Help me as Syrian War bleeds into Iraq

So far my job search has been fruitless. The "job fair" I went to yesterday was for one that pays just about what the minimum wage should be. A month ago I thought I had landed a good paying job as a Linux systems administrator with a local web company that had just been acquired by GoDaddy but a senior GoDaddy exec vetoed the hire. I don't know if its my age or what Google tells them about my politics but landing a job, even one I'm clearly over qualified for, has proven to be illusive. And while I have still been looking for a work, I really feel that what I really need to be doing at this critical time is increasing not lessening my coverage of the situation in Syria now that is has expanded to Iraq.

It was more than two years ago that I wrote Syria is bleeding. Syria has lost a lot of blood since then and I have made it my mission to shine a light on that suffering and possibly bring a bit of clarity to those seeking to understand it. As a result I have published more than 184,000 words in 384 articles on Syria. I've also helped people prepare for the current situation by writing about the jihadist group al-Nusra in 91 of those and the newer ISIS in 55 of them.

I reported on ISIS's jihadist parent in Syria, Jabhat al-Nursa almost from the beginning and in December 2012, I published the warning Jabhat al-Nusra is a Threat to the Syrian Revolution. Tracking developments on the ground, I reported ISIS's first big victory when it took Mengh air base and last July I said that the Syrian conflict had now become a three-sided conflict because of ISIS and last October I warned that ISIS had declared war on the Free Syrian Army. Most importantly, I have focused on, and had a significant part in, publicizing the Assad regime's role in creating ISIS and its collaboration with it.

Now the Syrian conflict is bleeding into Iraq and this has gotten the world's attention. The jihadist terror group ISIS has been able to capitalize on Sunni anger against the sectarian Shiite government the US left behind in Iraq because it was allowed to infest the open wound that Syria had become. Now it threatens to metastasize, spread throughout the region and send terrorists all over the world. As policy is being shaped to respond to this, my voice is more important than ever. I'm hoping to turn up the volume. I've just submitted my first oped to the Washington Post. And I am hoping you will open your hearts and open your wallets to help me continue this work at such a critical time.

Please read my blog @ Linux Beach.