Back from the Grave (a.k.a. Freetime!)

Sorry for the scarcity of recent posts, summer semester has been kicking my ass recently and I have been busy.  However I’m back and just in time for a plethora of new issues waiting to be discussed.  From Syria dropping the “Hama” to E3 2011 even venturing into the depths of Music, Look forward to a flurry of updates in the coming days!

                                                                                         

                                 Dropping the Hammer Hama?

  So first on the plate and in my mind is the going on five months of unrest in Syria, which has long been a relatively stable region of the middle east due to Hafiz Assad’s tough handed methods of control.  unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective the current Assad is having a hard time reacting to the overflow of the “Arab Spring” into his own domain.

1972. The second largest city of Syria, Hama a town of 80,000 is a purported h.q. of Syria’s sect of the Muslim Brotherhood.  A “fundamentalist” (a loose interpretation of the word) group founded in Egypt and subsequently widespread in the Arab world.  Back on topic dear old   to send a message to restless population of Hama by sending in his crack troops, mostly Alawites of his own tribe, and killing reportedly as many as 20,000 people.  As a result the next several decades have been as stable and peaceful as can be expected in the digital powder keg of the Near East.

Back to 2011 and the Arab Spring’s effect on the believed to have been curbed population of Hama is showing, as the civilians kicked out military and police officials leading to the death of 94 civilians over several weeks.  Now the two sides are at a virtual standstill and what Assad plans to do remains to be seen.  Will he take the   of his father and crush the town of Hama again? Risking the wrath of the international community after having been focused on Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.  Or will he promise reform that will never come? Perhaps he will actually reform, but in either case it seems that more bloodshed is in the future as the Arab Spring continues to bloom across the region.

~ by cody689 on July 19, 2011.