This Week’s Top Five: June 8-14

Five things to know from around the globe this past week:

1. The Turkish riots are getting worse.

• At the end of May, the initially student led protests against the destruction of a park in Istanbul escalated quickly into violent, national riots against the Turkish government. The Prime Minister of Turkey is doing very little to cooperate with the protesters and has not eased up on the heavy use of tear gas and water cannons. Negotiations are pretty much at a halt. You can read the background on this uprising from our post from last week:  https://whythefshouldicare.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/protests-in-turkey/

2. Syria was struck by another fatal bombing.

• The Syrian uprising is now moving into its third year of clashes between Syrian rebels and the Syrian government lead by Bashar al Assad. The UN recently reported that almost 93,000 people have been killed as a result of the uprising. And this week, we discovered that the Syrian government has allegedly been using chemical weapons on the Syrian rebels, now causing a US decision to send military aid to the Syrian rebels. See a detailed timeline of the uprising at the Washington Post’s website. (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/timeline-unrest-in-syria/207/)

3. 17 people were killed in an suicide bombing attack on Afghan Supreme Court employees.

• While several of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court employees were being transported by bus through Kabul on Wednesday, a suicide bomber attacked the vehicle fatally injuring 17 people on board. Although Kabul and Afghanistan as a whole are rife with frequent, deadly attacks, this one sticks out because of the targets. This story is still developing, but you can read more about the attack in Aljazeera’s report: (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/06/2013611121733644409.html)

4. Putin got divorced. (This happened at the end of last week, but we’ll still throw it in).

• Even though this would seem to be a pretty big story (a major world leader is getting a divorce after almost 30 years of marriage), it is in fact a story out of how little attention it’s been getting. The Putins announced this split on national television shortly after an event they were attending together, and the divorce is extremely amicable. On top of that, as the Washington Post points out in this hilariously titled article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russians-shrug-at-putin-divorce/2013/06/07/0fc0ef42-cf81-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html, the Russian people don’t find it to be all that important. This is a big news item because of how small a news item it’s become.

5. Iran is electing a new president.

• For the first time since 2005, Iran has a shot at a leader who isn’t Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This election is also being considered the most democratic, fair (and unrigged) election Iran has ever had, and it could be a major turning point for the country both nationally and globally. The election is being held TODAY and Iran has already extended poll closing times to give more people the opportunity to vote. Check our post from earlier this week for more info (https://whythefshouldicare.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/iranian-presidential-election-2013/)

The Conflict in Syria

What is happening:

So, for the past year and a half, Syria has been in an all out civil war between its government and its people. Yeah, a year and a half. Since the conflict officially began in March of 2011, Syrian rebels have been attacking (and been attacked by) the Syrian government in an attempt to overthrow the dictatorship held by Bashar al-Assad, one of the bloodiest, and probably the bat-shit craziest dictators the world has ever seen. As far as bloody goes, Assad has already seen to the death of over 8,000 fighters and 32,000 civilians. As far as insanity goes, he was quoted saying, “Only a crazy person would kill his own people.” Do we catch the irony here?

Ha ha! Bombs are fun! (www.lettera43.it)

The United Nations tried to send in “peacekeepers” who were essentially babysitters with no weapons, no power, and no ability to stop any sort of violence from happening. Time, energy, and money well spent, amirite? So, obviously, those did nothing. Several countries from around the world sent small batches of troops into the country to try to maintain peace, but again, they couldn’t do enough to make a difference. And, finally, very few diplomatic attempts were made to try to stop the violence from Assad, but, you guessed it, not enough to make any sort of real change to the situation! Which brings us to where we are today. Rebels are fighting the government (and losing, aside from a few successful attacks) and the government is continuing to bomb its people. Yay modern humanity.

Why the fuck you should care:

This one is tricky. Typically, you should care because of what America is doing about a world problem and the money being spent and the diplomacy and troops being used. But this time, you should care for a different reason. This time, you should care because of what little the U.S. is doing.

Take pretty much any (oil-filled) country in the Middle East or Africa that has had an uprising like this. Egypt, Libya, etc. The bloodshed wasn’t even a tenth as bad as in Syria and the conflict lasted less than half the time, and yet, the good ol’ US of A got itself involved. In Egypt, the U.S. sent weapons, in Libya, the U.S. had a goddam airstrike within the first few weeks. But now, with the death count passing 30,000 the U.S. has had absolutely no involvement with Syria. The United Nations has, frankly, done a half-assed job of trying to keep violence down, but the United States has continued to stay directly out of the entire conflict.

Nope, no thanks. (haber.gazetevatan.com)

Now, this is not an argument of whether or not the United States should intervene. Everyone is free to their own beliefs and opinions and there are definitely strong arguments for and against either side. But the point is that THIS SHOULD SEEM STRANGE. America gets involved in pretty much anything it can get its hands on, when there will at least be some mild benefit.

But, since Syria isn’t going to necessarily bring anything to the table as far as giving the US a hand at home (read: WEAPONS, MONEY, OIL), the US is abstaining from getting involved in the messy, seemingly unsolvable situation.

Essentially, you should care because this is one major global conflict that the United States is saying, “It’s cool; you guys got this,” to. And, even though they have their reasons (as self-interested as they are), it’s a bizarre thing to see.

Where you can read more:

Timeline of the Civil War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Syrian_civil_war

Human Cost of the War: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/10/daily-chart-3

Economist Projections of What Will Happen Next: http://www.economist.com/news/21566341-it-will-be-worse-it-gets-better-syrias-agony