Battle of Qusair: Syria's Benghazi

In every civil war and domestic conflict there is a turning point where either foreign powers decide to intervene and stop the bloodshed or remain permanently on the sidelines and watch as one completely massacres the other, think the ethnic cleansing that occurred in the 1990's Balkans.

We recently had to make this decision in Libya when Colonel Qaddafi had rebel forces with their backs against the wall and nearly defeated in Benghazi after they were a stone throw's distance from Tripoli just days before. We chose to intervene and thanks to the efforts of NATO air superiority we gave the rebels hope in their fight and now there is no more Qaddafi to plague the world.

France also had to make this decision in the past couple of months when they decided to intervene in the Malian civil war to prevent the Islamic takeover of the once thriving Saharan nation that had been sadly embroiled in ethnic conflict and witnessed the destruction of records and antiques in the ancient Timbuktu.

And now the western world must come to a decision on the question of Syria.... We have a nation where their President is engaged in brutal, massacre-like war crimes against his own populace and the rebels are once again a ragtag band of largely non-military fighters being pinned by the combined efforts of their own military and foreign terrorists from neighboring Lebanon.

The name of this battlefield is Qusair but the consequences are the same as in the Libyan conflict: al-Assad has a large contingent of Syrian forces and Hezbollah fighters numbering in the thousands besieging the city that is a crucial transportation hub for both sides and rebel fighters cannot afford a defeat in this pivotal fight.

We have watched as Bashar al-Assad has murdered 80,000 of his own people, deploying chemical agents on them in certain cases, and we have watched as mini-massacres have occurred unabated across all Syria and we have watched as Assad had taunted the world with Russian supplied missiles and now Hezbollah fighters, using any weapon or fighter to put down his own people.

Are we done watching as conditions in Qusair deteriorate daily or are we deciding to allow tyranny to win and the opposition to fall in Syria? That is the question we must ask ourselves and our governments, and it would be a good idea to do so now.

What say you?