August 22nd marked the 1-year anniversary of Syrian President Bashar Assad's chemical attack on the Syrian people.
This attack led to 1476 civilian deaths.
After this attack occurred President Obama attempted to build public support for a foreign intervention in Syria. As we all remember President Obama was able to build support. Many were wary of the idea of another war (even though the possibility of full-scale war was never even mentioned) and did not want to intervene at all. Many on the reactionary left also started screaming about how we went into Iraq under false pretenses despite the fact that there was a legitimate humanitarian crisis occurring in Syria at the time. Obama was not falsifying reports.
With the history of the United States to overstep its boundaries in military interventions, and also because of President Obama's notorious use of drone strikes on civilian populations, it is not surprising there was so much opposition to any kind of intervention. Nevertheless, a humanitarian nightmare did happen and the United States did remain silent and neutral in a situation which was unmistakably dire.
What other courses of action could have been taken are now a thing of the past, but it's remarkable how the idea of intervention by way of simple humanitarian aid was barely even discussed by anyone, much less the news media.
A demonstration in Times Square took place to remember the victims of Bashar Assad's attack (technically his regime).
Important to note, while Syria has barely been discussed since the chemical attack and the possibility of foreign intervention, the humanitarian crisis there did not stop. A genocide is still taking place at the hands of Bashar Assad.
Livestreams archives at the following links.
http://www.ustream.tv/...
http://www.ustream.tv/...
A vine of a demonstrator reading the names of those killed in last year's attacks:
https://vine.co/...