 Good afternoon. I will give a quick introduction of the panel and then I'll hand it over to Bobby McKenzie from here But thank you for joining us at New America this afternoon for the launch of Ronnie up was eights book no turning back We're very honored and grateful to have her joining us here at New America She's a fellow from two years ago in her book Proposal then was very illuminating and exciting for us to come across as we're going through applications It was a process before my time as director of the program But it is a book that is very timely in many ways, but also haunting in other ways too as the crisis in Syria continues to Be inflicted and continues to ignite on a regular basis And so as we take the time to reflect on the history of the war through Ronnie's book we're also grateful for her contribution to these stories and for really shedding a light on the human Toll that it's taken there over the past few years and we're really grateful to have her Joining Bobby as well today much of his work intersects with What's happening in Syria and how it's starting to affect our own policies here domestically as the director of the Muslim Diaspora Initiative? He looks very closely at immigration issues refugee issues And I think it's a great combination in terms of their shared expertise and hopefully to the conversation that we'll have here today And so before I hand it over to Bobby. I did want to read two blurbs from Ronnie's book And I think they're really poignant in terms of what her book really represents and hopefully you'll all buy a copy We do have copies on sale from solid-state books The first is actually from Peter Bergen. He is director of the ISP program here at New America And he writes widely recognized as the bravest of reporters Abuse a rights of great fluidity and authority about the most important foreign policy and moral crisis of our era Embedding with the men women and children whose lives are torn apart by the Syrian civil war No turning back works both on the level of deeply reported personal narrative of a tragedy that continues to unspool and also as a major work of history And then also from Dexter Finkelkens. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning author of the forever war The civil war in Syria is the most catastrophic event of our time and the most dimly understood most journalists won't go near it Rania Abuzade has produced a work of stunning reportage from the very heart of the conflict during to go to the most dangerous places in order to get the story The result is a sensational book that allows us a deeper and more humane understanding of this terrible war It's a credit to Abuzade's bravery and fortitude and with that Bobby the pleasure. Thank you want to thank everybody for joining us today, and I want to thank Rania for being here and For producing a truly extraordinary Book but also about the conflict that is deeply deeply troubling and as you and I talked about backstage Syria Has been an engine of enormous human suffering For those that aren't familiar at least a half a million dead half of the country displaced five million Syrian refugees Chemical attacks against children and it goes on and on and against that backdrop you reported on Human beings and you surfaced some extraordinary stories And so I I think it would be great if you could just start by giving us a sense of Then I just gave us an outline of where we are today, but in 2011 it didn't quite look like that And so could you maybe take us? From 2011 to where we are today and sort of what you saw Just that if you can to the degree you can because I know that's a lot of years and a lot of suffering But there are also some extraordinary stories in there that maybe we can touch upon Sure Thank you very much. Thank you to a new America and thank you to everybody here. Thank you for your interest in Syria I started reporting it in February 2011 after covering the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and If we it's so hard to remember now But if we think back to those heady months in early 2011 when you know took Mubarak 80 after 18 days Mubarak step down Tunisia's then al-Abideen bin Ali got on a plane The Libyan leader looked like he was teaching Gaddafi looked like he was teaching There were protests in Yemen in Bahrain and in other places. There was this sense of Change there was the sense that these men who seem to be cemented to their seats in power might actually be shaken out of them and It's hard for us to remember that now, but that's that was the mood back in those days and it That that fervor that wave reached Syria and I say February 2011 and not March 15 2011 which is widely considered the date of the Syrian uprising because the first protests Happened in February and they weren't so much they weren't against the regime. They didn't mention the regime. They were in Solidarity with Arab protesters elsewhere Because what they were trying to do was to test the boundaries of what they could get away with in a state that had been ruled under a State of emergency since 1963 it meant that public gatherings were banned except those that were Sanctioned by the government so they the protesters were trying to just test the waters and they started With these protests in solidarity with Egyptian protesters and Libyan protesters and I was outside the Libyan Embassy and witnessed what was one of the larger protests at the time and that starts the book that's the The the prelude to the book