Emily Tedesco, senior
If I had to sum up one thing I’ve learned in college, it would be this: People are people.
This week, the people of the United States are in discussion and members of Congress are evaluating whether or not we should intervene in the Syrian civil war. Think outside the box when it comes to intervention in Syria. You know which box I’m talking about: turn off your TV. Forget watching season 4 of This Dreadful Economy or that horror show Barack Obama: Is He for Real or is this George W. Bush Episode II?
President Obama said a few months ago that the use of chemical weapons is the ‘red line’ that would spark his intervention in the Syrian civil war. We’ve seen that term thrown around, in the news and in our own lives. Now the world knows that Assad unquestionably used chemical weapons to systematically exterminate 1,429 people on the morning of August 21st. On September 3rd, Secretary of State John Kerry testified to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that we know “beyond any reasonable doubt” that Assad prepared for this attack, telling his own forces to use gas masks. There is physical evidence that shows every geographical point of impact that was affected by Sarin. It all landed in opposition-controlled territory. This was no accident.
Sarin is an odorless nerve agent that has been deemed a Schedule 1 Substance by the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention. A Schedule 1 Substance is a material that has little or no use outside of chemical warfare. Through his use of Sarin, Bashar Al Assad’s intentions are not only homicidal, but they are transparently so.
So let me throw in the idea of R2P—the Responsibility to Protect. Despite the continuous debate over R2P, heads of state from every corner of the world have endorsed a version of R2P at the 2005 meeting of the United Nations. Article 138 of the Summit Outcome Document articulates the duty of individual sovereign states to protect their own populations from four types of mass atrocity crimes: war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. It is also their responsibility to prevent the commission and incitement of said crimes. The following paragraph, Article 139, grants the international community (working through the UN) with the counteractive power to take collective action, “on a case by- case basis,” using the tools necessary- humanitarian, diplomatic and even forceful means in situations where national authorities “are manifestly failing to protect their populations” from such crimes. Article 139 also confirms the commitment of the international community to support states in building the means to defend their populations, and to act before crises “fully develop.”
Secretary Kerry said it well in his testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee, “It’s about humanity’s red line, and it’s a red line that anyone with a conscience out to draw.” This is about your red line, young citizens!
The Syrian Opposition is a group of people who are unequipped, scared, and in my view, unprotected by the international community. Remember these three things: first, Bashar Al Assad has violated international law with his treatment of his citizens. Second, this man’s regime has screwed up the livelihoods of literally millions of people. Last, people are people.
—Emily Tedesco Senior