Syria

While its easy to get caught up in America's political circus, its important not to let this newest surge of Santorum to distract us from vitally important events going on world wide. The Syrian people are, right now, being ruthlessly murdered by their 'leader.' Just as Gaddafi decided that the best way to put down the Libyan Revolution would be to destroy the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, Assad has, over the past year, laid siege to over ten of his own cities to try to eliminate those opposed to his rule. Since this weekend he has turned his attention to Homs, a rebel-held city which has now been under attack from tanks, mortars, and snipers for six days. The BBC has been doing a phenomenal job covering events inside of Syria and I urge everybody to click around on their website. If you need a basic overview of what's going on in Syria, start here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13855203

There is no easy solution to this problem. Multinational organizations like the Arab League and the United Nations are both unable, because of their extremely limited mandates, and unwilling, because of the regressive views of many of their members to force the violence to stop. Individual members of the international community seems to lack the stomach for even Libyan-style military involvement. In Syria the only question that there really seems to be is whether the country is on the verge of civil war or genocide.

This is unacceptable. It seems like almost every year something like this happens, and basically every time the international response is too late, if it comes at all. And everybody wrings their hands, refusing to see one of the most inherent problems of the system: so long as the privacy of the nationstate trumps the protection of the people, genocide will continue to be viewed as one of the possible solutions to autocrat's problems. As long as the word of that autocrat is treated as law and the cries of citizens are treated as dirt people will continue to die.

Something has to change.