Thousands of once self-sufficient people having to line up for food aid. So far over 200,000 people have been killed in the 3-sided Syrian Civil War, half the population has been displaced from their homes, and most schools have just entirely shut down or operate sporadically. This war rivals or exceeds the brutality and amazing complexity of even the Balkan wars in the 90s. Ultimately, the Balkan wars were brought to a close though – even though for years it looked like there were no solutions – through massive military bombardment by NATO of an entrenched Russian-backed dictator, intensive diplomacy, and ultimately holding the worst offenders accountable. I’d suggest the same for Syria but just look at how well this has worked in Iraq. I’m thinking in 2015 we will see an escalation of the war with NATO taking on Assad and Arab nations/Kurds/Iran taking on ISIL. We’ll see. I hope 2015 brings this awful war closer to its end.