Syrian Civil War Quotes

This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.

Eastward and westward storms are breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I will not believe them inevitable.

Some live for medals. Others find their gratification in living for an ideal.

When the masses are against you, when fear is on every side, and when it seems like you are standing alone, that is when you should stand the tallest. That is when you plant yourself like a mountain, and you do what your heart knows is right. Even if death will be your only reward.

In an over-politicized world, my wish is for this work to humanize those we call “refugees”. This book is not about the politics of the Syrian Civil War or any other conflict. Its aim is not to convince readers to support any faction or political party. Instead, this story is about the unbreakable spirit of humanity.  It is about how humanity often shows its true strength during the darkest times.

It [freedom] rings bells to remind humanity that the most precious gifts in life––like children and love and time––must never be taken for granted.

It's when the 'international community' expresses 'concern' about your 'situation' that your situation is well and truly fucked.

Death wins nothing here, gnawing wings that amputate–– then spread, lift up, fly.

Israel's demonstration of its military prowess in 1967 confirmed its status as a 'strategic asset,' as did its moves to prevent Syrian intervention in Jordan in 1970 in support of the PLO. Under the Nixon doctrine, Israel and Iran were to be 'the guardians of the Gulf,' and after the fall of the Shah, Israel's perceived role was enhanced. Meanwhile, Israel has provided subsidiary services elsewhere, including Latin America, where direct US support for the most murderous regimes has been impeded by Congress. While there has been internal debate and some fluctuation in US policy, much exaggerated in discussion here, it has been generally true that US support for Israel's militarization and expansion reflected the estimate of its power in the region. The effect has been to turn Israel into a militarized state completely dependent on US aid, willing to undertake tasks that few can endure, such as participation in Guatemalan genocide. For Israel, this is a moral disaster and will eventually become a physical disaster as well. For the Palestinians and many others, it has been a catastrophe, as it may sooner or later be for the entire world, with the growing danger of superpower confrontation.

For a start, people who traveled for so many miles through such horrific conditions in order to find work cannot accurately be portrayed as lazy benefit-scroungers

In an age of bombs guzzling blood, skylarks merge peace with thought and action.

Before the thunderous clamor of political debate or war set loose in the world, love insisted on its promise for the possibility of human unity: between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and southerners, haves and have-have-nots, self and self.

It's bewildering to me how you can just start chatting with a complete stranger on Facebook, and - next thing you know - it seems as if there's some intense connection with the person - or at least you feel that closeness and hope it's mutual

Freedom rings bells to wake us from the comfort of beautiful dreams and empower the efforts that turn them into reality.

There comes a time for us not to just be survivors, but to be warriors. Yara, you have your life, and the chance to make the most of it. Don't run or hide from that challenge or let your guilt keep you from living your life. This gift is such a beautiful opportunity. Embrace it. Seize every opportunity from here on out. Live.

In its essence, Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech is one citizen’s soul-searing plea with his countrymen––Whites and Blacks––to recognize that racial disparities fueled by unwarranted bigotry were crippling America’s ability to shine as a true beacon of democracy in a world filled with people groping their way through suffocating shadows of political turmoil, economic oppression, military mayhem, starvation, and disease.

Paradoxically, the more Michael kept me at a distance, the more I trusted him - perhaps because he was always willing to help me with tips and introductions even though he wanted absolutely nothing from me (and never reciprocated my nosiness with personal questions of his own with me).

It’s not a bad thing, if you’re responsible about it. Just don’t start having boyfriends. Wait until you’ve found your husband.” “And how am I supposed to find a husband if I can’t have a boyfriend until then?” I asked ironically.

You and your siblings are the most precious part of my life. And of all my children, you have the most potential to go anywhere you wish in this world – your test scores and grades have always been among the highest of your peers. But it’s clear now that you cannot reach your full potential in Syria.

Every woman who has ever approached me about being in my circle of lovers knows that I'm a bachelor with no plans to get married. Thanks to New York's tabloids, it's practically common knowledge. And, to avoid any possibility of doubt or misunderstanding, I very clearly told her from the start what I tell every potential lover: I don't date anyone exclusively. Ever.

And this is the worse part of it — when you realize that what separates you, someone who can leave, from someone who is trapped in Aleppo, or Homs or Douma or Darayya, is that you can walk away and go back to your home with electricity and sliced bread; then you begin to feel ashamed to be human.

That could also be because at one point during the film, our hands found each other. And when I felt Michael's middle finger caress the inside of my palm, it sent a tickle up my spine, and the fingers of my right hand were soon exploring his left hand, and we each took turns tracing the contours of the other's hands.

