Syria

Blog 1: Syria

The Syrian conflict is a very complicated war. This is a messy, cruel war where neither side has much regard for civilian casualties. This is not a cut and dry, black and white war. You might even think it's the brave rebels against the evil dictatorial regime, and that is only a snippet part of the story. However, this is only the tip of the ice burg! The Syrian Civil war is a conflict between its lengthy  serving  government and those seeking to kick it out of office. The Assad family has held power in Syria since 1971 (worldnews.nbcnews.com). First it was Hafez al-Assad, then Bashar al-Assad. Unlike many regime leaders in the Middle East middle, the Assad family is not religiously extreme. They are Alawites - a relatively obscure branch of Islam which is not particularly hardline. So the people have not been protesting against hardline Islamists, as happened in other countries which participated in the Arab  uprisings (ibid). Nonetheless, people are still angry at their government.  Seemingly what they are angry about is the failure of long-promised economic and political reforms.

Currently, the United Nations said Thursday that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has signed a legal document confirming that his government will comply with an international ban on chemical weapons. Just hours after the announcement after U.S. Secretary of State rejected Assad's earlier pledge to sign the agreement and begin submitting data on his chemical weapons one month later, in keeping with the usual practice under the pact, Kerry said the usual rules cannot apply to the current situation, and he demanded speedier compliance (nbcnews.com).

If the American military sends our cruise missiles in to Syria, this could possibly cause a potential global ripple effect. Both China and Russia hold veto power in the United Nations Security Council and they would block America’s efforts to work through the U.N. to punish Assad. Theoretically, this is one reason everyone expects the United States to act mostly alone.  As for China, the issue is sovereignty; the Chinese do not like countries getting into each other’s business because they don’t want anyone in theirs. I concur to an extent with China on that point because seemingly, the United States can bully other countries into democracy and we need to mind our own business at times; however, if Syria is crazy enough to use chemical warfare on its own people, there’s no telling what they could possible do to us! They have no morals at all.

Erica Warren

09/13/2013

1:52 PM

British Parliament votes against possible military action in Syria

 http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/29/20241897-british-parliament-votes-against-possible-military-action-in-syria.