Pod Save the World - Turkey and 28 Hours Pinned Down by ISIS with Arwa Damon

Episode Date: May 24, 2017

Tommy talks with CNN International correspondent Arwa Damon about Turkey's descent into a dictatorship and President Erdogan's visit to the White House. Then they discuss the 28 hours Damon spent pinned down by ISIS fighters in Mosul, her coverage of refugees fleeing Syria, and her nonprofit organization INARA

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. My guest this week is Arwa Damon. She is a senior international correspondent based in Istanbul. She is one of the network's Middle East specialists. She frequently reports from conflict zones across the Middle East and North Africa and focuses a lot of her work on humanitarian stories. Arwa, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. That's my pleasure. Thank you. The first thing I was hoping to talk about is Turkey and the U.S. relationship with Turkey. Turkey is a member of NATO. It's a an important ally of the United States and has been for a long time. And for a while, including early on in the Obama administration when I was there, many people viewed Turkey as this important

bridge between the east and west. It was seen as a potentially a hopeful, moderating influence on the world. That quickly changed. And in April, President Erdogan declared himself the winner of a referendum that many say effectively moved Turkey from a democracy to a dictatorship. Can you talk about that steady erosion and what the referendum, random means in practice for the government and the people of Turkey? I'll answer the second part of the question first. What this means for the Ardawan camp is that in their perspective, they have cemented him, the Egyptian type Ardawan himself,

as being the man of the people who the people wanted to somehow keep in power for as long as possible because they believe in the message that he has been putting out there and because they believe, especially in these chaotic times, that perhaps sticking with the status quo is better than trying to shake things up. Those who oppose Erdogan are, of course, viewing this, and they're terrified, because from their perspective, it gives him and his government wide-sweeping powers. There are even less checks and balances than there were in the past. And they are greatly concerned that he is going to be moving even more towards being an

authoritarian leader. Now, how did we get to this point? We need to go back a few years to actually the Gizzy Park protests that happened, that were on the surface about a park, but underneath all of it, it was really about a growing sense of discontent with the government, the sense that Erdogan, he was prime minister back then, his government was meddling a bit too much in people's lives. People were furious at things like his statement saying that women needed to have X amount of children. They felt as if he was really trying to impose a much more conservative way of life on the

population. Because remember, ever since the creation of modern day Turkey, the thing that it has prided itself on has been a pretty significant separation of relationships. and state. And as the situation escalated, and of course everything here has been compounded by the war in Syria, it's been compounded by the renewed violence between Turkey and the Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, all of this has sort of culminated into this massive boiling pot, plus you had the attack this past summer on the airport. Then you had the failed coup attempt has resulted in Turkey being at a stage where it is hardly the country that many Turks themselves recognize it as being, say, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

Right. So as a result of this referendum, you know, he is assumed wide control over the judiciary, the ability to make law by decree, abolish the office of the prime minister, the parliamentary system. do you think that this effectively moves him into the dictator camp? And how concerned are election observers and his opponents about accusations of fraud and ballot stuffing? And I guess some of the things short of fraud like suppressing dissenting opinions in the course of the election?

The most pressing concern right now when you speak to Turks who do not necessarily support the president is what they view as being arbitrary detention. that have been taking place for quite some time now, but following this failed coup attempt, have really taken on an entirely new level. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs because they're accused of being affiliated with Fetula Gulen, the cleric in self-imposed exile in the United States, whose movement, Turkey says, was behind this failed coup attempt. You have journalists being thrown behind bars accused of being Gulen,

sympathizers or PKK sympathizers, you do have an atmosphere where people are to a certain degree afraid to speak out. Now, that being said, Tommy, though, it's important to note that at no point in its history did Turkey actually have a great track record when it came to freedom of the press. It has always been among the top countries that has actually put journalists behind bars for a variety of reasons. I think people, yes, are concerned, especially his ardent opponents that he is moving towards perhaps some sort of dictatorial democracy, because at the end of the day, no matter what the fraud allegations were, around half of this country does, in fact, support him and support what he does and how he does it. But what it has done is really

