Brokering 157 we are American citizens, we know how the system works, we know what the United States stands for, and all of those myths are incorrect. So we were trying to present the US side of the equation. At the same time, we wanted to connect those FSA members to the United States administration and tell them that those guys are really freedom fighters, they really have a cause, and they are fighting for that cause. They are not warlords, they are not gangsters. We helped in making that connection, basically. figure 5.4. Syrian peace activist Kassem Eid presents a talk about the Assad regime’s siege on his hometown of Moadamiya, Syria, with organizers from the Syrian American Council (April 25, 2014, the University of Southern California). He had met with US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power on April 14 to testify about the regime’s sarin gas attack on August 21, 2013. This attack, which nearly took his life, killed more than one thousand seven hundred civilians. (Photo credit: Dana M. Moss) Complementing these efforts, the Syrian American Council brought nonviolent figureheads of the anti-regime movement, such as civil society champions Raed Fares and Razan Ghazzali, to the United States to give a speaking tour to the media and meet with members of Congress.10 They also brought victims of 10 Syrian activists Raed Fares and Razan Ghazzali went on a speaking tour co-sponsored by SAC in 2013, which I had the privilege of attending in Los Angeles. During Fares’ radio interview with National Public Radio, his dear friend Kenan Rahmani, a Syrian American activist, provided https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press