With the music of our singing in the background, I looked at the church candles and thought about the surreal connection between images and memory. The peaceful and joyous candles flickering there during the Christmas ceremony projected warmth, comfort, and familiarity – even though thy emitted the same kind of fiery energy as the flames caused by the war.

I propose that we change its abbreviation from ISIL or ISIS into a new name that contains the initial letters of each country or lobby that contributed to its existence.

Those men are now fighting against the government's army, and the people who live in the town don't know whose side to choose. They only want the violence to stop. Nobody knows which side is right anymore.

Globally, about 145 million people live three feet or less above the current sea level. As the waters rise, millions of these people will be displaced, many of them in poor countries, creating generations of climate refugees that will make today’s Syrian war refugee crisis look like a high school drama production.

Even if the Syrian Civil War ended today, there isn’t enough water and oil to feed the population. Syria will not—will never—recover. Rivers of Syrian refugees into Turkey are the new normal, for they’ve nowhere else to flow.

Don't know when my life came to visualising intense pain and tragedy to putting it down on paper, to putting across a message of love in times of abject hate. Thank you everybody and the conspiracy of the stars for showing me this day. To many, many more books, inshallah, and to many more launches.

As politicians weigh courses of action against their political agendas the death toll weighs heavy on the conscience of the world. The once vibrant Syrian streets are now haunted by the souls of the innocent and the historic monuments that told of an unrivalled Arab civilisation no longer stand tall.

If Syria is to rise from the ashes it needs a united Arab world which has one thing on its agenda, not the falling of a dictator for we have seen many of those fall, but the reemergence of a prosperous Arab nation, one that is not reliant on foreign aid but is self-sustained and set on its way to become powerful once again.

Bit by bit, the uprising that had brought out the best in Syrians and projected their aspirations and yearnings was vanishing as pain, vengefulness, and war took over. It was yet another page from the playbook of Hafez as well as all the despots who clung desperately to power at the start of the Arab Spring: civil war is acceptable and even desirable to defend the leader.

In conflict situations, social networking may serve as a platform to reinforce traditional social fissures as much as it dispels them. The widespread sharing of videotaped atrocities in the Syrian civil war appears to have done more to harden the resolve of the warring parties than to stop the killing, while the notorious ISIL has used social media to declare a caliphate and exhort holy war.

There’s gratification in abstaining from the easy choice. Instant gratification can bring more suffering than pleasure. If I do the hard thing, the next time I face a similar situation it’s not that hard anymore.

I do feel we have a certain obligation to not lie to ourselves and a responsibility to figure out the truth, no matter where that might take us. If we’re content with living in ignorance, we’re doing ourselves a disservice.

In trying to comprehend and judge moral dilemmas of this scale, people often resort to one of four methods. The first is to downsize the issue. To understand the Syrian civil war as though it were occurring between two foragers, for example, one imagines the Assad regime as a lone person and the rebels as another person; one of them is bad and one of them is good. The historical complexity of the conflict is replaced by a simple, clear plot.4 The second method is to focus on a touching human story that ostensibly stands for the whole conflict. When you try to explain to people the true complexity of the conflict by means of statistics and precise data, you lose them, but a personal story about the fate of one child activates the tear ducts, makes the blood boil, and generates false moral certainty.5 This is something that many charities have understood for a long time. In one noteworthy experiment, people were asked to donate money to help a poor seven-year-old girl from Mali named Rokia. Many were moved by her story and opened their hearts and purses. However, when in addition to Rokia’s personal story the researchers also presented people with statistics about the broader problem of poverty in Africa, respondents suddenly became less willing to help. In another study, scholars solicited donations to help either one sick child or eight sick children. People gave more money to the single child than to the group of eight.6

We Americans tend to see death as an enemy to fight at all costs. But what exactly are we fighting? The people in developing countries don’t cherish their loved ones any less. They celebrate the person’s death in the same way they celebrated their life.

In some cultures, pain is a hardship to be overcome. In others, pain is a natural part of life, something that everyone experiences and that doesn’t need to be feared and defeated. Understanding how different cultures perceive pain helps us better treat our patients.

Many pundits, politicians and ordinary citizens believe that the Syrian civil war, the rise of the Islamic State, the Brexit mayhem and the instability of the European Union all result from a clash between ‘Western Civilisation’ and ‘Islamic Civilisation’. Western attempts to impose democracy and human rights on Muslim nations resulted in a violent Islamic backlash, and a wave of Muslim immigration coupled with Islamic terrorist attacks caused European voters to abandon multicultural dreams in favour of xenophobic local identities.

