"Because this was an opportunity to take stock. To stand back. To reflect on the fact that more than 220,000 people have been killed and half a country's population pushed from their homes. To ask the Syrian people what they need from us. To pressure our governments to take them in.

Our indifference is something we need to think about and talk about. As journalists, we should question our performance. As people, our humanity. Because we can do better."

it's true - even some here only pay attention when the corpmedia sees an angle to work the Syria story against the WH or Kerry. Corpmedia has rarely told the fuller story of what's been going on between US and Syria. Kerry and Prez machinations have been to avoid war there and in Iran and the've been up against the warmongers pushing mightily and using their many poodles in the press to do it.

Good to see that some journalists are seeing the events in Syria with sympathy for the fuller, human picture even though Prez and Kerry's methodology isn't fully understood.

And if PNAC's happy. Bibi's happy. And Big Oil, coincidentally.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Gandhi

spreading chaos and sectarian mass slaughter. Congratulations Qatar and to its info-mercenary media. You succeeded at selling these interventions to a largely gullible western public, but what now?

AJ was always little more than a lavish propaganda auxillary to Qatari State Security. With so much blood splattered across its lenses, far fewer trust it on the subject anymore.

While it's sad that many innocent people are dying in Syria, I'm not going to support any military intervention against Al Assad.

There are groups out there, as well as politicians like John McCain, who'd say that means I don't care about the people of Syria. The real reason they would say this is that they care about the people of Syria far less and are only interested in overthrowing Al Assad for not being an American puppet.

I don't support military intervention because it would lead to even more innocent deaths, as well as the fact that the ones who'd benefit most are the Syrian 'rebels' whose ranks are filled with foreign fighters and members of terrorist groups.

Let's not forget Iraq. Ultimately the justification for the invasion was that Saddam was a bad guy and had to be removed. It's true that he certainly wasn't a good person, but that didn't seem to matter much to the Western world even when he was using chemical weapons against the Kurds, simply because he was attacking Iran at the time.

How many more innocent people died as a direct result of the invasion and the so-called peacekeeping efforts afterward? How many more innocent people have died in the turmoil from the instability that followed, whether it's sectarian violence or now ISIS trying to take over? I'm sure they dwarf Saddam's body count.

Sometimes there is no ideal solution and you have to focus on the least unfavorable outcome. Supporting military intervention in Syria would be like trying to put out a house fire by flattening the house.

would not have happened.

(Syria had about 4 years of drought before open hostilities started. That on top of the general instability we created by invading Iraq is why the civil war erupted)

It really cheapens news value, imo

I just don't like how "Buzzfeed headlines" have been steadily creeping into mainstream news sites...

The UN is pushing an effort for local cease-fires in place in a handful of areas. That would be a start on the ground.

And Kerry is talking about talking to Assad instead of talking about how he must go. A little hint of US flexibility.

It's still a hopeless mess, and I don't know if Syria can be put back together. Those Syrian Kurds who fought off ISIS at Kobani certainly don't have any use for rule by Damascus, big chunks of the north and east are held by ISIS or hostile Sunnis...Maybe we'll see "Syria" shrink into a regime rump state (still controlling most of the big cities and the coast), another autonomous Kurdish region (which could team up with Iraqi Kurds in an emerging Kurdish state), and the Sunni north and east (bordering Iraq) as a no man's land.