polarize a population that is, in essence, quite diverse and can hardly afford to fracture along all of these various different fault lines. Turks used to identify as, you know, being profoundly Turkish. And now they're having to redefine, perhaps, to a certain degree, what their identity is. And as we know in a region like this one, that can have repercussions that perhaps we don't see quite yet at this stage. And that's what frightens Turks. It frightens them that their economy is on a downward spiral when five, seven years ago,

they were actually on the upswing. It frightens them when they don't necessarily, as some of them will even say, recognize themselves, their own countrymen when they go out into the streets. The polarization frightens them. The instability frightens them because they've seen what's happened to their neighbors. Sounds frighteningly familiar. You as a journalist, I mean, I read that 179 television stations, newspapers, and other media outlets have been closed. How concerned are you as a journalist? How concerned are civil rights activists and opposition figures, given the number of arrests that are occurring. Very. This is probably when it comes to, you know, freedom of, of the press,

one of perhaps the darkest times in Turkey's modern history. There have been very few crackdown similar within, you know, Turkey to the ones that we've seen, at least not, you know, to my recollection at this stage. And the thing is, is because of the laws that have been passed, because the country is in a state of emergency, the government can effectively act with impunity, and they justify everything in their minds as being part of this broader war on terror. And yes, there was a failed coup attempt. Ironically, Ardogan went to the media to CNN Turk to get his message out.

And what was interesting, what we saw back then, though, and this is also important to note because what's happening in Turkey is so phenomenally complex, the people, whether they supported Ardawan or not, went out into the street. And it is by and large because of that show of force we saw by a population that both supports and does not necessarily support the president, but supports the concept of democracy. That's why this coup failed. People weren't out there because of Ardawan, per se. They were out there because there was no way they were going to let Turkey go back to that horrific era of one military

carry coup after another. Right. That was an extraordinary moment watching Erdogan essentially face-timing from, I'm not sure where he was, a plane, an undisclosed location, whatever, live on TV and directing people into the streets with a show of force that essentially ended the coup that evening, right? Yeah, and people went out there. And that was the thing. When you spoke to people back then, you know, those who supported him went out, of course, for him. But even those who didn't support him, again, this is really important. Whether or not an individual in Turkey supports Erdogan, that does not mean that if they want him out of power, they want him out of power through violence or through a military coup. This country has been through that before. It knows what it looks like. Right. So despite all of these issues and concerns, last week, President Trump welcomed Erdogan into the Oval Office and frankly offered him nothing but praise. They talked about our shared history of fighting communism, joint efforts to fight ISIS, improving trade relations. Did that surprise? Reisy, especially given tensions over the United States decision to arm Kurdish fighters that Turkey views as enemies and given Erdogan's crackdown on dissent.

I mean, I didn't hear any conversation at all about human rights or freedom of expression. I'm wondering what Turkish people you talk to make of Trump's decision to invite Erdogan to the White House. Well, it definitely was a top news story. And what was quite interesting, though, if you look at both of their statements, Trump and Erdogan, they both allude to certain issues, but neither one of them addressed it. President Trump alluded to the war against terror. He alluded to the fact that they would be cutting more military deals. There would be greater cooperation moving forward.

We actually heard a lot more from President Erdogan in terms of what they want, because while President Trump referred to the PKK, he did not say anything about the U.S. support for the YPG. That is the Syrian-K Kurdish fighting force for people that don't know that America does not perceive as being a terrorist organization, but Turkey actually views the PKK and the YPG as being the same entity. So to boil it down from Turkey's perspective, the government, and actually the vast majority of the population here, cannot

understand how it is that the United States, which is meant to be a strong ally to Turkey, a fellow member of NATO, is actually choosing to back one of Turkey's main enemies in the region, this Syrian-Kurdish fighting force. President Erdogan had a fairly carefully worded statement in which he basically said that Turkey would not be able to accept any sort of future deal in the region that includes the YPG. So that main sticking point that exists between the two countries, it's still very much there. And I actually, you know, I think a lot of people were breathing a sigh of relief that neither leader went off script. Interestingly, on the surface, the two actually have fairly

similar personalities in the sense that they puff their chest. They expect their word to be taken immediately at faith value and not to be questioned. They both brush aside voices of the media that they feel are being too critical. So it's not entirely surprising either that the Trump White House and the president himself, who, mind you, also welcomed Egypt's leader, another country that has an atrocious human rights record to Washington. So it's two things.