...if the United States never intended to help, it shouldn’t have built up the expectation. The false promise of help was cruel and inexcusable and it would only get worse over time. If a man is drowning and a boat drives past in the distance, the man accepts his death and goes down quietly. If a man is drowning and a boat pulls up beside him, dangles a life jacket, tells the world he wants to help, but then doesn’t throw the life jacket, the drowning man dies crying and his family might take a blood oath to take revenge on the boat’s crew. This type of anger was already starting to build in Syria and al-Qaeda would capitalize on it.

At times it seems as if the whole world has become a refugee and the few of us, who are privileged enough to wake up to the sound of an alarm clock instead of a siren, those of us who are enveloped by a veil of safety many of us fail to appreciate, have become desensitised to the migrating numbers, to the images of the dead, shrugging them away as a collective misery that this ailing part of the world must endure.

Nevertheless, international missions have an addictive quality. There’s something magical about them. Maybe it’s the dopamine rushes we get from being needed and appreciated. Or the sense of purpose and belonging that we feel. Or the basic honesty of the work itself. We might witness horrific scenes, but on our return we miss the sense of purpose and camaraderie that went with it. For some, returning to mission work is the only way to experience that feeling again.

Israel’s constant drone surveillance over Gaza also impressed President Vladimir Putin. Moscow needed reliable surveillance drones after it lost many planes during its war in 2008 against Georgia in South Ossetia. Tbilisi had used Israeli drones, and years later Moscow decided to follow suit. Having seen Israeli operations over Gaza, Russia licensed the Israeli Aerospace Industries Searcher II, renamed “Forpost” by its new owners, and it became a key asset in Russian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.33 Israel trained Russian pilots to operate the drones. Russia and Israel maintained a close relationship during the Syrian civil war despite the former supporting Assad and the latter worrying about the growing presence of Russian allies Iran and Hizbollah in the country. This led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and Naftali Bennett) to routinely attack Iranian and Syrian military positions in Syria to stop the transfer of weapons to Hizbollah. However, Moscow usually turned a blind eye to these attacks, assisted by a de-escalation hotline between the two governments.

Also, even when people feel they know nothing, they typically know a bit and that bit should tip them away from maximum uncertainty, at least a bit. The astrophysicist J. Richard Gott shows us what forecasters should do when all they know is how long something—a civil war or a recession or an epidemic—has thus far lasted. The right thing is to adopt an attitude of “Copernican humility” and assume there is nothing special about the point in time at which you happen to be observing the phenomenon. For instance, if the Syrian civil war has been going on for two years when IARPA poses a question about it, assume it is equally likely you are close to the beginning—say, we are only 5% into the war—or close to the end—say, the war is 95% complete. Now you can construct a crude 95% confidence band of possibilities: the war might last as little as 1/39 of 2 years (or less than another month), or as long as about 39 × 2 years, or 78 years. This may not seem to be a great achievement but it beats saying “zero to infinity.” And if 78 years strikes you as ridiculously long that is because you cheated by violating the ground rule of you must know “nothing.” You just introduced outside-view base-rate knowledge about wars in general (e.g., you know that very few wars have ever lasted that long). You are now on the long road to becoming a better forecaster. See Richard Gott, “Implications of the Copernican Principle for Our Future Prospects,” Nature

On August 3, 2012, the fifteenth day of the government offensive, rebels in the city said they were desperately low on ammunition and expressed dismay that the international community had not reacted when a huge massacre could be coming. Again, Libya was the example. Gadhafi threatened to overrun Benghazi and when he tried to do it, NATO started bombing. Now in Syria, Assad was threatening to crush the opposition in Aleppo and had already started doing it, but Washington’s reaction was only hand-wringing. In my conversations with rebels it was clear they were becoming increasingly disheartened and desperate. (The rebels would usually communicate with each other on Skype, blending in with the billions of people using the Internet instead of going through cell-phone towers.) The United States was apparently still skittish about sending in arms because it feared they would end up in the hands of Islamic extremists, but that, like so many unintended consequences of US foreign policy in the Middle East, was a self-fulfilling prophecy. At this stage the rebels were numerous, strong, motivated, and moderate and I made that clear in my reports on the air.

