Rick Sterling is a retired engineer in the electronics and aerospace industries and at the University of California at Berkeley. Since then he has been an investigative journalist whose research focuses on international relations and a strong advocate for human rights causes.  His writing involves  the struggles against imperialism and supporting justice in the Middle East, Latin America and US-Russia relations.  Rick is a board member of Task Force for the Americas; he is currently the board president of Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center and a co-founder of the Syria Solidarity Movement, which opposes imperialist interests in Syria.  Rick has visited Syria many times and was an election observer in 2021. He was among the small group of independent journalists who exposed the White Helmets as a faux humanitarian organization with ties to al-Nusra or al-Qaeda, the false accusations of Assad's use of chemical weapons, and western media deceptions about the former Syrian government before its downfall. Rick lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and his organization's website is SyriaSolidarityMovement.org