By Alex Irizarry
Staff Writer

Attempting to describe the current state of Syria is difficult at best, with all the varying stories, ideas and opinions. However, one thing we all know is there is a war and people are dying, and the United States needs to take action in the front.

Sit back and watch the fireworks. This has been the United State’s unofficial stance for the past two years while the citizens of Syria have been in civil war. Sit and watch, and we have held to that for the most part. Sure, different countries have made a few supply drops for survivors, but besides that the rest of the world has done close to nothing. However, now that the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, is allegedly using chemical weapons on civilians, President Obama has decided action needs to be taken. To be frank, his decision is far from popular. However this does not make it any less right.

We do need to take some kind of action on the fronts of the Syrian Civil War. Not because it is the best decision for our country, but because it is well known that many of the rebels have ties to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda and that Russia is firmly behind the Syrian government, but because above all – it is the morally right decision for us as human beings.

Simply letting these people kill each other in an endless back and forth struggle does not make the world a better place. The U.S. Government cannot simply sit by and let these innocent people die because we are afraid of the after effects on our country. Yes, there could be casualties, we could wind up with an Al-Qaeda led nation on our hands, we could make things worse in the Middle East, but we could also make the region stable for the first times in years.

After the hardships America has faced in Iraq and Afghanistan during the War on Terror, we need a moral victory. Yes, there were a few small victories, and we have done some real good in Afghanistan after overthrowing the rulers there. But in the overall picture Iraq is still a mess, and we have yet to complete our initial goal of terminating Al-Qaeda. Syria can give us a true moral victory, this is a situation where we can go into another country and do some real good. We can save the lives of innocent people caught in the middle of a struggle they might not be a part of. That is the true win for the world. Not that good won the day, because honestly there isn’t a good side fighting the war in Syria right now, but that lives were saved.

Neither the rebels nor the government in Syria are filled with upstanding citizens. In fact, most of them are criminals and murderers. I completely understand why politicians and the American majority say we should not intervene because it would mean working with our sworn enemies for the past 12 years. It could mean going into war with Russia, something America simply cannot afford right now. In the worst-case scenario, this could lead to another World War. All of the points against going into Syria are correct, and I’m not going to sit here and attempt to deny these facts.

But if going into Syria can stop the war, if it can end the bloodshed, then we have to take the risk. We owe it to the world, we it owe to our own heritage, we owe to the patriots that fought in the Revolutionary War. They fought because they believed that every man on earth is created equal, and we are all entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We are all entitled to be free of death and destruction, no should suffer because of political discrepancies or old conflicts.

Not to mention, while we are sitting here in debating our next move, Russia has come in and pulled the rug out from us. They are in there right now, looking like heroes and simultaneously making the United States look like fools. President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has even gone so far as to call out American politicians as idiots in interviews. Most say its time to put out any ideas of action, to clean up shop before it’s too late. I say this should give us more reason to act now. Neither Assad nor Putin can be trusted to keep their word, this is something they both have proven in the past. We are dealing with the worst kinds of butchers and thugs, and we are willing to leave Syria in their hands?

So yes, I believe America needs to do something out in Syria. We cannot count on the rest of the world to come in and back us up on this, and frankly it should not matter. The rest of the world may be afraid to act or don’t want to cause greater conflict, but being afraid is not in America’s DNA, we are revolutionaries, we are patriots and, above all, we are leaders.

Everyday we wait more and more people loose their lives, and we look more and more like fools. We have to make up our minds before its too late, because there’s more at stake here than approval ratings. These are people’s lives, and that is something we cannot leave to chance.