The war against ISIS in Iraq was a long, hard slog, and for a time the administration was as guilty of hyping progress as the most imaginative briefers at the old “Five O’Clock Follies” in Saigon had been. In May 2015, an ISIS assault on Ramadi and a sandstorm that grounded U.S. planes sent Iraqi forces and U.S. Special Forces embedded with them fleeing the city. Thanks to growing hostility between the Iraqi government and Iranian-supported militias in the battle, the city wouldn’t be taken until the end of the year. Before it was over we had sent well over five thousand military personnel back to Iraq, including Special Forces operators embedded as advisors with Iraqi and Kurdish units. A Navy SEAL, a native Arizonan whom I had known when he was a boy, was killed in northern Iraq. His name was Charles Keating IV, the grandson of my old benefactor, with whom I had been implicated all those years ago in the scandal his name had branded. He was by all accounts a brave and fine man, and I mourned his loss. Special Forces operators were on the front lines when the liberation of Mosul began in October 2016. At immense cost, Mosul was mostly cleared of ISIS fighters by the end of July 2017, though sporadic fighting continued for months. The city was in ruins, and the traumatized civilian population was desolate. By December ISIS had been defeated everywhere in Iraq. I believe that had U.S. forces retained a modest but effective presence in Iraq after 2011 many of these tragic events might have been avoided or mitigated. Would ISIS nihilists unleashed in the fury and slaughter of the Syrian civil war have extended their dystopian caliphate to Iraq had ten thousand or more Americans been in country? Probably, but with American advisors and airpower already on the scene and embedded with Iraqi security forces, I think their advance would have been blunted before they had seized so much territory and subjected millions to the nightmare of ISIS rule. Would Maliki have concentrated so much power and alienated Sunnis so badly that the insurgency would catch fire again? Would Iran’s influence have been as detrimental as it was? Would Iraqis have collaborated to prevent a full-scale civil war from erupting? No one can answer for certain. But I believe that our presence there would have had positive effects. All we can say for certain is that Iraq still has a difficult road to walk, but another opportunity to progress toward that hopeful vision of a democratic, independent nation that’s learned to accommodate its sectarian differences, which generations of Iraqis have suffered without and hundreds of thousands of Americans risked everything for.

ISIS was forced out of all its occupied territory in Syria and Iraq, though thousands of ISIS fighters are still present in both countries. Last April, Assad again used sarin gas, this time in Idlib Province, and Russia again used its veto to protect its client from condemnation and sanction by the U.N. Security Council. President Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on the Syrian airfield where the planes that delivered the sarin were based. It was a minimal attack, but better than nothing. A week before, I had condemned statements by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who had explicitly declined to maintain what had been the official U.S. position that a settlement of the Syrian civil war had to include Assad’s removal from power. “Once again, U.S. policy in Syria is being presented piecemeal in press statements,” I complained, “without any definition of success, let alone a realistic plan to achieve it.” As this book goes to the publisher, there are reports of a clash between U.S. forces in eastern Syria and Russian “volunteers,” in which hundreds of Russians were said to have been killed. If true, it’s a dangerous turn of events, but one caused entirely by Putin’s reckless conduct in the world, allowed if not encouraged by the repeated failures of the U.S. and the West to act with resolve to prevent his assaults against our interests and values. In President Obama’s last year in office, at his invitation, he and I spent a half hour or so alone, discussing very frankly what I considered his policy failures, and he believed had been sound and necessary decisions. Much of that conversation concerned Syria. No minds were changed in the encounter, but I appreciated his candor as I hoped he appreciated mine, and I respected the sincerity of his convictions. Yet I still believe his approach to world leadership, however thoughtful and well intentioned, was negligent, and encouraged our allies to find ways to live without us, and our adversaries to try to fill the vacuums our negligence created. And those trends continue in reaction to the thoughtless America First ideology of his successor. There are senior officials in government who are trying to mitigate those effects. But I worry that we are at a turning point, a hinge of history, and the decisions made in the last ten years and the decisions made tomorrow might be closing the door on the era of the American-led world order. I hope not, and it certainly isn’t too late to reverse that direction. But my time in that fight has concluded. I have nothing but hope left to invest in the work of others to make the future better than the past. As of today, as the Syrian war continues, more than 400,000 people have been killed, many of them civilians. More than five million have fled the country and more than six million have been displaced internally. A hundred years from now, Syria will likely be remembered as one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the twenty-first century, and an example of human savagery at its most extreme. But it will be remembered, too, for the invincibility of human decency and the longing for freedom and justice evident in the courage and selflessness of the White Helmets and the soldiers fighting for their country’s freedom from tyranny and terrorists. In that noblest of human conditions is the eternal promise of the Arab Spring, which was engulfed in flames and drowned in blood, but will, like all springs, come again.