and what to say about where we are now the numbers that you offered are Numbing they're numbing and they're hard to to get your head around what it means. I mean, what does half a million? At least half a million dead people mean and that figure has been static for years because the UN stopped counting Syria's dead in mid 2013 At least half a million dead people means Every every one of those numbers is a person every person is part of a family every family is part of the community Every community is part of a bigger regional group So think about all of those ripple effects from just one death and now imagine half a million of those ripples inside Syria That's what that's where we are now Can you talk a little bit about what it was like to report inside Syria? How did you how did you do it given all of the complexities as we talked about backstage you have You hadn't currently have a number of actors from Turkey to Russia to Iran to his Vola to Arab Gulf States There isn't just one opposition group. There are many many and could you just give us a sense of how did you navigate all of that? I need to sigh. I'm sorry before I answer that question Well, initially, I mean I learned that I was blacklisted by the Syrian regime in summer 2011 And wanted by a number of its intelligence agencies, which locked Damascus to me I couldn't cover that side of the story and I would have liked to cover that side of the story because I'm a journalist And I want to talk to everybody, but I couldn't access that side even though I did manage to get back to Assad held territory twice and there is a story line in the book that documents what happened On both sides of a front line, so I have the the rebel side and I have all what was perceived as the regime side so that meant that I had to focus on the rebel side and I had to get into Northern Syria and that meant illegally trekking like being smuggled across the Turkish border to get into to those areas and Initially, it wasn't hard. It really wasn't hard The border was so porous that you could literally just walk across it. You wouldn't even see a guard and if you did, he didn't care So that was the beginning and obviously as the years Went on it became harder and I I mean I noticed a change a Very sharp change and I'm going to say 2014 when the Turks under pressure to sort of stem the tide of People coming out and and this was before the the big refugee wave if you recall so the Turks were under pressure to stem that tide of people coming out so they Started to get tough on on the border and what that looks like now is that they have erected a Concrete barrier like blast walls along their border. It's almost 900 kilometers of wall And it's well inside Syrian territory. It's topped with coil razor wire and there are guards there who will shoot to kill So trying to get across the Syrian border now means risking death For anybody for families for journalists for anybody and that's just getting into it But once you're in there the number of players that you're talking about it was such a fragmented rebel battle field That with shifting Coalitions and groups that would merge with other groups and then fight with other groups It was it was difficult to keep track of but you had to keep track of it because in order to stay safe You had to understand the territory that you were entering and that meant you had to understand it at every level at the military political social religious level To know what you were getting yourself into You mentioned that Distent the tide of people trying to leave the country But Syria also received something in the neighborhood of 30,000 foreign fighters And could you talk a little bit about that what you saw? Did you see this growing or changing because this was something that at least Western media suggested that sort of ISIS and the foreign fighter Situation came on almost out of left field, but certainly 30,000 people is not left field First of all, I don't know where they got the numbers from and Syrians I talked to say well if they knew that they were coming in down to the numbers why didn't they stop them? So I don't know about the number But but certainly you could see foreigners coming in on the on the domestic flights in Turkey from Istanbul down to different parts along the Turkish border and different Turkish airports served as jumping off points to get into certain parts of Syria So if you wanted to go to Aleppo you would fly into Hazi at up If you wanted to go to Idlib or Latakia provinces in Syria, then you would fly into Hatay airport And I mean I was coming and going and coming and going and every one of those flights everywhere You'd see them. Yeah, I mean they weren't hiding what they were doing. There were men who I mean in the book I even have a senior member of Al Qaeda who was getting so angry with these foreign fighters because they weren't heeding Instructions to tone down their appearances at airports And and you would hear them. I mean I wouldn't be standing next to them and you can hear their plans They're talking in a mix of Arabic dialects. They're speaking in Cockney British accents. They're talking You know in English and French and different languages. They were not hiding what they were doing. I Would encounter them inside Syria as well I was once going to be smuggled across the border and I was there was a Moroccan man who was going in the other direction I mean there were They were there and they came for many different reasons is the