"Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there"

Valery Sharifulin/TASS

The soldier is holding the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic. He isn't named, but the photograph is featured in a Nov 9 TASS report, Syrian general: More than 50 IS terrorists killed in fighting near air base in Deir ez-Zor, which is still under siege. From True Heroes: Syrian Pilots Compete With Each Other for Missions; Nov 12, Sputnik:

Hama is one of 15 military airbases in Syria. Five of those are in the hands of militants. One more base, Deir ez-Zor, is operational but it has been besieged for three years. The Kowaires military airbase near Aleppo is a scene of fierce fighting between militants and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).  Earlier this week, Damascus-led forces managed to free it.

The Kowaires base was freed with help from the Russian air force -- and opposition fighters, who provided the Syrian Army with key intel on the terrorists' positions.  Several opposition groups are now helping the army, providing coordinates and intel on the exact locations of the terror groups. The opposition groups -- ones that are actually Syrian -- are starting to learn the truth about the foreigners who pretended to be helping their nation.

The United States and the European Union (EU) tried to portray the Syrian conflict as a sectarian conflict; however, it isn't the case at all. The real situation on the ground shows that the overwhelming majority of Syrians support President Assad and prefer his regime over any other alternatives that the West offered.

The quote is from Sputnik's November 11 report, The Tables are Turning: Syrian Army Pushes ISIL Out of Key Areas.  It was an Iranian analyst who spoke, but all polls taken over the years, including one by Qatar's government, show that a majority of Syrians support their government. More to the point, they support the concept of nationhood. 

The United States, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, aided and abetted by the European Union, tried to turn the Syrians into a collection of tribes. But as you can see, the flag of the republic is still there. 
           

The words in the title of this post are from the American national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner:

The lyrics come from [the first stanza] of "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written in 1814 by the 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships of the Royal Navy in Baltimore Harbor during the Battle of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. (Wikipedia)

O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The Syrians have a way to go before they can enjoy the kind of freedoms Americans do, but there is nothing like a fight for their lives to make people appreciate their nation. And there is a profound and unique connection between the nations of Syria and the United States: an engraving on a Roman temple in Palmyra was the inspiration for the Great Seal of the United States of America.

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