Free Syria Quotes

يستوطن الموت الفكري كوباء في أي بلد, حين ترفض الناس أن تتبنى حرية الفكر والبحث عن الحقيقة, ثم يبحثوا عن علاج في بلاد أستوعبت أن العلم والحقيقة هم دواء للبقاء على قيد الحياة .....

some modern ‘labour-saving’ devices might more precisely be labelled ‘male labour-saving’ devices. A 2014 study in Syria, for example, found while the introduction of mechanisation in farming did reduce demand for male labour, freeing men up to ‘pursue better-paying opportunities outside of agriculture’, it actually increased demand ‘for women’s labour-intensive tasks such as transplanting, weeding, harvesting and processing’.20 Conversely, when some agricultural tasks were mechanised in Turkey, women’s participation in the agricultural labour force decreased, ‘because of men’s appropriation of machinery’, and because women were reluctant to adopt it. This was in part due to lack of education and sociocultural norms, but also ‘because the machinery was not designed for use by women’.

To the followers of the murdered Caesar: Do you march against Decimus Brutus Albinus in Gaul, or against the son of Caesar in Rome? Ask Marcus Antonius. Are you mobilized to destroy the enemies of your dead leader, or to protect his assassins? Ask Marcus Antonius. Where is the will of the dead Caesar which bequeathed to every citizen of Rome three hundred pieces of silver coin? Ask Marcus Antonius. The murderers and conspirators against Caesar are free by an act of the Senate sanctioned by Marcus Antonius. The murderer Gaius Cassius Longinus has been given the governorship of Syria by Marcus Antonius. The murderer Marcus Junius Brutus has been given the governorship of Crete by Marcus Antonius. Where are the friends of the murdered Caesar among his enemies? The son of Caesar calls to you.

I can hardly believe that our nation’s policy is to seek peace by going to war. It seems that President Donald J. Trump has done everything in his power to divert our attention away from the fact that the FBI is investigating his association with Russia during his campaign for office. For several weeks now he has been sabre rattling and taking an extremely controversial stance, first with Syria and Afghanistan and now with North Korea. The rhetoric has been the same, accusing others for our failed policy and threatening to take autonomous military action to attain peace in our time. This gunboat diplomacy is wrong. There is no doubt that Secretaries Kelly, Mattis, and other retired military personnel in the Trump Administration are personally tough. However, most people who have served in the military are not eager to send our young men and women to fight, if it is not necessary. Despite what may have been said to the contrary, our military leaders, active or retired, are most often the ones most respectful of international law. Although the military is the tip of the spear for our country, and the forces of civilization, it should not be the first tool to be used. Bloodshed should only be considered as a last resort and definitely never used as the first option. As the leader of the free world, we should stand our ground but be prepared to seek peace through restraint. This is not the time to exercise false pride! Unfortunately the Trump administration informed four top State Department management officials that their services were no longer needed as part of an effort to "clean house." Patrick Kennedy, served for nine years as the “Undersecretary for Management,” “Assistant Secretaries for Administration and Consular Affairs” Joyce Anne Barr and Michele Bond, as well as “Ambassador” Gentry Smith, director of the Office for Foreign Missions. Most of the United States Ambassadors to foreign countries have also been dismissed, including the ones to South Korea and Japan. This leaves the United States without the means of exercising diplomacy rapidly, when needed. These positions are political appointments, and require the President’s nomination and the Senate’s confirmation. This has not happened! Moreover, diplomatically our country is severely handicapped at a time when tensions are as hot as any time since the Cold War. Without following expert advice or consent and the necessary input from the Unites States Congress, the decisions are all being made by a man who claims to know more than the generals do, yet he has only the military experience of a cadet at “New York Military Academy.” A private school he attended as a high school student, from 1959 to 1964. At that time, he received educational and medical deferments from the Vietnam War draft. Trump said that the school provided him with “more training than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” His counterpart the unhinged Kim Jong-un has played with what he considers his country’s military toys, since April 11th of 2012. To think that these are the two world leaders, protecting the planet from a nuclear holocaust….

Islam has nothing to do with the acts, actions, and ethics of human beings. We must not blend the actions of Muslims with Islam. Those people misunderstood or misinterpret Islamic religion, or they are subjected to abnormal circumstances in their countries and cultures. So they stigmatize Islam with things that are not relevant or even exist in the religion. Your upbringing and manners represent you, NOT your religion. You are the sum of what you have learned from your parents. For example, sexual jihad or marriage jihad is a phenomenon was created by Syrian culture where they allowed the soldiers in Syria to have sex under the banner of marriage. But this type of marriage doesn’t exist in Islam. Those individuals represent themselves, not their religion. For example, in Catholicism When religious people abused their power and molested young boys, what is important is not the police investigations, but what damage has been done to the young children at the church when catholic priests molested them and then their actions were covered up by the Catholic Church. We should not accuse Catholicism for these crimes, it is the people who committed these actions who are at fault. The police could not prosecute them because of religious protection. So the church allowed them to move to a smaller town where they would not be noticed. Leaving those criminals free, allowed them to molest more boys and to commit more crimes against children.