other thing some of them came because they Were sick of seeing People dying and they just wanted to help Some of them came for ideological reasons. Some of them came because they believe that Syria is blessed It's mentioned as you know blessed land in the Quran and that this was a jihad that they had to participate in some of them came to to Establish an Islamic state in Syria that would then expand into the broader Middle East so they came for for many different reasons and On my last trip in which was spring 2016 to finish up the reporting for the book The nature of the foreign fighters had changed so they were less Arab less European more Central Asian more Uzbek East Kazakhstan East and and and men from those those areas in August of 2014 was the official rise of the caliphate and Did things feel different? I mean it again? I'm thinking about how we see things here and in America Why I mean this was when I think everyone became fixated on Syria, but obviously there was enormous suffering before that Did things feel differently after the rise of the caliphate? Yeah, yeah, I mean because the for starters the rebels took them on in in early 2014 in the first months before the caliphate was announced the You know Islamic State had been Harassing the groups in the areas where it was based. It was not just harassing civilians But it was also Intimidating and trying to elbow out rebel groups I mean at one territory it took territory from them from rebel groups and and from and the rebel groups by the way Are a spectrum from so there were some who were very various limits and there were some who? Who were less is limits and some who weren't? So I don't you know, I don't like using the catch-all phrase, but nonetheless So the various rebel groups like in all of their political stripes took on Islamic State in early 2014 and they kicked them out of an at least two provinces Two provinces where they were very prevalent and they pushed them east towards the rocker because and and the ones that I was in Syria at the time and And Al Qaeda turned on them at the same time the local Al Qaeda affiliate Turned on them as well and the the men on the ground were saying let's push them through rocker and out back into Iraq and They stayed in rocker obviously and they established this caliphate but no, I mean certainly it It meant that an entire swathe of Syria was cut off to many Syrians It meant that Syrians from that area tried to we're trying to get out It it contributed to the fragmentation of the country because we started to see okay, so there's the Islamic State rule part There's the Kurdish enclave that's taking part. There's the rebel area. There's the Assad regime You know, there's a governmental Part of Syria and and the southern front is also rebel But it was different kind of rebels from the ones who were up in the north. So it was just completely fragmented And in the midst of all of that you have barrel bombs that were dropping fairly regularly Could you maybe describe for the audience here? I mean you were in proximity to some of these Incidents, could you just explain what what that's like what that feels like? A barrel bomb is a is an unguided crude weapon So it's literally like a water heater and it's stuffed with shrapnel and metal and various other things And it's unguided and it's it falls based on Gravity and the wind and it's dropped from helicopter gunships not on warplanes. So You could see the helicopter gunship flying high and the thing is that also The street would just stop and every all eyes would turn up. I mean it's amazing like Syrians developed a new relationship to the sky All eyes would turn up because they'd watch the barrel falling because they thought because they want to see where it's where it might go in the hope that They could figure out where to run in which direction because it was that unguided and And it would rip through the air with it a terrifying sound. It really does it really does have a distinct sound and then it would land and explode and Everything that was in it would come out One of the stories you talk about here is being in a hospital and listening to a young girl that was being operated on that had shrapnel in her I think her shoulder her neck and face And screaming uncontrollable, can you maybe take us into that room? Sure This was mid 2012 It was a mid 2012 and I was That I was in a rebel town basically it was a town that was not Under government control anymore, but there were still four checkpoints in this town for regime checkpoints and it happened The border post fell I said suddenly lost control was losing control of the border post There was this a renewed rebel momentum and the rebels in this town were like, okay Look, they were receiving news reports saying look what's happening Maybe we should move now and be part of this momentum. So they decided to take out one of the four checkpoints in their town and the reaction was or the the response to their attack on this Checkpoint was that at least 25 people died when I was in the hospital but I later learned that the toll went up to 35 and It was complete pandemonium in this hospital People were coming in children were coming in there weren't enough Beds for them to lie on so they'd lie on the floor. They were bleeding into the floor People were stepping in the pools of blood. There were messy footprints Women were screaming and asking about their sons neighbors try we're trying to figure out what was happening to Their