One, you have a White House that does not, so far, seem to be prioritizing things like human rights, and you have two leaders who are both volatile, fairly thin skin to a certain degree, prone to very quickly taking offense to things. And I think there was a sigh of relief that the rhetoric didn't necessarily go off scripts, at least not publicly. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the meetings that took place afterwards

if they did try to iron out some of these details. Because if Turkey is going to expect the U.S. arming of the Syrian Kurds to the degree that the U.S. wants to arm them, you can be pretty sure that Turkey is getting something in return because President Erdogan then has to sell that to the Turkish population. Right, right. And I think the United States views those Kurdish groups is some of the most effective partners we have against ISIS. And I'm not sure what could convince us to stop that army. Do you have any sense? But they are the most effective group against ISIS that the U.S. is backing. But at the same

time, let's not forget that the Syrian Kurds, at the beginning of the revolution, they were not immediately jumping on board demanding for Assad to leave. In fact, the few voices of Kurdish opposition that we heard to the Assad regime were in fact taken out by Kurdish groups themselves. There have never been any significant clashes between the Kurds and the U.S. Assad regime. So the Kurds may be on board when it comes to fighting ISIS, but they're not necessarily on board when it comes to fighting the regime, which of course is going to be another sticking point when it comes to Turkey, which has been supporting groups that have been actively fighting the regime. So when you try to unravel the intricacies of what's happening in the Syrian

battlefield, that piece of thread does not unravel because it is so deeply intertwined into so many other threads. Yeah, it is not clean in any way. You're listening to Pod Save the World. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. Moving from one incredibly challenging conflict to another related one, you're based in Istanbul, but you've covered a number of conflicts, including efforts by Iraqi forces to retake Mosul. Mosul's Iraq's second-degas city. It is strategic and historic significance, and Iraqi forces have spent about the last seven months trying to take it back after it fell to ISIS in 2014 in a humiliating defeat for the Iraqi security forces. In 2016, you were with a convoy of Iraqi Special Forces that came under attack,

and you guys were pinned down for more than 28 hours by ISIS fighters who were surrounding the house you were in. Can you tell us about that experience? And I would encourage everyone who wants to learn even more about it to watch your special documentary on CNN called Return to Mosul. Yeah, it was myself and cameraman, Brise Lennan. This was the first real push by the Iraqi counterterrorism forces into the city of Mosul itself. And we've been covering the battle and the build-up to it for months at that stage.

And all of the intelligence has indicated that ISIS had moved most of its fighters to the western part of the city. And the convoy easily moved through the first two neighborhoods. It was a bit of what one would expect in terms of suspicious vehicles. There were a few pot shots, snipers, grenades. But then when the convoy got to the really narrow streets where you could barely turn a vehicle around, never mind an entire convoy, all of a sudden the firefight just significantly intensified. And very quickly, something hit the very front Humvee, the front armored vehicle of the convoy, and it exploded in a ball of flames, which meant that that road was shut off from the front. We could not move forward. And within minutes, a suicide car bomber had hit the very back vehicle of the convoy,

which meant that there literally was no escape. Eventually, our vehicle took a direct hit, and that's when we stumbled out of it and spent at that stage the next 24 hours or so moving from civilian home to civilian home, eventually overnighting in one of these homes as the ISIS fighters closed. more and more on that particular position because that's also where the bulk of the Iraqi counterterrorism forces were who were running out of ammunition. We were with about 22 soldiers who were wounded, only six who were not.

They were hopping downstairs on one leg because they were shot in the other firing out the kitchen window. There were grenades falling into the courtyard, the family that we overnighted with, I really bonded with because we spent so much time together. We spent the longest amount of time. Then they were hiding under the stairway screaming, and I remember one of the little boys just saying,

I don't want to die. And I was speaking to his grandmother, who's a family matriarch, this woman named Matad, and she said to me, I was like, you can't make a run for it. You can't. She said, we have to, because even if all of us don't get out, at least some of us will. And then an airstrike came in and took out the house right behind the one

that we were hiding in because there were ISIS fighters. on the roof that were getting ready to dump the wall. I think it's important, though, to mention that we don't think that ISIS knew that, you know, a CNN team was there. We think that they were going after the soldiers because that same day, there were similar ambushes along other points of the front line in Mosul, although none that lasted as long as the one that we were in. But then, yeah, eventually backup came in, and we were lucky.