Another obstacle was the stubbornness of the countries the pipeline had to cross, particularly Syria, all of which were demanding what seemed to be exorbitant transit fees. It was also the time when the partition of Palestine and the establishment of the state of Israel were aggravating American relations with the Arab countries. But the emergence of a Jewish state, along with the American recognition that followed, threatened more than transit rights for the pipeline. Ibn Saud was as outspoken and adamant against Zionism and Israel as any Arab leader. He said that Jews had been the enemies of Arabs since the seventh century. American support of a Jewish state, he told Truman, would be a death blow to American interests in the Arab world, and should a Jewish state come into existence, the Arabs “will lay siege to it until it dies of famine.” When Ibn Saud paid a visit to Aramco’s Dhahran headquarters in 1947, he praised the oranges he was served but then pointedly asked if they were from Palestine—that is, from a Jewish kibbutz. He was reassured; the oranges were from California. In his opposition to a Jewish state, Ibn Saud held what a British official called a “trump card”: He could punish the United States by canceling the Aramco concession. That possibility greatly alarmed not only the interested companies, but also, of course, the U.S. State and Defense departments. Yet the creation of Israel had its own momentum. In 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine recommended the partition of Palestine, which was accepted by the General Assembly and by the Jewish Agency, but rejected by the Arabs. An Arab “Liberation Army” seized the Galilee and attacked the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Violence gripped Palestine. In 1948, Britain, at wit’s end, gave up its mandate and withdrew its Army and administration, plunging Palestine into anarchy. On May 14, 1948, the Jewish National Council proclaimed the state of Israel. It was recognized almost instantly by the Soviet Union, followed quickly by the United States. The Arab League launched a full-scale attack. The first Arab-Israeli war had begun. A few days after Israel’s proclamation of statehood, James Terry Duce of Aramco passed word to Secretary of State Marshall that Ibn Saud had indicated that “he may be compelled, in certain circumstances, to apply sanctions against the American oil concessions… not because of his desire to do so but because the pressure upon him of Arab public opinion was so great that he could no longer resist it.” A hurriedly done State Department study, however, found that, despite the large reserves, the Middle East, excluding Iran, provided only 6 percent of free world oil supplies and that such a cut in consumption of that oil “could be achieved without substantial hardship to any group of consumers.

The kingdom of Bosnia forms a division of the Ottoman empire, and is a key to the countries of Roumeli (or Romeli). Although its length and breadth be of unequal dimensions, yet it is not improper to say it is equal in climate to Misr and Sham (Egypt and Syria). Each one of its lofty mountains, exalted to Ayuk, (a bright red star that * The peace of Belgrade was signed on the first of September, 1739. By this peace the treaty of Passarowitz was nullified, and the rivers Danube, Save, and Una re-established, as the boundaries of the two empires. See note to page 1. always follows the Hyades,) is an eye-sore to a foe. By reason of this country's vicinity to the infidel nations, such as the deceitful Germans, Hungarians, Serbs (Sclavonians), the tribes of Croats, and the Venetians, strong and powerful, and furnished with abundance of cannon, muskets, and other weapons of destruction, it has had to carry on fierce war from time to time with one or other, or more, of these deceitful enemies—enemies accustomed to mischief, inured to deeds of violence, resembling wild mountaineers in asperity, and inflamed with the rage of seeking opportunities of putting their machinations into practice; but the inhabitants of Bosnia know this. The greater part of her peasants are strong, courageous, ardent, lion-hearted, professionally fond of war, and revengeful: if the enemy but only show himself in any quarter, they, never seeking any pretext for declining, hasten to the aid of each other. Though in general they are harmless, yet in conflict with an enemy they are particularly vehement and obstinate; in battle they are strong-hearted ; to high commands they are obedient, and submissive as sheep; they are free from injustice and wickedness; they commit no villany, and are never guilty of high-way robbery; and they are ready to sacrifice their lives in behalf of their religion and the emperor. This is an honour which the people of Bosnia have received as an inheritance from their forefathers, and which every parent bequeaths to his son at his death. By far the greater number of the inhabitants, but especially the warlike chiefs, capudans, and veterans of the borders, in order to mount and dismount without inconvenience, and to walk with greater freedom and agility, wear short and closely fitted garments: they wear the fur of the wolf and leopard about their shoulders, and eagles' wings in their caps, which are made of wolf-skins. The ornaments of their horses are wolf and bearskins: their weapons of defence are the sword, the javelin, the axe, the spear, pistols, and muskets : their cavalry are swift, and their foot nimble and quick. Thus dressed and accoutred they present a formidable appearance, and never fail to inspire their enemies with a dread of their valour and heroism. So much for the events which have taken place within so short a space of time.* It is not in our power to write and describe every thing connected with the war, or which came to pass during that eventful period. Let this suffice. * It will be seen by the dates given in page 1, that the war lasted about two years and five months. Prepared and printed from the rare and valuable collection of Omer EfFendi of Novi, a native of Bosnia, by Ibrahim.* * This Ibrahim was called Basmajee^ the printer. He is mentioned in history as a renegado, and to have been associated with the son of Mehemet Effendi, the negotiator of the peace of Paasarowitz, and who was, in 1721, deputed on a special em-, bassy to Louis XV. Seyd Effendi, who introduced the art of printing into Turkey. Ibrahim, under the auspices of the government, and by the munificence of Seyd Effendi aiding his labours^ succeeded in sending from the newly instituted presses several works, besides the Account of the War in Bosnia.

