President Barack Obama sought approval from The House of Representatives to take military action against the Syrian government for using chemical weapons on its own people on Tuesday.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., both came together—a rare bipartisan agreement—and supported Obama’s plan.
Obama said at a press conference, prior to meeting with House of Representatives, the United States must take action to show Syria there are consequences to actions like these.
The action approved would be to degrade the Syrian government’s capabilities and that would most likely be through the use of drones.
But Syrian’s conflict is countries away with an entire ocean between it and Dixie State University students. As it turns out, even congressionally-approved attacks aren’t showing up on some students’ minds.
Jake Dalton, a junior accounting major from Tooele, said he wasn’t aware of any conflicts with Syria and his attention was focused on school rather than national news.
He said America might be affected by the Syrian conflict—if only indirectly.
“Obviously whenever there’s something like that that goes on, then there’s threats back and forth, and you have people who have to go there,” he said, like family members and friends.
He wasn’t the only student who didn’t know the U.S. government OK’d a military strike against the Middle Eastern country.
Lindsay Larsen, a freshman communication major from Pocatello, Idaho, said she usually keeps up to date on current affairs but hasn’t had the time to do so since she moved to St. George. She hadn’t heard about the strike against Syria, but she said Americans could eventually feel the impact.
“I think it’s affecting our country, so obviously it’s going to have an impact,” she said. “I don’t know how severe it will be because a lot of times (American civilians) are not involved with things that are happening over seas.”
Abby Crompton, a freshman general education major from Salt Lake City, said she isn’t in the habit of checking global news and said the Syrian may not even have an impact at all.
“It just depends on how far it goes,” she said.
John Hunter, a freshman business major from Cottonwood Heights, said St. George residents wouldn’t get any backlash at all from America’s presence in Syria, but he said those ordering the strike may get a different kind of impression.
“I think, more or less, it would be a moral issue to the person,” he said. “But as far as our community here in Utah, I don’t necessarily think it’s going to affect us.”
Hunter echoed the sentiments of most of the other students interviewed in regards to following national news.
“I may have seen it on the news, but I probably wouldn’t have looked it up on the Internet or anything,” he said.
