Bloodshed in Syria is continuing to spiral out of control as an uprising against Assad that began in March 2011 has morphed into an armed insurgency.
The area in central Syria has been pounded by syrian artillery and rockets The people of Syria are trying desperately to get out of the country and get across that border.
The United Nations, whose observers were able to visit Houla after the killings of Friday night said at least 108 people died, including 34 women and 49 children, a majority shot dead by shell-fire from artillery and tanks.
UN observers have discovered bodies of 13 men were found lined up in a row, face down, hands tied behind their backs shot execution style in the eastern city of Dair Alzour, Syria. the monitoring mission said Wednesday.
The massacre of the innocents in Houla has turned into a simmering diplomatic disagreement into an escalating confrontation
General Qassem Jamal Suleiman, who headed
the Syrian government's commission of inquiry into the massacre, denied any government role in last week's killings. He said hundreds
of rebel gunmen carried out slaughter after launching coordinated attack on five
security checkpoints. "Government forces did not enter the area where the
massacre occurred, not before the massaccre and or after it," he
said.
The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, called the Syrian government's account "a blatant lie." Survivors and activists say Syria troops or pro-government militia were behid the massacre.
The United States says any military action would need the backing of the United Nations. signaled it would continue down the diplomatic path to end the bloodshed in Syria, but right now the violence is expected to continue.
Military intervention is off the table for most of the international community.The UN seems to be the only real option anybody is considering yet, if diplomacy fails the wider region could be drawn into a bigger war.
Assad is determined to remain in power. Russia wants to keep him in power for its own military reasons, Iran wants to keep him in power , both are prepared to shed a lot of Syrian blood to keep Assad dictatorship going.
The Iranian government says if the United States or other countries intervene militarily in Syria, Israel will be attacked.
Vladmir Putin, newly returning to Russia's presidency illegitimately, has interest in preserving Mr. Assad's regime. Russia,intervening with weapons, even claims that a lot of the atrocities that just happened were not done by the government, that they were done be rebels. The Russians, cold and ruthless, only cares about its strategic position in Syria. (Just weeks ago Putin's inauguration to the Russian presidency for a third time was a military operation, while hundreds of thousands were detained and beaten for protesting his election.)
The United States should back military intervention and arm the Syrian rebels, even without UN authorization. UN approval is not coming while innocent people continue to get slaughtered by their government. This conflict cries for American leadership, American leadership is not there.