By: Janice Kortkamp

Date: December 8, 2016 (updated February 2018)

Five years…what a journey it’s been…from when I decided it was time to learn a little about the Middle East as the so-called Arab “spring” was unfolding. It seemed too good to be true.

Qaddafi had just been sodomized with a bayonet and brutally murdered by “peaceful protesters” to start a new age of “freedom and democracy” in Libya. Seemed odd.

And back then, in October of 2012, Assad of Syria was to be next. By all accounts in the US “news” outlets, he would at any moment be taken by more “peaceful protesters”, eviscerated, and hung up in the public square by his entrails – a worthy demise for a brutal tyrant according to our media.

But I noticed he had just given an interview…wow I thought…had to watch the murderous, isolated dictator justify his cruel actions against his own people…

So I watched…and it wasn’t two minutes into that interview that I knew there was more to the story than I’d been hearing. In fact, I knew in my gut that he was telling the truth about the conflict. Not wanting to trust my gut, I proceeded to research it on my own.

Quickly it became an obsession as, to my horror, I started to see the reality of how my government had orchestrated yet another regime change coup – like Iraq and Libya (both utter disasters) – this time using proxy armies of terrorists, mercenaries and criminals.

Waking up early every morning, checking news, reading facebook pages devoted to the war, connecting with Syrians online to find out from them what was happening in their country, tracing and investigating original source documents. Four – then six – then eight or more hours every day for four years.

And the more I learned about the war, the more I learned about Syria…and day by day my love of that country grew proportionately with my increasing hatred for the war. Contacts in Syria (and Syrians living outside) became friends. Then dear friends. Then family.

Then finally getting to go! Not just once, but four times.

Am I an “Assad apologist”? NO! He needs no apologists. Syria – the people, the army, their president – have been fighting against the combined efforts of the US, UK, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood to pound Syria into submission or tear it apart if they would not submit…using terrorists to do the dirty work.

Proud to stand with Syria! And with all the Syria supporters around the world. May victory and peace come soon!