As the week-long Labor Day vacation came to an end, Congress arrived with a very large agenda. One main point on that agenda was to vote on taking a military strike on Syria. A poll from The Washington Post found that 223 House members voted either “no” or “leaning no” on the Syria topic. Which means, if that poll were to stay the same for the vote, it exceeds the 217 votes needed to stop the United States from attacking Syria. According to Fox News, there is most likely going to be a House vote held sometime during the week of Sept. 16.
This crisis in Syria has been a whorl wind of decision making for President Obama. Military officials have been asked to revise their plans fifty times since the Pentagon began to consider action, one source told Fox News. President Obama had arrived in Russia on Thursday, observing the U.S.’s already declining relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin to be worse than ever, and Russia being very close diplomatically with Syria.
Vladimir Putin and Obama talked with each other specifically about Syria for 20 to 30 minutes, according to CNN. After the conversation, Obama acknowledged that Putin was most likely not going to support his call for action against Syria. Putin then told reporters that “He doesn’t agree with me, I don’t agree with him, but we listened to each other.” (CNN)
In a statement issued on Friday, Sept. 6, a bare majority of the Group of 20 (also known as G-20), 11 out of the 20 members believe that there is enough evidence that points to the Syrian government being accountable for the attack. It continues to say that “Those who perpetrated these crimes must be held accountable.” The G-20 was made to keep a UN Security Council to authorize military strikes.
The decision of whether or not to invade Syria is one of the biggest choices that the United States has had to make, and can change some relationships with other countries overseas if we attack. In a poll done at Bloomsburg University, students who believe that we the U.S. should not attack have stated that we are not economically prepared to do so or potentially go to war with Syria. Others say that the United States should just not get involved. Lastly, some students have said that we are just now slowly getting out of the wars we have been fighting for ten years, so they question why we should begin to fight in a new war.
On the other hand, students who believe that we should fight have stated that the Syrian people need aid, and need assurance that they are safe where they live, and nothing will happen to them again. Another commented saying that they are for international relations whether it was negative or positive.