You know, Brise and I, we were able to get. get out. Yeah, I mean, it is as frightening a 45-minute documentary as I've ever seen. I can't imagine what it was like waiting for reinforcements to come in like that. But remarkably, you not only recorded that moment, but you recorded your decision to go back. I've been through a lot of incidents pertaining to war. I've been in a lot of fights. I've been in a lot of situations where your heart's in your throat and you think that's it. And I thought I had to be. I thought I had to be an appreciation for what it must have been like or what it is like for a civilian population. I had no idea what it was like, what that level of fear feels like.

And to go back and think that for the rocky population, that's their everyday life, it gives you that much more of an understanding of what war is. And it's so different to be there on the ground. and live it, than to hear it being talked about from seats of power. Right. I mean, that's what I think is so remarkable about the piece you did, is that I think we all are used to seeing the conflicts and actual fighting covered on the news, and I have not lived that in any way, shape, or form, but I'm familiar with watching it.

I feel like there is significantly less coverage of what that day-to-day life is like for the people who can't leave and who can't get out. And you went back and you spent time with the soldiers that helped save you. And you spent time with the family that helped shelter you for those 28 hours. Can you talk about what it was like to go back and why you decided to return to Mosul once that section had been liberated? You know, as you're asking me that question, I'm kind of getting goosebumps just remembering it. And I'm smiling a little bit because we went back for two reasons. One, we were going to go back regardless as journalists.

But secondly, it was personal. And the combination of that also allowed us an opportunity because of the relationship that we'd forged with the soldiers and the civilians to show exactly what it is that you're talking about. This side of war that it doesn't make it into the news stories per se because there's not enough time or you miss the shot because the camera can't always be rolling all the time. And so to go back with the deliberate aim and goal of finding, first of all, everyone, because we didn't know who had survived or not. But also, the most important thing for us was really humanizing what these people were going through, capturing those small moments, capturing this infinite kindness and compassion that the Iraqi people have. And it was in shooting the return to Mosul documentary that I had my moment where I all of a sudden realized why it was back in 2003.

I fell in love with Iraq and with the Iraqi people. And it is because despite what they've been through, despite the oppression under Saddam Hussein, despite the U.S.-led invasion, the sectarian warfare, the yes, violent tribal nature of the country, there is a purity to their kindness that is stunning. I mean, imagine a man who sheltered us briefly and the soldiers who had wounded troops being treated in his courtyard as his family was cowering behind a bookcase. What does he do? He makes everybody fried eggs because that's the rocky hospitality. And if you don't have your hospitality, what's left of you? The family that we sheltered with, and everyone who we met actually came running out when we went back saying they were worried about us. when we were the ones that actually got out.

And then I found out that the last family we were with, Matar's family, she'd named her granddaughter after me. I mean, who does that? It's stunning and it's spectacular. But at the same time, you can't ever run away from the tragedy of it all. Because then, of course, we found out that the house that was hit in the airstrike behind the one we were sheltering and also had civilian families in it, that ISIS was holding at gunpoint and refused to allow to leave.

Right. Yeah, and it's horrifying. I mean, one of the hardest parts about the piece for me to watch was when you were talking to children at a school and hearing about their experience through the eyes of these kids. I mean, a little girl was talking about seeing her father get lashed 50 times for having shorts on. A little boy said to you how ISIS, when they controlled Mosul, they changed the curriculum. And instead of learning in books, they were given knives and taught how to slaughter people.