families I remember talking to one man and he just looked at me He told me he had three children and he didn't know where they were Because he hadn't been at home when something happened at home But he learned that they may be in the hospital So he was in the hospital to try and see if he knew where they were and in the midst of all of this Pandemonium and yelling and and there was no electricity So the hospital had a generator and the generator kept cutting out and there was like there were only a few doctors and They were trying to Treat as many people as they could so you know bodies or broken bodies were being brought in and the dead were carried out and And the injured and people were just patched up enough to make space for the ones who were coming in and in the midst of all of this was a little girl who came in and The base of her skull was cut open and she had shrapnel in her eye and shrapnel in her neck and it was spurting blood and she came in and She was calling up from her mother But her mother wasn't with her her father was and her father held her hand as the doctor operated on her without anesthetic So you can imagine I Mean just imagine if you get a burn or if you cut if you get a paper cut it hurts and The base of this little girl skull was cut open and she was being operated on without anesthetic because there was none Because the medical supplies were so low and this is something that Syrians live with day in day out That's just one little girl, I'm not even sure she made it as a statistic and that day's Tally of what happened in Syria and we're seven years in now people This is still what people are experiencing Speaking of little grocers another girl that you write about Roja Can you talk a little bit about her sure and turn port is to the to the book sure so the book is I? Focus on four characters who I consider like the main pillars and then other characters branch off them and These storylines all help explain an element of the uprising in my Experience covering the Middle East and South Asia. I find that you know these are often complicated places They're often complicated conflicts if they're in conflict and it's hard to get your head around things. So if you focus on Telling the stories of people Individuals within the context of events they help explain the events So I wanted to tell one of the four characters is a little girl called who huh, and she's nine in 2011 and I wanted to show war through it child's eyes And I chose this particular child because she was so precocious and she was just such a smart little girl who would say things that would just Really stopped me in my tracks I mean she had such an acute awareness of what was happening around her and her ways of trying to Understand what was happening were Very powerful. I found them to be very powerful, and I wanted to share her her experience so she's nine when you first meet her in the book and The first thing that she does the first scene where you see her is that she's sleeping in her grandmother's room because she liked her electric blanket and There's ferocious knocking on the door and her grandmother who's who's an older woman Has difficulty moving so she asked her to open the door and who opens the door and it's a security raid Because they're looking for her father So she opened the door to the first raid on her family's home When they came looking for her dad who was a protester and you see the raid through her eyes and you see What it does to the family and then you follow the family for six years after that through their ups, you know through their highs and lows and Through telling that story. I hope to just show How people get used to Their environment how quickly you can adapt. I mean you don't really know what human beings are amazing You really don't know what you're capable of until you're placed in the circumstances that will produce certain parts of your personality I hope that none of you will ever have to experience what this nine-year-old girl experienced but Human beings are amazingly resilient. They really are and This little girl's resilience comes through in the book Before I open up to the question open up to the audience I'm just ask you one final question that the subtitle here is life loss and hope and you've sketched out for us some of the Suffering and the enormous tragedy that we've seen We're now entering the eighth year of the conflict with no end in sight Where is the hope the hope is in the people the hope is in people who Can't have lost many things Lost loved ones, but they they can still forgive the hope is in Doctors who work in these field hospitals. They could they could leave, but they're still there Because they know that their community needs them the hope is in Some of the characters who who go through things that honestly Hollywood could not script and yet they emerge on the other side And they say that they are not bitter About their experience the hope is in the resilience of normal people and you might think that's a small thing But don't forget when I was talking about those ripple effects of what one person can do it can work the other way, too I mean one one, you know one person It's part of one family in a community and it's a small thing But but communities are made up of individuals and they're made up of people. So the hope is in the people Let's open up to the audience if you could State your name and your affiliation and questions only, please Thanks for the talk. My name is Blake