I was against the Iraq war I was against the Afghan war I was against bombing Libya and Syria but to be quite honest and with a heavy heart because more innocent people are gonna be killed....We have to step in and help wipeout ISIS!

With the decline of the United States as the world’s leader, I find it important to look around our globe for intelligent people who have the depth of understanding that could perhaps chart a way to the future. One such person is Bernard-Henri Lévy a French philosopher who was born in Béni Saf, French Algeria on November 5, 1948. . The Boston Globe has said that he is "perhaps the most prominent intellectual in France today." Although his published work and political activism has fueled controversies, he invokes thought provoking insight into today’s controversial world and national views. As a young man and Zionist he was a war correspondent for “Combat” newspaper for the French Underground. Following the war Bernard attended Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris and in 1968; he graduated with a degree in philosophy from the famous École Normale Supérieure. This was followed by him traveling to India where he joined the International Brigade to aid Bangladeshi freedom fighters. Returning to Paris, Bernard founded the ‘New Philosophers School.’ At that time he wrote books bringing to light the dark side of French history. Although some of his books were criticized for their journalistic character and unbalanced approach to French history, but most respected French academics took a serious look at his position that Marxism was inherently corrupt. Some of his musings include the predicament of the Kurds and the Shame of Aleppo, referring to the plight of the children in Aleppo during the bloody Syrian civil war. Not everyone agrees with Bernard, as pointed out by an article “Why Does Everyone Hate Bernard-Henri Lévy?” However he is credited with nearly single handedly toppling Muammar Gaddafi. His reward was that in 2008 he was targeted for assassination by a Belgium-based Islamist militant group. Looking like a rock star and ladies man, with his signature dark suits and unbuttoned white shirt, he said that “democracies are not run by the truth,” and notes that the American president is not the author of the anti-intellectual movement it, but rather its product. He added that the anti-intellectualism movement that has swept the United States and Europe in the last 12 months has been a long time coming. The responsibility to support verified information and not publicize fake news as equal has been ignored. He said that the president may be the heart of the anti-intellectual movement, but social media is the mechanism! Not everyone agrees with Bernard; however his views require our attention. If we are to preserve our democracy we have to look at the big picture and let go of some of our partisan thinking. We can still save our democracy, but only if we become patriots instead of partisans!

the United States decided it was not going to intervene in Syria—at least for the time being. The Syrian opposition felt betrayed and abandoned. Worse, Syrians were now completely without hope, which is the most dangerous human condition. A man or woman with no hope is capable of anything.

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.

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.

Refugees are not a homogeneous group of people. Some are attracted by the prospect of succeeding in a high-income society; others, a majority, hope to return to Syria.

The lack of a functioning, trustful community also heightened the refugees’ fears of being abducted by the extremist organization Islamic State. Many initially refused to move to Azraq camp, and although the numbers have increased more recently, Azraq is still far below the 130,000 capacity for which it was built. It’s fitting then that this pop-up city, in real need of some functioning social capital, is now the scene of a radical experiment in new models of community governance, institution-building, and the management of resources. At the heart of that effort is blockchain technology, the decentralized ledger-keeping system that underpins the digital currency bitcoin and promises a more reliable, immediate way to trace transactions. The World Food Program (WFP), a UN agency that feeds 80 million people worldwide, is putting 10,000 Azraq refugees through a pilot that uses this system to better coordinate food distribution. In doing so, the WFP is tackling a giant administrative challenge: how to ensure, in an environment where theft is rampant and few people carry personal identifying documents, that everyone gets their fair share of food. Among those participating in this project was forty-three-year-old Najah Saleh Al-Mheimed, one of the more than 5 million Syrians forced to flee their homes as the brutal, ongoing civil war has all but destroyed their country. In early June 2015, with mounting food shortages and reports of girls being kidnapped by militias in nearby villages, Najah and her husband made the drastic decision to leave her hometown of Hasaka, where their families had lived for generations. “It was an ordeal that I pray to God no human will ever witness,” she said in an interview conducted on our behalf by WFP staffers working in the Azraq camp.

This is a story, not history. So the characters and incidents are not real. It is a story about different types of rulers who rule, protect, patronize, intimidate, terrorize, or kill their subjects and others. We call them presidents, sultans, ministers, and intelligence agencies. And many people end up as pawns to further their interests.

