Cotton anniversary

Its the two-year anniversary of the start of the Syrian revolution. Since I'm not on the ground in Syria, I'll leave it to the experts to describe the war two years on:

This is what the Syrian war looks like. Every man with a gun is an authority, and for some the enemy—who was once their neighbor—is no longer a person. How can a man who has inflicted such harm, and become used to that sort of power, let it go and step back—especially if others do not?