Selzer I work for humanitarian group from 2014 to 2017 in the Syria region based out of Amman Working on advocacy. So my question you touched on about hope you started it off, but I Understand hope in the people and the doctors everyone who's doing incredible work But you have hope in the international community That has failed and there's particularly the UN because when I was doing advocacy I think people in this room may not realize there's been UN resolutions from the Security Council since 2014 They call for unfettered humanitarian access and an immediate end to indiscriminate attack on civilians Russia vetoed some of them, but there were some on the books and they're just never enforced So do you have hope in the international community? That's my question. I think no, I mean But but but I think that Syria will be a case study for exactly these things to to to examine international the impotence really in some ways of of exactly what you said the things that you think are basic like access to humanitarian aid and the rules for for Humanitarian organizations and who they have to deal with it They have to deal with the state and not with non-state players and various things I really think that Syria will serve as an important case study for for all of these things and for for diplomacy The role of vetoes in the UN Security Council and what have you because there have been so many examples as you as you said of exactly that I'm curious about your situation Do you speak Arabic and? How difficult was it for you to move through different areas and from one section to another controlled by different groups there and Also, does the group the white helmets still exist there? Yes, I do speak Arabic I'm of Lebanese heritage, but I speak Lebanese accented Arabic, which is not Syrian Arabic So when I open my mouth, they know that I'm not from there and what's worse is that Different Lebanese parties are involved in Syria You have has about fighting with Assad regime and then you have Hasab Allah's domestic Rivals who are were supporting their position. So I'd open my mouth and they'd be like, okay She's a hasab Allah's wife. I that was the first thing that the rebels would say so it made it tricky to to navigate And as for moving from one area to other I mean that comes back to really understanding the terrain they are entering and knowing who you're moving with and I move very low profile I don't have a team or anything with me and I try and blend in as much as I can so I don't Stand out like I'm not there You know people I talk to know I'm a journalist and I have my notepad and pen out and and and that's clear I'm not hiding that but But you know, I'm not I'm not Tweeting about it either Are the white helmets? Yes, the white helmets are present. Yeah Can we just yeah, we'll get back to you sir Hi, Ranya. Hi Did you see The US presence in the Syrian Civil War which was you know Reputed on that the CIA was helping some factions there. Did you see that? Did it make a difference? What what did you see of US policy on the ground when you were there? It's in the book No, I mean I I There's a lot of new information in this book that hasn't that isn't public the book is underpinned by by a What I think well at least it was rigorous to me a rigorous investigation that really Goes back and investigates how it militarized and how it Islamized the role of the Saudis the Qataris the Turks the Americans and everybody else and it maps it out and I have a section there that deals with exactly your question and it's all new information about The information that the CIA was getting who was dealing with what it did with that information and how it interacted with the groups Yeah, just again back to the white helmets there There have been forces that are trying to demean the efforts of the white helmets that they Really is a little bit collusion with Al Qaeda as one if you had opinion on that but the other thing is There was a legitimate rebellion at the beginning, but then you had the entry of the Foreign fighters for al-Nusra al-Qaeda and Isis if the foreign fighters were prevented from going in and it was just a battle between the Syrian government and Rebellious forces at that time Do you think that the war would have been settled a long time ago? A Syria has ceased to be about Syrians and it hasn't been about Syrians for a long time It's a proxy battlefield for everybody. You have the Iranians the Russians Hasballah the Turks the Saudis the Qataris. I mean you name it. They're in there Everybody's in there. I mean as we speak the Turks are there's a Turkish led offensive now against the Kurds up in in the northeast the regime is is you know attacking Huta Backed by the Russian Air Force as well. So it's It's stopped being about Syrians almost they're simply the it's just their blood that's being spilled But they're it's an international battlefield Related to some of the questions. I'm wondering if you have a perspective of was there a point in the beginning where Some sort of international intervention or US intervention would have made a difference and prevented Subsequent budget. I mean I can tell you what Syrians in opposition. Tell me and the Syrians in opposition And there are many different types of Syrians in opposition But some of them say that had there been a no-fly zone for example in the northeast in the north Sorry, not the northeast then the the planes would have been grounded Hospitals could have operated unmolested Many of the