At least US and Iranian leaders agree on something: Assad's downfall would tremendously weaken Iran's regional influence. From the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Iran worried that “if the Assad government fell, the replacement would have much stronger ties with the US government and Israeli government,” according to Professor Foad Izadi, an assistant professor at the University of Tehran's Faculty of World Studies. He told me, “that was the dilemma that Iran had.”9

The Obama administration and major US media portray Syria as a quagmire of religious groups fighting centuries-old battles. The reality is quite different. For many years, Syrians lived peacefully with one another. Syria was a secular dictatorship where dissidents faced torture and jail for criticizing Assad, but people largely ignored religious differences. Once the fighting began, however, leaders on both sides used religion to rally their troops. Rebels relied on the Sunni Muslim majority. Assad appealed to minority groups such as Alawites, Christians, and Shia Muslims.

Oh For God Almighty Let’s scrape away those Palestinian Muslim Arab scums To rightly make room for the Jews, God’s chosen ones. In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must You sword wielding followers of the prophet Mohamed With hatred forever the creed of your Shia Sunni divide To bring destruction one to the other, so millions have died In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must Be gone you Popeless protestant English bastards For us Fenians will always carry the true cross of Jesus In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must If oil be the quest let war drums begin and bombs be the rain So onward Christian soldiers, to Iraq and away with Hussain In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must Millions made homeless, endless suffering without pause Civil war be the call, with Syrians fighting their hopeless cause In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must And so to the future, a blond king is born, his war ships to sea Yet concern there must be as he doesn’t even know his ABC In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must There are lessons to learn, yet as history so often does show None will take heed, not even with nukes that are ready to throw. In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must What’s to lose, as black frocked men offer promise of life ever after Whilst appointed men of another faith the promise of 72 waiting virgins In the name of God, King and Country, always to trust To slaughter the innocent children, too die if we must

Of what I know of life, in any moment, you run three vital risks-the risk of being yourself, the risk of not being yourself and the risk itself. I would stress most on the third kind. It is the game itself that draws its modest players inward. The “risk” to hide out in a world where masks are normative, the “risk” to play the oppressor, the “risk” to risk your truth one more day in life, the “risk” to not risk your lie.

BY DAVID D. LAITIN AND MARC JAHR | 970 words Detroit, a once great city, has become an urban vacuum. Its population has fallen to around 700,000 from nearly 1.9 million in 1950. The city is estimated to have more than 70,000 abandoned buildings and 90,000 vacant lots. Meanwhile, desperate Syrians, victims of an unfathomable civil war, are fleeing to neighboring countries, with some 1.8 million in Turkey and 600,000 in Jordan. Suppose these two social and humanitarian disasters were conjoined to produce something positive.

The conflict has become like a Middle East version of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany four hundred years ago. Too many players are fighting each other for different reasons for all of them to be satisfied by peace terms and to be willing to lay down their arms at the same time. Some still think they can win and others simply want to avoid a defeat. In Syria, as in Germany between 1618 and 1648, all sides exaggerate their own strength and imagine that temporary success on the battlefield will open the way to total victory. Many Syrians now see the outcome of their civil war resting largely with the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. In this, they are probably right.

If the Assad regime in Syria were to fall, the likeliest outcome would be a prolonged and bloody civil war. The last thing the Syrian army would be considering, either, as it battles to keep in power the regime it rules in partnership with, is a foreign war. If the Assad regime survives, on the other hand, it will be business as usual: lots of talk and absolutely no action. If anything, domestic unrest has made Israel policy an even lower priority for Damascus.

With war, most people are heartless and less weighed as a ton of nothing.

A brave Syrian woman leading the foreign opposition, well respected by many of the fighting groups on the ground. A constant thorn in Assad’s side. Mariam put down the file as her boss, the political counselor to the President, Bouthaina Najjar, ended her phone call. Bouthaina had placed Mariam in charge of the negotiations with foreign-based oppositionists, namely the National Council, the umbrella group claiming to represent the fighters on the ground. Mariam’s goal was simple: persuade them to renounce the Islamist fighters now leading the civil war, denounce their fellow exiles, then come home, where safety and pardon would be granted in exchange for silence. It was Mariam’s most important assignment yet, and it promised to be a stepping-stone to greater things. Bouthaina joined Mariam at the table, opened her own file on Fatimah, and, as she always did when concentrating, began nibbling on her Gucci eyeglasses. “So, Mariam, what do you think about Fatimah? What angle should we take in Paris?

