Mitch Perry
Good Monday morning to you all.
While the U.S. media will be focused intently on Hillary Clinton‘s health, there’s another issue taking place today that deserves close observation — the tentative truce between the warring factions that’s supposed to happen in Syria tonight at sundown.
The truce was announced last last week between Russia and the U.S., and there is “cautious optimism” this could lead to ending the five-year civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions from the war-torn nation. Under the plan, Syrian government forces will end combat missions in specified opposition-held areas — but will some of the opposition groups?
Nearly a hundred people were killed in a series of bombing raids over the weekend, as the various sides tried to put themselves in the best position for this truce.
Let’s be honest, this isn’t the first ceasefire agreement called for since 2011. The last one was declared on Feb. 27, and ended quickly.
When Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson flubbed his response to what he would do in Syria last week, he was mocked mercilessly by critics.
But the saddest part of the whole scene was that “Aleppo” had never been mentioned so much on Twitter since the conflict began.
We could talk about how the ultimate peace process would dictate that Bashar al-Assad would have to step down from his post leading Syria, something he has consistently refused to do. But that’s sort of getting ahead of the process. Can the violence stop for even a week in Syria? Let’s wait and see.
In other news…
The Latino vote is going strongly for Hillary Clinton in Florida, not surprisingly. A Latino Decisions survey released Friday has her up 62 percent to 27 percent.
Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober was on defense last week, after the mother of a teen involved with alleged sex crime acts said he was “blaming” her daughter.
Democrat Bob Buesing says that on the issues, he’s more in the mainstream with the voters of the state Senate District 18 than his GOP opponent, Dana Young.