refugees may not have left the country they could have stayed in in the country and that's You know the Syrian opposition's Fledgling institutions could have taken root that's what some of them say And then others point to the the red line comment after the chemical weapons attack when they say that had there been Force on the regime at that time that maybe it may have made a difference But everybody was involved from from very early on the various states what were involved and they all picked their teams And and that's prolonged the conflict Thank you again for for joining us today my question is more specific to you And I hope it's okay to ask just more about your personal Connection to these stories. I mean it's six years of reporting. I can't imagine it was easy to bear witness to a lot Of what you've written about and so in terms of the length of reporting How much time would you spend on the ground between trips and then also as you would leave? I'm just also personally curious as a reporter who's covering these very intense topics How you came to terms of what you witnessed? I Was I Was really I was in there all the time it felt like all the time. I mean there was a period for years when Out of every month, I was I was in there for about three weeks three weeks out of every month So or I was on the border trying to get in So I was always in and out in and out but as for how it affected me I mean I'm more interested in how it affects them and they're still living it I mean I knew that I could leave I knew that that if I just got back across the Turkish border That I had a credit card in my pocket which meant that I could check into a hotel I could have a shower I could have something to eat and I have a passport that enables me to go back to a house That is still standing and family who are not endangered. So They're still living it they had no escape they they had they Their suffering wasn't finite. They're a danger Whatever it is that I experienced wasn't finite. They're still living it. So I'm more interested in their suffering and how they're coping I Work with their organization that provides virtual education for refugees Residing in the countries of first refuge And the question is how do you foresee their future? Are they marked for life by the regime and will never be able to come go back What do you see how it's gonna be unfolding? I don't know I mean, it's it depends on the individuals and why they left and the particular circumstances But people are are going back from Lebanon people are going back into to Syria I've never met a Syrian who doesn't want to go home. I really haven't even the ones who end up in Europe They don't want to many of many of the ones that I know of course some of them may want to stay there But many of the ones that I know want to go home So the question is if they can in terms of and not all of them were Anti-Assad either some of them just wanted to flee conflict They're not all necessarily wanted by the regime. So I think it depends on the particular circumstances But obviously, I mean, you know living in limbo as you can imagine It's not a state that that anybody would want to be and I mean imagine Place yourself in their position You're you're in a foreign country. You just want to go home it's a very Very difficult thing Especially for Syrians who are so tied to where they're from they're so tied to their communities their families to that Their sense of identity in terms of you know, the particular village that they're from and the province and it's the building block of the community Yes, thanks. My name is rich glassy. I'm a freelance environmental journalist. Thanks for this excellent presentation So I'm interested for this long period. There must have been some agriculture and how does it continue? Where are the farms that are functioning and dislocated and also, you know a lot of environmental stories that before the Civil War? There was environmental stresses one what you think about that thesis. Yeah, I didn't really do too much on that but but you know that there's still agriculture especially in Idlib province, which is at agricultural heartland and the interesting thing to me about you mentioned agriculture is that for example the Many regime held areas aren't the agricultural areas So there has to be so so I talked about these fragmented Serious these many series, but they're still interdependent on each other because of things like agriculture because of things like fuel which is coming from the eastern province so even though Politically, they're splintered economically They they rely on each other to a certain degree because they need the wheat from from Idlib they need the lentils from the regime the government held areas need those things and and vice versa and and and the the Syrian state still pays salaries to civil servants who are in Rebel held areas. So those connections still exist. I mean, I'm referring to Idlib province because it tends to be You know lots of agricultural land up there Thanks, sorry, I have a two-part question I'm so I mean first of all, how do you possibly see this ending? It seems like none of these fractured forces has the might to actually win this conflict and how could it possibly end and then secondly you've spent so many years you've put your life at risk to write this book and I'm wondering What impact are you hoping to achieve? What impact can a book have or informing the world about what's happening there? And why did you