منذ بدء «الحملة الإيمانية» في عام 1993، تغير الحزب والمجتمع تغيرا كبيرا، وتغير معهما المخيال الشتي. جاء التحول مفاجئا للجميع: في اجتماع لقيادة الحزب، تساءل الزعيم عن طبيعة «حزب البعث»: أهو علماني أم إيماني؟ وأجاب بأنه اختار أن يكون إيمانيا. وكان هذا الانقلاب الأيديولوجي ناجما عن الهزيمة والانهيار الناتجين من حرب الكويت، وإعلان إفلاس أيديولوجي. ستنطوي الحملة الإيمانية على خليط من التربية الدينية، وتحديد أشكال السلوك واللباس، وقائمة قاسية من مدونة عقاب جديدة. في فترة قصيرة، تحجب قادة اتحاد المرأة الرسمي، ثم عضوات الحزب، وعضوات منظمات الطلاب والشباب، وانتهى الأمر بتصميم حجاب خاص لهدی صالح مهدي عماش، عضوة القيادة القطرية في حزب البعث»، وكذا للنساء في جیش القدس» الذي شكل لاحقا. صدرت قرارات متلاحقة لتعميم «الأسلمة»: تنظيم دورات دينية للحزبين، ثم لعموم الطلاب إلزام الطلاب والحزبين بحضور دروس دينية كانت تقام في الجوامع يوميا، وتحت إشراف «حزب البعث» ومسؤوليته عن الحضور والمناقشة والالتزام. واستمر هذا عشر سنوات. صدرت مدونة عقوبات جديدة: قرارات بقطع يد السارق، نفذت في أكثر من مكان؛ و قرار بإلقاء ثلاثة من «فدائيي صدام» من سطح بناية عالية في البصرة، بتهمة اللواط؛ وصدر قرار بسجن البعثي ثلاث سنوات إذا بط وهو يلعب القمار؛ وأعلن - أكثر من مرة - عن قطع رؤوس نساء بالسيف، بتهمة الدعارة (وهي أمور اتبعتها «القاعدة» و«داعش»، اعتمادا على الكتب نفسها التي درسها القادة الحزبيون في «الحملة الإيمانية»)؛ إضافة إلى كثير من الإجراءات الحزبية والقانونية، ومنها قرار بإطلاق سراح السجين المحكوم عليه في قضية جنائية إذا حفظ جزءا من القرآن أو أكثر من جزء، أو حتى القرآن كله، بحسب مدة حكمه، وبغض النظر عن جريمته، واعتبر القرار أن حفظ ذلك المقدار من الآيات هو بمنزلة توبة مقبولة.

Shia Iran is currently fighting the Islamic State, a Sunni group, in Iraq, which has a Shia majority. Meanwhile, Iran has also helped prop up the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad (an Alawite whose sect is associated with Twelver Shia), who is still fighting a civil war against Sunni rebels financed by nations like Sunni Saudi Arabia. Iran and Syria have both historically been primary sponsors of Hezbollah, a Shia militia of considerable strength in Lebanon.

The Syrian civil war was raging at this time. When we faced the press in the prime minister’s residence, Obama was asked point-blank about reports that the Syrian government had possibly used chemical weapons against opponents of Assad’s regime a day earlier. “Is this a red line for you?” a journalist asked. “I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer,”1 he said, a reaffirmed threat heard round the world. He had first drawn a red line on this issue a few months earlier in a White House statement. Would he make good on it if it were proven that chemical weapons were actually used in Syria? Time would tell. And it did. Five months later, Assad’s forces carried out a horrific chemical attack that killed 1,500 civilians. Obama called it “the worst chemical weapons attack of the twenty-first century.”2 The entire world was shocked by the footage of little children suffocating to death. All eyes were on Obama. He was scheduled to make a dramatic announcement. Minutes before going on-air, he called me. “Bibi,” he said, “I’ve decided to take action but I need to go to Congress first.” I was astonished. American law did not require such an appeal. Syria was not about to go to war with the United States but Congress was unlikely to approve military action anyway. I hid my disappointment and rebounded with an idea that Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz had raised earlier with Ron Dermer and me in the event that Obama wouldn’t attack. The Russian military was in Syria to shore up the Assad regime and protect Russian assets in Syria, such as the strategic Russian naval base in Latakia. That was a fact we could do little to change. But Putin shared with us and the United States a desire to prevent chemical weapons from falling into the hands of Islamic terrorists who posed a threat to Russia, too. “Why don’t you get the Russians with your approval to take out the chemical stockpiles from Syria?” I suggested to the president. “We would back that decision.” This is in fact what transpired in the coming months, though some materials for chemical weapons were still left in Syria. Yet, despite these positive results, the lingering effect of Obama’s last-minute turn to Congress was the impression that red lines can be crossed with impunity and that Obama would not employ America’s massive airpower even when the situation warranted it. I should have expected this. The second important and telling exchange between Obama and me during his visit to Israel happened in private, and gave me a heads-up on how he viewed the use of American power. The day after the intimate dinner at the prime minister’s residence we met at a King David Hotel suite overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem.