I can't, how did you manage to have those conversations with these kids and keep it together? I mean, I have a great advantage in that, obviously, I speak Arabic. My mom is Syrian and I grew up completely bilingual. And I think it's almost a surreal experience because it's not just what they're saying it, but it's how they say it. You know, when an adult asks a group of children a question. The children will naturally try to outdo each other in their answers, except this time they're trying to outdo each other in their answers of who's seen the worst thing. And then you speak to the teachers, I mean, just the psychological trauma of this population. And the thing is, is the kids that you see in school, to a certain degree, they're the ones that are on the

spectrum of impact, if it can even be called that, they're a bit okay. You then have the other children, like the girl, the daughter of one of the families we sheltered with who still hears the voice of the ISIS fighter threatening to kill her. And her little brother who walks around with his plastic sword, clicking it in and out and mimicking the way the ISIS fighters marched, the families out. And you look into the eyes of the children in those moments when you realize that they're mentally drifting back to what it is and they're not just trying to shout out sentences. And that's when you realize the monumental task this country has of making sure that they address what it is that these children have been through. And Iraqis are anything, if not capable of hiding

their emotions. They're very good at that. These kids' parents are very good at that. But these children, they should not have to be very good at that. You're geeking out with me on POTSA of the World. More on the way. The policy question for you, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and we later invaded Iraq, the exit strategy to the extent that there was one, or at least that one was later developed, was to build up the capacity of the local government, to build up the capacity of local security forces, and transition control to them. that U.S. troops could leave. Obama obviously got all U.S. troops out of Iraq and ended up sending social forces and trainers back when things in Iraq deteriorated. Where do you think we are

in that capacity-building effort in Iraq? Is there a realistic time frame for the Iraqi security forces taking full control over the entire country? I, that experience should teach us to not try to put timeframes onto these kinds of battle zones. I think one could very easily argue, and I do argue, that one of the key reasons why Iraq is the way it is, is not just because of the invasion. It's also because of the way that the Obama administration handled what happened in terms of the politics and backing Maliki for a second term. and this insistence of wanting to adhere to what was, yes, a leftover from the Bush era timeframe of withdrawal of U.S. troops, but also something that as a journalist reporting in Iraq

was very frustrating for me and my colleagues, no matter who the administration was, there was almost a refusal to acknowledge reality. And when you refuse to acknowledge reality, you're not dealing with reality. It took America about a year and, and a half after the initial invasion to even begin to accept the notion that, A, things were not going well, and B, we were about to head into not just a full-fledged insurgency, but a full-fledged

sectarian civil war. It took until ISIS invaded Mosul for the U.S. to acknowledge that perhaps the Iraqi security forces were not, as was the popular quote being touted around back then, capable of holding on to current security gains, whatever it is that that is supposed to mean, these accepted lower levels of violence that were deemed to be suitable. There is a naivete when it comes to U.S. policy vis-à-vis the Middle East, Afghanistan, that I still have very serious issues grappling with and grappling with the logic of why it is that administrations somehow do not want

to accept, acknowledge realities on the ground in these countries. There's a very superficial understanding of the region that has proven to be detrimental time and time again. Yeah, and I guess making it even more complicated, even more difficult, you have a neighbor in Syria that has no control over most of the territory and the government that's been in the grips of a horrific civil war. It's filled with ISIS fighters and leading to war instability. I mean, do you think that Iraq can be solved with Syria in the situation it's in? And I'd like to talk about some of your coverage of refugees trying to flee Syria and get to places like Europe. That's a tough one. I think to a certain degree, aspects of Iraq can be resolved with Syria still ongoing.

I think there is a very small window of opportunity for the Iraq. Iraqi security forces and al-Aba, these predominantly Shia government, to prove themselves to the population of Mosul and to the Sunni population that they are not former Prime Minister Maliki and that the security forces and the Iraqi government are not going to now turn around and arbitrarily begin the mass detentions, the oppression of the Sunni population that so aggravated the Sunni population that was one of the main elements why ISI, the Islamic State of Iraq, which is what ISIS was before it became ISIS, was able to reemerge and then become ISIS again. Iraqis have a fundamental rejection of foreigners ruling them no matter who it is.

Let's not forget. Iraq's Sunni population turned on al-Qaeda in Iraq and basically helped the Americans defeat them to a certain degree. Al-Qaeda and Iraq, the Islamic State in Iraq, were then able to reemerge because of an Iraqi governmental failure that I would argue also the U.S. had a hand in allowing to unfold and proceed it the way it did. If Iraq is able to control most of Iraq, it probably does have a window of opportunity to do that. There's going to be the next phase of how are they going to reconcile with the Kurds. The Kurds have now drawn their lines in the sand. They have solid control over Kyrkoek and its oil fields. They've basically drawn the border of Iraqi Kurdistan to where they want it to be.

