Dear John,

My name is Adam Weinberg, and I’m the Director of Marketing and Communications at Atlas Network.

I recently had the honor of traveling to Syria with Dr. Palmer to document our journey and tell the stories of our allies advocating for freedom following the fall of the Assad regime.

Dr. Palmer and I will be sharing what we discovered in our new Journey to Syria email series and give you an inside look at how Atlas Network works to advance free enterprise, even in some of the roughest places on Earth.

Now that I've seen the situation in Syria with my own eyes, I want to stress that much of what you've probably heard in the media so far is just not true.

There are many conflicting messages about Syria because competing forces in the world have their own agenda for Syria's future. Our agenda at Atlas Network is to strengthen the worldwide freedom movement by supporting champions of liberty wherever they are—and this is a crucial time to help Syrians who share our values build a foundation for the years to come. 

Still, it's true that Syria is experiencing very rapid change and there are plenty of uncertainties. The gravity of the situation was apparent even before arriving...

It first hit me about two weeks before departing when I decided to sit down and make sure my will was up to date…

And to write down emergency contact information for my team members (in case friends and family couldn’t get a hold of me)…

And to prepare emergency supplies in case things got difficult trying to leave the country (do I bring enough medication to last the trip, or multiple months in case the borders get sealed shut?)…

Many of my loved ones even wondered out loud if there was a chance I could be taken hostage like those on October 7th…

But I had the utmost confidence in Atlas Network, our regional partners, and our local allies in Syria.

I knew this was just about the safest group I could possibly travel with.

But the journey to even make it into Syria added to the unease…

Let’s just say, this was the first time I’ve tried to land in an airport crippled by military fighting.

It’s true… The Damascus airport had been closed to commercial air traffic due to damage, which meant our team first had to land in Qatar…

Qatari engineers offered to make the Syrian airport operational again, and Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines were the first two airlines to reintroduce limited flights into Syria.

Our team was among the first civilians to return to Syria by air on these early flights.

Upon touching down in Damascus, the passengers clapped. This isn’t like in the U.S. where clapping is a sign of appreciation for a safe flight… These passengers clapped because they could finally return to their homeland and see their families. They were effectively applauding the new era in Syria.

To provide a more colorful example: one of the passengers, instead of clapping, shouted defiant obscenities about Bashar al-Assad that I can’t reproduce word for word…

But I quickly learned that the positive reception to the new era was widespread.

Arriving at the terminal, I saw the new Syrian flag and balloons in the new national colors on display.

Families gathered in large crowds, waiting for their loved ones who were returning home with us. I learned many families had been separated for years due to Assad’s brutality and crippling economic policies.

It was truly moving to see so many families together again, and how the warmth and hope of them being reunited signaled what’s hopefully in store for the now-free Syria. This was the first visible sign to us that most Syrians, of all backgrounds, truly believed a revolution and toppling of a dictator had occurred in their beloved homeland, and it wasn’t simply a change of government as a result of war. 

We saw other signs the next day when we explored the depths of the city and started meeting the everyday Syrians who lived through the Assad regime.

More on that in our next email!

Thank you,

Adam Weinberg
Director of Marketing and Communications
Atlas Network