Damascus, Syria
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
Damascus is used as a time-zone reference ('It's 10:38 in Damascus') that orients decision-makers to the foreign clock and underlines the immediacy of diplomatic and military coordination across time boundaries.
Off-stage yet urgent — a distant capital whose hours matter to policy pacing.
Temporal anchor for foreign contact and synchronized response.
Represents the foreign political center implicated in the attack and timing of reactions.
Damascus is evoked via Leo's timing point — 'It's 10:38 in Damascus' — bringing a foreign clock into the Oval and reminding the President that actions will be judged on an international timetable.
Offstage but temporally present, lending an urgency calibrated to a foreign time zone.
Time-zone reference that frames response windows and diplomatic ripple effects.
Represents the foreign state's capital and the political center implicated in attribution.
Damascus functions offstage as the implied escalatory target invoked when the General asks if the President means carpet-bombing; the city's name compresses strategic, humanitarian, and diplomatic consequences into one volatile signifier.
Not physically present but atmospherically charged — a looming, dangerous possibility that raises the stakes of any decision.
Potential target and rhetorical device representing maximal escalation.
Symbolizes the moral and geopolitical abyss that disproportionate retaliation would open.
Damascus is invoked verbally as the hypothetical site of extreme, carpet-bombing retaliation when the President calls for 'total disaster.' It functions as the potential battleground whose naming raises the stakes of the rhetorical escalation.
Offstage but heavy with implied human cost and geopolitical consequence.
Potential target city invoked to measure the scale of the President's demand.
Represents the moral abyss and international consequences of disproportionate action.
Foreign capital — outside U.S. jurisdiction and extremely sensitive to military action.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
Leo delivers devastating intelligence: an air transport carrying Dr. Morris Tolliver and dozens of aid workers has been destroyed, and hard evidence points to an order from the Syrian defense …
In the Oval Office, Leo delivers devastating intelligence: Morris Tolliver and dozens of medical personnel died when their transport exploded, with hard data pointing at the Syrian defense ministry. The …
A breezy, collegial Situation Room moment—Admiral Fitzwallace jokes about the coffee—collapses the instant President Bartlet and Leo enter. Fitzwallace presents three measured, proportional retaliation plans; Bartlet, grieving and furious over …
In the Situation Room Admiral Fitzwallace calmly presents three calibrated, low-risk retaliatory scenarios built around the doctrine of proportional response. Bartlet, consumed by rage and grief over the downed airliner, …