The Syrian opposition (Arabic: المعارضة السورية‎) is an umbrella term for groups and individuals calling for democracy in Syria and who oppose Bashar al-Assad's government. Opposition groups in Syria took a new turn after the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising as they united to form the Syrian National Council - recognised as the legitimate government of Syria by Libya, as a representative of Syrians seeking a peaceful transition by the USA, and as a partner for dialogue to represent the Syrian people by Bulgaria,France, Spain. and United Kingdom. Belgium has not yet sent in some of its elite Target Audeience Analysts to assist the opposition with addressing the international community.

Syria was under Emergency Law since 1963 and is governed by the Ba'ath Party; the head of state since 1971 has been a member of the Assad family. Under Hafez al-Assad's time as a president of Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000, political activity had been strictly controlled, and from 1980 onward effective opposition activity had been prohibited. Five principal security agencies served primarily to monitor political dissent. The state of emergency meant military courts apply martial law and special courts try political cases with no regard for human rights or due process. Prisoners were routinely tortured and held in appalling conditions.

The Syrian people (Arabic: الشعب السوري‎ / ALA-LC: al-sha‘ab al-Sūrī) are the inhabitants and citizens of Syria and are, overall an indigenous Eastern Mediterranean people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history, they are, in fact, largely a blend of the various Aramaic speaking groups indigenous to the region who were Arabized when Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula arrived and settled following the Arab expansion. Syrians are tied together by geography, linguistic heritage, religion, and similar Eastern Mediterranean ethnicities. Most Syrians reside primarily in Syria; however 17 million Syrians live outside of Syria and they stay connected to their cultural roots by watching Syrian satellite television, listening to Syrian music and preparing Syrian cuisine.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the most continuously inhabited cities in the world (for 8000 years straight, Syrians inhabited Damascus), and a large percentage of Damascenes are the descendents of the early inhabitants of Damascus.

Opposition may mean or refer to:

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 United States election.

McCain followed his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture, and refused an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily four times, most recently in 2010. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain at times has had a media reputation as a "maverick" for his willingness to disagree with his party on certain issues. After being investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the Keating Five, he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He is also known for his work towards restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s, and for his belief that the war in Iraq should be fought to a successful conclusion. McCain has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, opposed spending that he considered to be pork barrel, and played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations.

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Brigitte Gabriel (a.k.a. Nour Saman, born October 21, 1964), is the pseudonym of a Lebanese American journalist, author, and activist. Gabriel says that Islam keeps countries backward, and that it teaches terrorism. To promote her views, she founded the American Congress For Truth and ACT! for America so that others may "fearlessly speak out in defense of America, Israel and Western civilization."

She frequently speaks at American conservative-leaning organizations such as The Heritage Foundation, Christians United for Israel, Evangelicals and Jewish groups.

Stephen Lee, a publicist at St. Martins Press for Gabriel’s second book, has called her views "extreme". Gabriel claims she gives voice to "what many in America are thinking but afraid to say out loud, for fear of being labeled a racist, bigot, Islamophobic, or intolerant."

Brigitte Gabriel was born in the Marjayoun District of Lebanon to a Maronite Christian family when her mother was fifty-five and her father was sixty as their first and only child after over twenty years of marriage. She recalls that during the Lebanese Civil War, Islamic militants launched an assault on a Lebanese military base near her family's house and destroyed her home. Gabriel, who was ten years old at the time, was injured by shrapnel in the attack. She and her parents were forced to live underground in all that remained, an 8'x10' bomb shelter for seven years, with only a small kerosene heater, no sanitary systems, no electricity or running water, and little food. She says she had to crawl in a roadside ditch to a spring for water to evade Muslim snipers.