This is why we don’t tempt fate, Mr. President. The minute the U.S. declared the use of chemical weapons a “red line” whose crossing would trigger intervention, it set itself up for all kinds of difficulties. The chemical weapons have arrived:

Speaking to reporters, a Western diplomat said, “In one case we have hard evidence,” AFP reported late Thursday.

“There are several examples where we are quite sure that shells with chemicals have been used in a very sporadic way,” the diplomat added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Syrian government initially called for a U.N. investigation after it claimed rebels attacked the Khan al-Assal area of Aleppo province March 19. Opposition groups disputed this, and said the army was responsible.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon assembled an investigation unit, but Syria then refused entry to the team, saying it wanted wider access than it was willing to give.

The U.S. has backed itself into a corner here. The “red line” was always a weak maneuver: it was a completely arbitrary, mostly meaningless way of keeping out of the conflict while still claiming to be the world’s humanitarian police. They don’t seem to have had any Plan B for if and when their line was crossed. They were kicking the can down the road, and now that they’ve caught up to it they’re in a bit of a spot. Last year, China already called the “red line” policy an excuse for American intervention (it was not an official statement, though). The reality is the opposite: Obama wants to stay out of it. Already he’s getting pressure from American politicians (oh, McCain, you’re so reliable), but what’s much more important—and much worse—is the fact that in order to keep staying out of Syria, ever since the March 19 attack the White House has been disputing and even flat-out denying that chemical weapons were used at all.

Initially, the regime claimed that the rebels (as always, I ask: which rebels?) had used chemical weapons, and the U.S. rejected the claim. (They had decent reasons to do so, initially, but we also can’t assume that just because we’re rooting for the rebels they’re perfect angels who wouldn’t use such weapons if they got access to them.) The “hard evidence” the U.N. says it has would seem to reject that rejection. For the purpose of the point I’m making here, what matters is that the U.S. is visibly trying to get out of having to make their public threat into a real, actionable promise. As far back as December, when the regime was moving some of its weapons, Obama was starting to…massage, I suppose, the “red line” policy, qualifying and redefining it.

This all illustrates the second problem, which is that the “red line” was hypocritical. There’s a material difference in death and suffering between major, widespread chemical warfare and conventional war, absolutely. But when you make it a zero-tolerance policy, a red line, then it loses all meaning: someone somewhere in Syria uses exactly one chemical shell and now all of a sudden it’s a whole new ballgame? This is why the White House was tying itself in knots over the meaning of the verb “move.” That doesn’t make them humanitarians, it doesn’t make them look like humanitarians, it weakens any effect threats of this sort are likely to have, and it doesn’t help anyone in Syria.

I don’t mean to imply that the apparent use of chemical weapons isn’t important or that the war in Syria isn’t ugly enough as it is. My point is that if the U.S. really wants so badly to seem like a humanitarian actor, then it has to make its decisions on that front in a way that makes sense and seems meaningful. In this case, now that the “red line” has been crossed, it only makes it more obvious that it didn’t mean anything. 

I also don’t mean to say that the U.S. shouldn’t be sure of whether chemical weapons were used and who used them before it goes charging into Syria. I don’t even mean to say that it should get involved at all. But this is the situation the administration has gotten itself into. My personal stance is that humanitarian intervention almost never does what it’s designed to and instead just muddies any situation further (while often resulting in yet more of the same abuses); I wish the U.S. would get out of the business of it entirely. But that can’t be done by drawing arbitrary lines labeled “this far, and no further” and then squirming when those lines are crossed.

bienvenu-myriel:

publicshaming:

The victim-blaming, slut-shaming reactions to the Steubenville rape case keep pouring in. You can check out my first post on it here. Pointing out the worst responses and reactions to this all would not be complete without posting a clip of CNN grieving over the “ruined lives of the boys.” Watch that HERE.

Now, here are a few new tweets that make some of the reactions in my previous Steubenville post look soft…

“They did with most people in their situation would have done.” No. They did not.

And, finally, let Kayla here tell you of an “all too familiar” story…

“Be responsible for your actions ladies before your drunken decisions ruin innocent lives.”

This makes me so angry that I cannot string together a coherent sentence on the subject, except that to these people, my date rape never happened. I’m so tired of this shit.