Syria was milked of its more profitable resources,’ believed Lawrence’s wartime comrade W. F. Stirling, who noted that the country’s profitable utilities and monopolies were all French-owned and that what infrastructure existed was built ‘for strategic purposes and not for public benefit’.15 And corruption was pervasive: it was not long before one British diplomat reported that French officials were ‘expecting liberal presents for services rendered by them’.16 As even Catroux commented, ‘we were in the Orient where nothing comes for free’.17

Two centuries after Irenaeus, it was the Antiochene theologians based at Antioch in Syria who emphasized this line of thought. Recognizing that our salvation depended on Christ’s obedience, they insisted that it must have been real obedience. That it is to say, Jesus as a real human being must have had real choice. There must be no thought of his divine nature coercing his human choice. He must have been free as a human being to choose if the temptation was to be real and the obedience genuine. If there was no genuine choice, there was no real obedience.341

I kept seeing turning points. First the uprising. Then the creation of the Free Syrian Army, the FSA. Now a big assassination bombing in the heart of Assad’s government. But the turn never came. It just got worse and worse.

It’s claimed that Americans viewed twelve times as many Web pages about Miley Cyrus as about the gas attack in Syria.

Amma, Make me an instrument of your fire. Make me the breath in the lungs that scream for justice. Make me the tears on a mother’s face holding the body of her child scorched by war. Make me a stone thrown at a tank. Make me the key to open cell doors. Make me the darkness to hide those fleeing across a desert. Make me the ocean that guides a refugee’s boat. Make me the scarf covering the face of Antifa. Make me a vaccination in a free clinic. Make me farmland never touched by chemicals. Make me a guitar played by a prisoner’s hands. Make me a song of joy on a child’s lips in Syria. Make me, make me, just keep making me, God, until there is nothing left to transform, and then let me dissolve into you.

Whether these politicians lack understanding of the law or simply seek to circumvent it by using corporate regulations instead is unclear. But in the case of both Hamas and Hezbollah, we need to ask: What is the impact in Palestine and Lebanon, where these groups are powerful players in local politics—local politics that have no shortage of violent actors? Azza El Masri is a media researcher from Lebanon who, for the past several years, has studied content moderation. “Is Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and its participation in the Iran-KSA proxy war tantamount to terrorist activities? Yes,” she told me in a text message. “However, this doesn’t absolve the fact that Hezbollah today is the most powerful political actor in Lebanon.” Lebanon’s political scene is, to the outsider, messy and difficult to parse. After the fifteen-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands, the country’s parliament instituted a law that pardoned all political crimes prior to its enactment, allowing the groups that were formerly militias to form political parties. Only Hezbollah—an Iran-sponsored creation to unify the country’s Shia population during the war—was allowed by the postwar Syrian occupation to retain its militia. The United States designated Hezbollah (which translates to “Party of God”) a foreign terrorist organization in 1995, more than a decade after the group bombed US military barracks in Beirut.

Conference of 1991, when Israel and its Arab neighbours began face–to–face talks to resolve the Palestinian Arab problem. Following the conference, the Syrian Government, headed by Hafez al–Assad, agreed to abandon two decades of implacable resistance to Jewish emigration. All 3,886Jews in Syria were free to leave–for anywhere but Israel.