Beginning in 2011, about one million Syrian refugees were unleashed on Europe by a civil war inflamed by climate change and drought—and in a very real sense, much of the “populist moment” the entire West is passing through now is the result of panic produced by the shock of those migrants.

While many Europeans made world headlines when they rolled out the red carpet for refugees and migrants fleeing war and economic deprivation, the influx of arrivals also provided the hardline right with a renewed voice. “People coming from this war will act a certain way, so it’s not just the fault of Germans. But we aren’t animals.” Ramadan, like hundreds of thousands of others, waited eagerly to find out if his family would be able to join him. In the meantime, he spent each day waiting for his wife to call, waiting for another temporary assurance that none of his relatives had died.

A soft barbed tongue cannot clean the bloody crooked claw hands. After a conversation with Dr.Muhsin Bilal who tried to wash the bloody hands of his party (Baʿath) in general and Bashar al-Assad in particular.

King Faisal’s Islamic initiative was a success. He transformed the status of Jerusalem from an Arab–Israeli issue into a pan-Islamic one. More importantly, he created an Islamic Block, based in Saudi Arabia and operating through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Muslim World League, which consistently supported Saudi foreign policy objectives. In 2005, the OIC adopted King Abdullah’s proposal for peace with Israel as the policy of fifty-six Muslim countries. In 2020, the organization has permanent delegations to the United Nations and the European Union. Although Jerusalem remained the OIC’s primary focus, Muslim foreign ministers have presented unified positions at the UN on issues ranging from Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the Syrian Civil War.

In 2015, an exhaustive study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that rising CO2 pollution had made the 2007–2010 drought in Syria twice as likely to occur, and that the four-year drought had a “catalytic effect” on political unrest in the area. Herders were forced off their land, seeking food and water elsewhere. More than 1.5 million rural people were displaced, causing a massive migration into urban areas, where they bumped up against an influx of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees. When researchers asked one displaced Syrian farmer whether she thought the drought had caused the civil war, she replied, “Of course. The drought and unemployment were important in pushing people toward revolution. When the drought happened, we could handle it for two years, and then we said, ‘It’s enough.

It should not be a secret to any independent and conscientious thinker, writer, or journalist that what has been happening in Syria since 2011 is nothing but complex and dirty attempts by multiple regional and global powers to 'Iraqize' Syria by other means.

Syria has long been on the ‘axis of evil’ list and a pretext to intervene militarily in that country, without causing public outrage like that caused in Iraq and Afghanistan, had to be manufactured. If a reason for military action in Syria didn’t exist, it had to be invented.

Ezekiel 38 tells us of the evil intentions of Russia when it describes how Ros will be led down to Israel as if a hook were put into its jaw. Ros will come down not for the purpose of peace, but plunder. Today, the Russians are the number one player in the Syrian civil war, and they don’t even try to hide the fact that they are there primarily for the gas and oil. Russia’s only warm-water seaport giving access to the Mediterranean and the Middle East is in Syria. That’s why Russia backs the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Refugees are the best weapon of the 21st century and Erdogan a master of it!

the aforementioned case of Muhammad Hegazy, who was not permitted to change his religion from Islam to Christianity on his I.D. card. In February 2009, another apostate, Maher Al-Gohary, fifty-eight, tried to officially convert to Christianity—only to be accused of apostasy, with prosecutors calling for the death penalty. As Maher himself put it: “Our rights in Egypt, as Christians or converts, are less than the rights of animals. We are deprived of social and civil rights, deprived of our inheritance and left to the fundamentalists to be killed. Nobody bothers to investigate or care about us.” He has been attacked in the street, spat upon, beaten, and threatened by text messages and phone calls—all simply because he petitioned to be granted the right to convert to Christianity. Eventually he and his daughter fled to Syria, once a moderate nation under secularist Bashar Assad. However, since the “Arab Spring” reached there, too—with Syrian Christians under attack by jihadis—in 2011, Maher and his daughter managed to flee to France where they applied for asylum.66