do this basically? The first question in terms of how do I see it ending? I think that The outcome has been determined And the outcome is is that Assad is staying and that he has won But the war hasn't ended and it won't end. I don't think for many years while all of these different series fight over Territory, but I said isn't going anywhere and that's clear and the the rebels are so fractured and they've lost so much of their foreign support that I Can't see them Posing any real threat and I can't I mean I can't see Assad going anywhere in terms of why I did it. I did it because I wanted to I mean we were talking backstage if you About how you know there are moments in time in the Syria coverage. There is the the dead boy on the beach There's the the boy who was in the ambulance and they grabbed people's attentions for a minute, but Why was that little boy's family on the raft? Why were they on the raft and what happened to the survivors afterwards? We see people for a moment in time But I wanted to show you what was happening over six years so that you could really understand their What happened in Syria and I Focus on the people because I was so sick of the numbing numbers and I wanted to put people back into the story You mentioned some of the infighting that's happening, you know territorial You know battles that are going to work themselves out. How serious do you see the Turkish Kurdish? Conflict that seems to be looming that has been going on for a while There's been a lot of saber-rattling more recently over Afrin and you mentioned that Assad regime is there to stay Do you see the regime ever? establishing control over the whole of What used to be Syrian territory? To your second question. I don't know. I don't know because I don't know what you're going to do with For example Idlib provinces is massive. It borders Turkey and it's the main rebel real estate at the moment So I don't know what's going to happen to Idlib. I mean are you going to kill Assad going to kill him in prison? Everybody in Idlib and he's been Busting his enemies from other parts of Syria in evacuation deals to Idlib. So they're all gathering in Idlib So I don't know is my answer to that question and the first one know the Turkish intervention in Syria is very serious it's it's You know, some people say that they're they're carving out their zone of influence in the area and that they are they're there to stay It's a it's a major move and it's a major investment by the Turkish forces inside Syria Hi So hi, thanks. My name is a Jack Kropansky unaffiliated um a question about the the the media role of the media and this Rallying cry that Assad must go. I mean just today. I heard Saw a report that a reporter was badgering the cent com spokesperson I think about do we still have that as our policy? Does that help the discussion at all or does it hurt in any way? Or what would you like the discussion to be like in the media? I don't I don't want it's not about me. It's about what the Syrians want and that depends on which Syrians you're talking to And what their politics are? Hey, I have a couple of questions, too I was wondering if I can ask what what does your family think of your decision to? Go on such a dangerous place, I mean, I can only imagine how it must be to have a daughter or your sister In Syria for all these years, and then I was wondering if you think you're gonna go back soon Can I just ask a follow-up to that maybe you could talk about who the book is dedicated to and Well, let me flip to the page now For my parents my sisters my family I carried your love and support in my heart every time I crossed the mountains While on my shoulders, I bore the guilt of taking you with me That answer your question And I'm sorry. What was your second question? Oh, I'd be there now if I could Because I want to know what's happening So since you would like to be there now to find out what's happening Do you feel that the reporting that we're getting in this country is not adequate? Oh, I think that's a big claim. It's not fair. There are journalists who have been covering this for six years Trying to cover it. They've been It's really hard to get into Syria. It's the regime doesn't give visas easily And the Turks have literally created Walled in the country. I mean, it's really hard to get in there and many of us who had contacts and who maintain those contacts I mean seven years in People are dead people have moved people have fled It's it's very it's very difficult to cover from for all of those reasons So and yet journalists are still doing it and they're still trying and they're still Trying to develop new sources and they're still trying to get into the country. So, you know We do what we can with what we're given. I think we're going to wrap it up here We have a reception and I know I think you're around to sign some And is the rule you're not allowed to leave if you join the reception without buying a book Okay But I want to just I want to tell you how important this book is and what's so powerful about it is What run you says on stage is what she says off stage when I ask her about these things It's about the people. It's about the people. It's about the people. It's not about one particular side it's about trying to understand the human experience and We're very very fortunate To have this book and I certainly hope that it shapes and informs a much needed And fresh understanding of what life is like on the ground in Syria. So please join me