The Conflicts in the Middle East:

In Tuesday’s discussion, many interesting topics of concern arose that all revolved around the conflicts in the Middle East. While listening to all the ideas that were touched, one that triggered my train of thought was the current situation in Syria.   As of now, as far as all the news media’s report, there is a large amount of violence on the constituents of Syria by their leader himself. This can be attributed to an uprising by the people, which appears to slowly be turning into a civil war. 

President Bashar al-Assad inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, Hafez al-Assad. At first, he seemed to be inclined towards reform movements. But in April, just days after lifting the country’s decades-old state of emergency, he set off the first of what became a series of withering crackdowns, sending tanks into restless cities as security forces opened fire on demonstrators. This whole situation started with the Tunisian revolution which reached Syria in Mid-March of 2011, when the residents of a small southern city took to the streets to protest the torture of students who had put up anti-government graffiti. To this, the government responded with a heavy-handed force which led demonstrations to quickly spread across the rest of the nation. Neither the violence nor Mr. Assad’s offers of political reform (seen as lies by protest leaders) have brought an end to the unrest. These protesters have not been able to withstand direct assault by the military’s armored forces. As the crackdowns dragged on into the summer and fall, thousands of soldiers defected and began launching attacks against the government, bringing the country to what the United Nations in December called “the verge of civil war”.Syria’s crackdown has been condemned internationally, as has President Assad, because many had hoped he would soften his father’s iron-handed regime. Syria was expelled from the Arab League after it agreed to a peace plan only to step up attacks on protesters. In November, the league applied wide-ranging sanctions. In December 2011 and late January 2012, Syria agreed to allow league observers into the country. But their presence did nothing to slow the violence. In January, the Arab League unexpectedly floated a proposal under which Mr. Assad would relinquish power to a deputy and start negotiations with opponents within two weeks. This was quickly rejected by Syria. (Times Topics - The New York Times – Syria News)

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=syria%20&st=cse

As of now, all we hear about in the news coverage of the situation in Syria is about the on-going violence. A particular region that we are constantly hearing of is Homs. Here, life has become increasingly unbearable as the city is under fierce bombardment by the Syrian government. Residents recount days of deprivation, rockets and tank shells exploding around them and even all their efforts to bribe government soldiers so that they’d escape during periods of calmness in the fighting.  This is just one of the places where the extensive government crackdowns are taking place. With this, another constant problem that seems to be appearing is that Syria is so restricted that it is pretty hard to be able to get complete media coverage of the situation. Reporters that are attempting to get the full story out are putting their lives at risk. All this leads me to pose a question; just to what extent is all this true? I mean, it’s obvious that Syria is going through tough times right now, but to what extent do we truly know what is going on there? Are we getting the full story? Are we simply getting a glimpse of the inferno? Or are we simply getting the facts on isolated events? Although I don’t think there is an answer to that question, one thing is for sure: the situation appears to be quickly developing into a civil war.