And the Peshmerga has proven to be quite an effective fighting force. And many people are concerned about that being the next battle. And that's not even getting into all of the potential spillover dynamics from Syria. This does not get less complicated. That is for damn sure. If ISIS is defeated, when ISIS is defeated, you still have massed. of political challenges. You have a country that's kind of cobbled together of different groups. It's going to take a long time. Okay. Again, what I love about your reporting is that, you know,

you've covered these conflicts, you understand the dynamics at play. But it's not just that you're covering the conflict in Iraq or Syria, but you're covering the human beings trying to flee Syria and escape the violence. Can you talk about why you've focused so much on these stories and what it's been like for you when you're traveling with these men, women, children? are in who are trying to get to Europe, trying to get to Turkey or Greece, because we hear so much about terrorism, we hear so much about ISIS and Assad that, you know, I want to do what I can to raise up reports like yours that focus on the individuals who are suffering so that we view refugees as much through that lens as we do all the security discussions that you see on TV.

And, you know, there's two points that I would love for people to actually, you know, bear with me on. One is that those masses are really. refugees that we saw making the journey to Europe, they are not the poorest of the poor. The poorest of the poor cannot afford the money it costs to get to Europe. Those are people who more or less had middle class lives. They had jobs. They were dentists. They were electricians.

They were graduate students. They were girls who loved getting their hair done and dragged their fluffy poodle. across Europe with them. That is how humiliated, mostly the Syrian population, because the vast majority of them were Syrian, had become to the point where they were degrading themselves to that.

A lot of people on the refugee trial didn't want to be filmed, not necessarily because they were afraid of endangering the lives of people back home, which is what we usually hear when someone doesn't want to go on camera, but because they didn't want their friends and loved ones to see them,

like that. I have covered war over and over and over again, but covering the refugee trail punched me in a very different degree that actually surprised me. Because when you're in a war zone, you expect certain questions. You expect questions of why does nobody care? Why will no one stop the bombs? Why are they letting this happen to us? And there are never questions that we can necessarily answer. But to hear those same questions being asked in Europe that was meant to be a dream, a safety, a sanctuary, a place of dignity, to hear people wanting to know why borders were shutting in their faces or why they were being left for two days under the sun without water, which is what was happening in the initial days, or why no one wanted to understand that they

didn't leave their homes because they wanted to leave their homes and invade Europe. They want nothing more than to go back home. They left their homes because they didn't have a choice. And to still not be able to answer those questions, it was one of the most painful things I've ever had to cover. I can't imagine. I mean, even just sort of viewing the sort of callousness of the conversation, the lack of empathy in the U.S. political system, the way that sort of reflected back. I can't imagine the message that sends to a family or a kid or what it means to their, how they will view the United States in perpetuity when they see those things in those conversations and debates, given the situation they're in. Do you hear people talk about

that? First of all, we should also point out that the U.S., when it comes to refugees, takes a drop in the bucket of what is actually out there. They go through a much more extreme vetting system to get to America than they do to get to any other country. And do you know, despite the fact that many people actually feel America has at least politically speaking failed them and betrayed them, they still have faith in the American dream and they still would give anything to be able to have America save them. But that aside, the other problem is that we all have had a point in time in our lives when we have been at rock bottom, when we've been down, and we've been kicked.

And we've felt that anger or a certain degree of anger, a certain degree of rage. And when you're in that state of mind amplified to a degree that you can't even imagine it because that's what it's like for a refugee that has lost someone who they love their homeland, seen it all disintegrate as global superpowers debated back and forth in some twisted game of chess their fate, when you're that low, imagine the difference of having someone reach out a hand to lift you up and how that can change your narrative. And imagine the difference of someone shutting a door in your face and what that then does to your psyche. It's not just about doing it for the right reasons, the right reasons being that we're all human beings

and we should be looking out for each other. It's also because logically speaking, why do we want more hatred out there? Right. Yeah, there's a strategic imperative to, I think. showing kindness and empathy and respecting human beings. People think I'm naive for saying this in terms of like, I actually think it should be part of any foreign policy to show compassion and kindness and offer a different alternative and a different narrative to what it is that the so-called evil side is putting out there.

