Palmyra was a great Roman empire outpost and its ruins are a photographer’s dream. One evening as we wandered out of the archaeological site we came upon a children’s art festival in an empty space backed up against the ruins. Many of the children were wearing handmade I love Palmyra shirts. They were very proud of their art and very curious about us. It is the closeness I felt to these kids then, and now, that makes the regime and DAESH continuing deadly attacks on civilians so horrible. We hoped Syria would come out all right and emerge as the modern and sophisticated nation it is so capable of being, and then this would all have been worthwhile. But, because of the intransigence of the ruling circle and Russia’s unconditional support and now in 2014 the dominance of the fanatic extremist DAESH army, this has turned into a bloodbath with no end in sight. 2015: Even Palmyra (Tadmor in Arabic) has been overtaken by DAESH, and they have destroyed priceless antiquities and beheaded the director of the archaelogical site and museum, because he would not reveal the location of hidden statues.