YouTube, which perhaps bore the brunt of the media’s ire, at first tried to make things right. Nicole Wong later called it “a moment where we needed the [help of the] human rights community [in order to] understand what we needed to see so that we wouldn’t make mistakes,” but YouTube later closed ranks, according to many activists who tried to reach the company as the situation in Syria escalated. The incidents from that period should have served as a lesson for company policymakers a few years later when the right-wing onslaught began, had their myopia, profit-mindedness, and deep-rooted US-centricity not blinded them to the glaring similarities between white supremacists and ISIS.

therein lies one of the core problems with how Silicon Valley policymakers have dealt with graphic and extremist violence. When videos of beheadings began to emerge from Syria in 2011, with nameless victims, keeping them up was deemed “newsworthy.” But when an American’s death was broadcast to the world, that calculation changed. The fact that Foley’s family had spoken out in favor of banning the video from being shared certainly matters; but what about the Syrian victims whose families had no way of reaching YouTube, let alone mainstream media?

In a short essay called ‘Liberating Life: Women’s Revolution’, Öcalan (2013) outlines the core tenets of his sociological/historico-philosophical writings. Öcalan’s fundamental claim is that ‘mainstream civilisation’, commences with the enslavement of ‘Woman’, through what he calls ‘Housewifisation’ (2013). As such, it is only through a ‘struggle against the foundations of this ruling system’ (2013), that not only women, but also men can achieve freedom, and slavery can be destroyed. Any liberation of life, for Öcalan, can only be achieved through a Woman’s revolution. In his own words: ‘If I am to be a freedom fighter, I cannot just ignore this: woman’s revolution is a revolution within a revolution’ (2013). For Öcalan, the Neolithic era is crucial, as the heyday of the matricentric social order. The figure of the Woman is quite interesting, and is not just female gender, but rather a condensation of all that is ‘equal’ and ‘natural’ and ‘social’, and its true significance is seen as a mode of social governance, which is non-hierarchical, non-statist, and not premised upon accumulation (2013). This can only be fully seen, through the critique of ‘civilisation’ which is equally gendered and equated with the rise of what he calls the ‘dominant male’ and hegemonic sexuality. These forms of power as coercive are embodied in the institution of masculine civilisation. And power in the matriarchal structures are understood more as authority, they are natural/organic. What further characterised the Neolithic era is the ways through which society was based upon solidarity and sharing – no surplus in production, and a respect for nature. In such a social order, Öcalan finds through his archaeology of ‘sociality’ the traces of an ecological ontology, in which nature is ‘alive and animated’, and thus no different from the people themselves. The ways in which Öcalan figures ‘Woman’, serves as metaphor for the Kurdish nation-as-people (not nation-state). In short, if one manages to liberate woman, from the hegemonic ‘civilisation’ of ‘the dominant male’, one manages to liberate, not only the Kurds, but the world. It is only on this basis that the conditions of possibility for a genuine global democratic confederalism, and a solution to the conflicts of the Middle East can be thinkable. Once it is thinkable, then we can imagine a freedom to organise, to be free from any conception of ownership (of property, persons, or the self), a freedom to show solidarity, to restore balance to life, nature, and other humans through ‘love’, not power. In Rojava, The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, Öcalan’s political thoughts are being implemented, negotiated and practised. Such a radical experiment, which connects theory with practice has not been seen on this scale, ever before, and although the Rojava administration, the Democratic Union Party, is different from the PKK, they share the same political leader, Öcalan. Central to this experiment are commitments to feminism, ecology and justice.

Spring is beautiful everywhere, but it is most beautiful in Syria. It is a spirit that roams round the earth but hovers over Syria, conversing with kings and prophets, singing with the rives the songs of Solomon, and repeating with the Holy Cedars of Lebanon the memory of ancient glory. Beirut, free from the mud of winter and the dust of summer, is like a bride in the spring, or like a mermaid sitting by the side of a brook drying her smooth skin in the rays of the sun.

One of the clearest principles of contemporary international law is that States are not free to threaten or use military force against each other or to intervene in each other’s affairs. That is one reason why, for example, western States have been ready to take action against terrorist groups in Iraq, where the States act at the invitation of the Iraqi government, but have been very reluctant to take such action in Syria, where there is no such invitation.

As William scoured England and Roger besieged Palermo, Emperor Romanos IV was marching out to fight Alp Arslan, the Seljuk sultan, who was making advances into today’s Anatolia, the beginning of its transformation into a Turkish heartland. But Arslan’s chief war was against the Fatimiyya caliphs, so he renewed an earlier treaty with Romanos, then headed southwards into Syria. But, provoked by Seljuk raids, the emperor advanced with a disorganized army of Varangians, Pechenegs and Anglo-Saxons. Arslan headed north but offered a generous peace which Romanos impulsively rejected. At Manzikert, on 26 August 1071, unwisely dividing his army and feuding with his generals, Romanos was routed.[*5] Arslan made him bow low, resting his boot on the imperial neck, but then he raised him to his feet, asking, ‘What would you do if I were brought before you as a prisoner?’ ‘Perhaps I’d kill you,’ replied Romanos, ‘or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople.’ ‘My punishment is far heavier,’ said Arslan. ‘I forgive you, and set you free.