Welp, I Guess We'd Better Talk About Syria

[Content Note: War; death; rape.]

So, here's a very brief recap of where things stand at the moment: On August 21, chemical weapons were used in an attack on Syrian people in Damascus, following President Barack Obama having drawn a "red line" defining that the use of chemical or biological weapons in the ongoing civil war would necessitate US military intervention. Someone in Syria called his bluff, and the US government and intelligence community believes that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is responsible. Assad denies it. In a familiar refrain, President Obama says he has "high confidence" that Assad's regime was behind the attack, despite having released no hard evidence, and Secretary of State John Kerry says that "declassifying any more information could endanger 'sources and methods' of US intelligence gathering."

Congress is divided over striking Syria in response, and the war-fatigued US public isn't behind it: "The CNN/ORC International poll released Monday shows that even though eight in 10 Americans believe that Bashar al-Assad's regime gassed its own people, a strong majority doesn't want Congress to pass a resolution authorizing a military strike against it. More than seven in 10 say such a strike would not achieve significant goals for the US and a similar amount say it's not in the national interest for the US to get involved in Syria's bloody two-year-long civil war."

Secretary Kerry is now saying Assad "has one week to hand over his entire stock of chemical weapons to avoid a military attack [but] added that he had no expectation that the Syrian leader would comply." Assad, meanwhile, says that if the US does strike Syria, "the United States 'should expect everything' and that it will 'pay the price' for its actions."

So that's where we are. A couple points:

1. We've now added a terrific new nightmare doctrine to the garbage disaster that is our foreign policy: Kill as many people as you like with guns! Kill millions! Just don't use chemical weapons, because that we will not abide! (Something something oil.) To put into perspective the cruel absurdity of this threshold for (ostensibly) humanitarian response, nearly half a million women and girls were raped in DR Congo in the span of one year, and we didn't give an infinitesimal fuck (and still don't, as it continues), but a small-scale chemical attack with no definitive proof of responsibility warrants an immediate military intervention. Whut.

2. I am rageful and sad about the chemical attack in Syria. I'm not sure how to draw the line on interventions, and I'm not sure how to answer tough questions about whether the US can or should be the world police. (Ha ha yes I do we shouldn't.) But I do think whether we can or should is a discussion that needs to happen in balance with a discussion of our own needs as a nation. I don't know if President Obama has noticed, but the US is kinda fucked up at the moment. You know in the airplane safety spiels, they always tell you to put on your own oxygen mask before trying to help anyone else? It's kinda one of those deals. We won't be much use to anyone ever if we carry on like we've got an endless capacity to spend resources until we collapse like a flan in a cupboard.

In conclusion: Fuck.