I agree with you. And what's interesting about what you've done is you've done this reporting and told these stories and I think that is an important piece of helping Americans understand the suffering and creating empathy. But you didn't stop there. You created a nonprofit organization called Inara, the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance that provides medical assistance to kids who are wounded in conflicts. Can you tell us about the organization and how people listening can support the work you guys are doing and why you thought it was necessary? Yeah, the story of Enada actually starts back in 2007 in Iraq when I met a little boy named Yusif

that some of the people listening, if they have watched CNN, might remember, but he was five years old at the time, and masked men had, for reasons they're still unknown, thrown gasoline on him and set him on fire when he was standing in front of his own. It makes your hair stand on end. When he came to our Sanin Bureau, his face had hardened into these rivers of scar tissue, and he was eating rice one grain at a time. And he couldn't really articulate his emotions, but he was so angry. We did the story, and the outpouring of support was overwhelming.

Millions of CNN viewers responded, donated money to the Children's Burn Foundation in Los Angeles that took on his case. And I traveled with the family to Los Angeles and kind of watched this transformation from the first moment. that he went to the beach and saw water for the first time and was able to laugh and play and began getting surgeries to the young man that he's become today. Either way, seeing the response to Yusuf made me realize that no matter how cynical I am or I may get, there is great kindness out there. And there is something called the compassion of strangers that somehow needs to be tapped into. And there are children like Yusuf who are falling through the craft.

for whatever reason, because it took his father about seven months to find Shannon, and he'd gone to various different aid organizations. And as the years dragged on, and then as the war in Syria began, and we really saw with Syria the impact of journalism beginning to change, because no matter what we did or the risks we took to report, it somehow felt as if the impact of it was being diluted, and you reach a point where having seen the need, having had an idea of something that could work,

an almost visceral desire to do something more because the journalism isn't enough, that's when I reached that point that I decided to create this organization, I NADA, that brings everything together. It brings those who want to help with the organizations that can help with the cases that need help, but we don't do anything that another organization already does.

In that instance, we refer our cases on. We do the cases that don't fall within other organizations' mandates or that other organizations simply cannot do or where there isn't an organization that perhaps focuses on that. And we focus very much on war wounded or children or children that are wounded because of the circumstances brought on by war. So refugee children falling into a pot of boiling water, having their tents burn down,

offering alternatives to, you know, a teenage boy who will never walk again on his own because he has a bullet in his spine, but with physiotherapy and with braces, he can begin to be more independent. We cover a variety of different cases, and we're small, but you see how these children's lives are changing, and we're changing the narrative, and it goes back to what we were discussing earlier. You see that little boy from Iraq, he doesn't remember the attack anymore. He doesn't have his own memories of it. He knows it happened. But it's not his life-defining moment in the sense that he's not angry.

What he remembers is people being nice to him and he wants to be a doctor and he wants to give back to his community. We look at the children who we're helping. We look at their families and the sheer relief of just having a phone number. number to call someone on the other end. The impact goes far beyond just the medical treatment of these kids. And I honestly truly believe that we owe it to these children. We as adults, as governments, as societies that are meant to protect children, we failed. This is the least that we can do. And so, you know, there's obviously a number of ways to help. I mean, people can donate. That's fantastic.

via our website, www. www. Inara, at I-N-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-R-E-R-E-R-R-E-R-R-E-R-B. But also, a small number of people have been doing this for us, and it works really well. You know, you can run a race to raise money. Some people have done yoga classes. They've organized small comedy events.

They've organized small other sorts of events, like bands playing, small-scale music concerts. Spreading the word is incredibly important at this stage, too, about not just the work that we're doing, But when you start talking about the work that we're doing, the conversation then opens itself up to why is this work needed. We need to start talking more in very basic terms about what's happening around the world and especially in the Middle East. Because we need to start listening to each other. We need to start understanding each other back on that very basic human level. I agree. Arwood Damon, thank you so much for your incredible reporting and the work you're doing at Anara.

everyone should check out the website, consider supporting your efforts, because I agree, it's important. And I think that there are benefits to the children that you're helping, but there are also benefits, I think, to the United States, to the entire world by showing some compassion and reaching out and helping people the way you do. So thank you again for being on the show today. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.