And now Amnesty International is accusing the Syrian government of war crimes,
according to the BBC (warning, graphic video footage)
I understand the reluctance of both the United States and the United Nations to get involved in Syria. After all, Iraq and Afghanistan did not work out very well.
Unfortunately, this may be the type of situation that happened in Rwanda 20 years ago. The international community was too scared to step in and stop the violence, and the UN's efforts turned out to be too little too late. The final result was genocide, refugee camps, and the destabilization of the region. And since nobody learns a lesson the first time, it happened again in Darfur.
Obviously, the parallels between Rwanda and Syria are limited, but that does not mean that the repercussions will not be similar. Already thousands of people have been killed, and
hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled the country, mostly to neighboring countries with limited capability to accommodate them. And there is always the danger that if the UN fails to act in an official capacity, others (Iran, Russia, maybe even China) will step in and do it themselves, risking the initiation of a proxy conflict.
Basically, we're damned if we do, damned if we don't.