Mubarak, is already gone.  Hard men like K.Daffy (and Bashar al-Assad) can defeat the rag-tag, unarmed rebels who thought that they were facing another aging despot.  Aging he may be, but he's realistic about what it takes for a despot to cling to power.  Students of Machiavelli take note. 

If you can't be both loved and feared, pick feared.