As the year progresses, many students are finding themselves caught up in the normal things of life — school, work, gossip, girls, boys, friends etc. The only problem with this is that this year is not like any other year the world has faced.

Currently, there are a lot of problems between the United States and Syria that could drastically affect everyone’s life. Some of us have heard a bit about the Syria issues and paid little to no attention, while a few of us are following it every day.

Being one of those individuals, I realize the importance of everybody knowing what’s going on in this world. Not to strike fear or paranoia, but this very well could be the end of America as we currently know it.

Unfortunately, that’s the blunt truth. Everybody should at least be keeping caught up on what Is happening in Syria, considering the U.S. is thinking of becoming involved. That involvement will affect everything you’ve planned for your life, and possibly even take your life away. People need to realize that if this plays out the way it seems it’s going to play out, the U.S. currently stands little to no chance in surviving.

Now that I have your attention, it is time you learn about why this is happening.

Many years ago there was a treaty signed by all nations except Syria and a couple allies restricting the production and use of chemical weapons. The world agreed that the use of chemical weapons on its enemies and especially on its civilians is beyond inhumane.

However, just because Syria and a few other nations didn’t sign the treaty, that doesn’t mean they can do whatever they want with chemical weapons. They still were restricted, considering everybody else agreed not to use.

Syria has been in a Civil War between the people and the government for a few years. While there have been other times, the most recent chemical attack by the Syrian government was a couple weeks ago that killed off more than 1,500 civilians, including more than 500 infants and children while they were sleeping.

These weren’t rebels or fighters. They were plain civilians that who gassed away in the middle of the night with no warning.

President Barack Obama has ordered warships toward Syria and made multiple threats saying that because of their actions, somebody needs to rise up and defend the innocent. Obama has said that he will launch air strikes and wage war to bring down Assad, the leader and direct suspect of using the chemical gas to kill his own people in the night.

Since then, Syria has said if the U.S. gets involved in the Civil War, they will retaliate with “catastrophic consequences.”

Following that, Russia (another country stockpiled with nuclear weapons and soldiers) has said if we attack Syria, they will declare war on the United States as allies to Syria because they also believe it is none of our business to get involved. A couple days after that, China said that if we attack Syria and Russia wages war on us along with Syria, they too will become allies against us.

For obvious reasons, there has been an uproar throughout the United Nations (a group of nations allied together and created after World War II to prevent World War III from ever happening) on if Obama should do this and what happens if he doesn’t do anything.

The problem is this — if we do nothing, we compromise the whole world morally, as that would mean we’re going to allow thousands of innocent helpless people to be killed. We also run the risk of other countries taking our inaction as a sign that they too can begin production of chemical weapons because the U.S. is too unstable and committed to the “we only care if it directly affects our country” idea.

This could lead to more countries using chemical weapons and killing off the innocents, which would basically be making all the Middle East destroy each other. Also, we know that if we do nothing, future generations will know we did nothing and will frown upon the U.S.

If we do attack, Syria promises retaliation (possibly chemical or nuclear) while Russia & China (two of the biggest, most populated countries whom also have a lot of nuclear warfare) have promised to back them up. If it goes nuclear on either side, it’s over.

If anybody throughout this war presses the button, the other country is immediately sending one back and the radiation and damage caused by hundreds of nukes going off throughout the world would inevitably be the end of the world.

Looking from a non-nuclear standpoint China and Russia have extreme capabilities as far as weapons and technology goes. Also, together they would have our soldiers outmanned by quite a bit.

Still, everybody knows that battles aren’t won solely by numbers. It’s about how well planned attacks hit and precision and accuracy.

However, so far the United Nations has said that they don’t approve of the attack against Syria and won’t back up the U.S. They have said that we have about a 90 day span of time to attack them and that we couldn’t have any boots on the ground (no ground soldiers invading Syria).

Still, this 90 day limit might lead us to go all out on the air and naval strikes since we know we have a time limit and if we go all out then Syria, China, and Russia are all coming after us with enough force to probably beat the U.S.

If this happens we would surrender and from thereon be ruled by Russian government or Chinese government. The great nation of America might be seeing its last days.

So, if you’ve read up to this point, you realize the importance and impact that this could have on everything and everyone. We are on the brink of World War III and people for some reason have no clue what’s going on. I hope that, with this information, you decide to stay informed because if you don’t we may be fighting the World War we’ve all been fearing.

Nuclear and chemical warfare is not battle that anyone wins.