KWL

http://world.time.com/2013/08/22/the-known-knowns-and-known-unknowns-of-a-chemical-attack-in-syria/


While reading this article all I could think about was how Mother Agnes would agree with some of the statements made. By the end of the article I felt as if I had enough information to fill in a whole KWL chart, but with what is known to be true, what we think is true, and what is actually true. The article starts by saying the attacks may not have been targeted towards anyone that the chemicals can effect people different ways depending on different factors such as health and age. This reminded me of Mother Agnes' few of the kids not really being dead. Which goes along with the sub topic in the article of number of deaths, it mentioned how they have from 100- 1400 people on a death list but are not doing cross checking with names so it is unclear if that number is right or not. When I read that small section I was shocked, how do you not know the exact number of people killed, I feel like that should be something closely looked at.

whats going on today?

http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/how-the-u-s-will-dispose-of-syria-s-chemical-weapons-20131203


I thought that since we had articles giving some general information about the attacks and some history on the civil war it only made sense to see what was going on now with the chemicals weapons in Syria; and after searching around a little I found this article that tied them all together. Being only published three days ago it has some of the newest information not only about what is going to happen in Syria with the chemical weapons, but also the United States involvement in that. After reading all the other post about what has been going on in Syria, I finally understood what all the craziness was and is about, so I was so happy to read at the start of the article that al-Assad said he would get rid of all the chemical weapons in Syria. The article gives you a basic understanding of how they are planning on carrying out this very dangerous and expensive plan.

The Write up!!!

For the reflective write up I would like each of you to analyze what happened within the blog as a whole. This analysis should include 2-4 ‘themes’ or ‘categories’--preferably, though not necessarily exclusively, themes from class. Trace your chosen themes through the posts on the blog. You can quote from the posts, or the media itself, but please cite it in the paper. Please discuss posts that are not just your own! Using comments as well as primary posts to support your themes is encouraged. In many ways I picture this project as a research paper without the final product. What I mean by this is that online you are discovering and interrogating sources—analyzing them as raw pieces of data. In this written (and more formal) portion, I want you to create/impose order on the chaos that is data collection. This write up is just the analysis or discussion portion of a ‘normal’ paper, with some ‘conclusionary’ remarks for good measure. This essay may include personal observations and will definitely show what you thought most interesting. The essays should be between 3-5pages long and are due on BB by 5pm on December 16, 2013 (our final period). If you need some help likely categories might include geopolitics, individual perspectives, Al-Jazeera vs BBC, how the US is involved, role of oil, regime change..... These are *just examples* you do NOT need to use these!!! I wanted to give you some clues as to the possibilities so it would be easier to see the themes for yourselves.

political cartoon

I find this cartoon to be both very interesting and also telling of peoples reactions when it came to the use of Chemical Weapons. This cartoon is trying to depict the fact that many people ignored what was going on in Syria leading up to these attacks. Once the term chemical weapons was used the issues in Syria gained a lot more awareness that they didnt previously have. I think this goes for many events that happen in the world. There are often many things that lead up to these big attacks and these things are the things that often go unnoticed. This political cartoon was posted on the website oatmeal.Com which post a number of political cartoons. This political cartoon was also found on a blog which included the reactions of many people. I believe this cartoon was drawn towards the western world to show how they react to middle eastern events. Do you think that Americans react this way when it come chemical weapons and other extreme weapon use?

aljazeera article

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/2013827531476414.html

I found this article particular interesting because it shows another view on the attacks and the United States Response to the Attacks. This article was written and posted on the Aljazeera website and its target audience are people that aren't American, and might not know to much about American policy. This article is saying That Kerry is blaming the attacks on Damascus and the people of Damascus. They used a direct quote to show what they believed. I dont think Kerry was attacking the city of Damascus itself, but so attacking the fact the Syrian regime wasn't cooperating with the UN investigation. He also was attacking the claims that the event may have been frabacated. It was also interesting to read the comments left on this article from individuals from multiple countries and see their take on the situation. Many believed that Syria should be left alone to handle its own problems without outside intervention. Do you think Kerry was blaming Damascus for the attacks?

Third Post!

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/c/chemical_attack.asp

I found really interesting cartoons that are related to chemical attack in this website.I think these cartoons show how human beings are believing what they see on TV and how media hides the truth from people.Some of the other cartoons on here show how media comes up with different stories related to attacking so they could grab peoples attention.I hope you guys like this website. You'll see more of these cartoons If you click on "more cartoons" option at the bottom of the page.

Syrian civil war from the beginning

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowaIjF5iE0

This video takes a look at why the civil war started and what has been done since the beginning.  I though it would be good to put on the blog to give a good over all perspective on the civil war. As i was looking through videos on chemical attacks in Syria I found this one on why the civil started in the first place. I kinda knew why but not the whole story about the who, what, why, when and how. After watching the video I have a better understanding on the events that happened to begin the civil war. Once protest started for and against the new President, security forces opened fire on the protesters. Some of these videos did reach the West. But could not be verified as authentic. The governments military tried to force the protesters to stop by using brute force on the places that they did not yet control. This raises a question if the government had a history of trying to take back control by using brute force, is it then also possibile that they would try and use any means necessary to take back control? Even going so far as releasing chemical weapons on civilians? Once the chemical attacks began fingers immediately where pointed at each other. The government at the insurgents and the insurgents to the government. Another question is raised why would insurgents attack civilians? To me it does not make much sense wouldn't they attack the government and military facilities not civilian people?