The White Helmets of Syria

As the war worsens, rescue workers risk their lives on the front lines

- Jared Malsin

It was a heart-lifting display, may be a bit tardy after the movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya, but you certainly knew whom to cheer for. The good guys were in plain sight, chanting “Freedom” and “Peace” from orderly rows. Until the government forces opened fire.

But as the crowds scattered for cover and, before long, took up arms themselves, what steadily enveloped the conflict was not so much the fog of war as its miasma. Opposition to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad shattered into more than 1,000 armed groups. The most successful gathered under the banner of jihadism, either al-Qaeda or eventually ISIS, its even more repugnant spin-off. There’s nothing to like there. Then the neighbors started in, sending guns or money or troops—Iran, Russia, Hizballah, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and finally the U.S.

All wars produce confusion—for chaos, nothing else comes close—but even the most brutal contests produce a glimmer of hope, or at least some sense of what is driving people to put their lives on the line. Yet to outsiders, 5½ years of revolution and war in Syria might appear to have produced mostly villains, along with refugees and numbing images of suffering on a blasted landscape that recalls Stalingrad.

Enter the White Helmets. Ordinary Syrians emerged from the dust that hangs over the rubble of cities like Aleppo, double-timing it into some of the most dangerous places on earth to do what the world has refused to do—save Syrian lives.