So Is it Time to Forget about Syria?

Here is a bit of important news from the Middle East. The AP is reporting as follows:

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, who on Wednesday got the first independent outside look at the Baba Amr district of Homs following a deadly monthlong siege, said she was struck by the devastation she saw.

"That part of Homs is completely destroyed, and I am concerned to learn what happened to the people in that part of the city," she said in the capital of Damascus, a relatively peaceful stronghold of Assad's regime.

Activists allege that Syrian forces conducted cleanup operations in Baba Amr, including execution-style killings and arrests.


Now think about this. The UN statement was made on Wednesday, and here we are two days later. The UN confirmed that the area of Homs (Syria's third largest city) that was home to many who opposed the Assad regime is "completely destroyed". No one is left there, even though it is estimated that tens of thousands of people lived in this neighborhood prior to the fighting. Have you heard any news reports about this? Thirty or fourty thousand people are missing and their neighborhood destroyed by the Syrian regime, but the story is getting no coverage here. It seems that so long as there is no video of things blowing up, the media does not want to cover the story.

The lack of coverage of the carnage in Syria is a disgrace. Have we reached the point as a nation where Snooki's pregnancy is covered non-stop but the slaughter of thousands of innocent people in Syria get essentially no coverage? The headline right now on Yahoo News is about Lindsay Lohan's new hair color. Really? Well that is Yahoo; maybe it does not count. What about NBC? Here is the big news on that site: "MORMON CHURCH TRIES TO LIMIT BAPTISM OF DECEASED JEWS". There is also a long article about seaweed in Japan. There is, however, no mention of Syria and the deaths of thousands. ABC's big story is entitled "Flight Attendant Rant Delays American Airlines Flight". Once again, ABC does not mention Syria. Well, how about CNN? It is pushing an "A to Z Guide to March Madness" and, amazingly, it mentions Syria in a small story about a proposal for a plan for humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees.

We cannot become inured to death and mayhem. No matter how often we hear that Syrians are being slaughtered by the Assad regime, we can never become "bored" with the story. The story is a big deal and it ought to be treated as such.