By Jim Merk
Staff Writer
The Syrian Civil War, although sounding like it ended, has been prolonged to today. The war officially began nearly three years ago on March 15, 2011 and is still ongoing. With the death toll reaching 130,000 by Sept. of 2013, the war seems far from over, although there hasn’t much news since Sept.
The war reached United States headlines because the Syrian government was found to be largely violating human rights with chemical attacks, imprisonment, and torture. The United States wanted to become involved with the war, but was largely urged to stay out.
On Sept. 9, the United States and Russia pushed for Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile to be placed under international control after a chemical attack on Aug. 21. After a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, a deal was reached on how the Syrian government should give up control of the weapons.
The next step internationally is to destroy the 1,000 tons of chemical weapons within the stockpile, with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons leading the program. With $13.5 million already raised to inspect the Syrian weapon sites, much more will be needed to destroy the massive stockpile.
With Syria also joining the OPCW as of Sept., peace talks seem to be one of the final steps towards ending a war that is costing thousands of lives. As of Nov. 23, Russia and the United States will begin negotiating with both the Syrian Coalition and the Syrian government, both of which do not seem to be letting up any time soon. The Coalition wishes for Assad to be impeached from his position as president, tried for war crimes, and any of his allies to be excluded from any government in the future. A demand the Syrian government has both rejected and will not meet, as well as not looking for a condition of peace at all.
“Essentially the Syrian Civil War is like the American Civil War in the sense that those in Syria are fighting for the American Ideals I teach my students about. Some call those ideas civil rights,” social studies teacher, David Ferrara said.
As the set peace talk date nears, only time will tell if the war will finally come to an end.
