Déjà vu

I find it depressing to watch and listen while the World, or the United Nations, or the West, or the Coalition of the Willing, or whatever “we” are calling “ourselves” today, tries to work out an agreement to attack Ira..., I mean Syria.

As we all know, the Syrians are the bad guys. By this I mean Sadda..., er Assad, of course. And the other Syrians, the rebels, are the good g..., well the not as b..., well, okay, their bad guys too, but they haven’t used weapons of mass destruction. At least we’re almost certain they haven’t because, as far as we know, they don’t have any. And we’re really good at knowing who has them.

Of course if the rebels had them they might very well use them, but we are told they don’t and didn’t. And our leaders do not lie. The Syrian government used them “on their own people”. – Where have we heard this before? – Admittedly, this is the nature of civil war, forces within a nation fighting other forces within the same nation, i.e., all fighting “own people”. But never mind all that. The government of Syria did it even after “we” told them not to, and now someone is gonna get hurt.

Will attacking them make “us” safer?

Not directly. But we’re not really in any danger from these weapons anyway.

Will attacking them make the world safer?

We can’t be certain. But it will surely send the clear and unequivocal message that “we” probably won’t put up with this sort of thing in future, and just might, depending on who does it, and what the situation is, attack the next folks who use them, if, of course, it’s determined to be in “our” interest to do so.

Will attacking Syria make the Syrian people any safer?

Who knows? We’re assured that this is not about regime change, so, presumably, the same folks will be in charge when it’s all over. But it might discourage the use of chemical weapons in future. And, then again, it might not. Que sera, sera.

So, what will an attack on Syria do?

It will serve as another example of the world’s only remaining super power, with or without whatever support it can muster, forcing upon a smaller nation compliance with international law.

To be sure, international law is a good thing, and the world would be a better place if nations complied. But the superpower in question is one that brazenly ignores international law when it is in it’s interest to do so. It indulges in assassination, torture, espionage on a colossal scale, and a weaponized drone program that terrorizes target populations. The one thing we can be sure an attack on Syria will do is radicalize more people and produce more terrorists. In this sense it will not make anyone safer.

Admittedly, just like the last time, I don’t have any solution to the problem of weapons of mass destruction.  I don’t make any, sell any, use any, or have any. And I think it’s insane for countries to have anything to do with them. And, incidentally, I also think it’s insane for a country to be arming rebels in another country in the hope that these folks will become allies if they win. In other words, I don’t think the US military or government has any solution either.

The Apostle Paul said “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” (Romans 12:18), and Jesus said “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,...” (Luke 6:27). But what did they know?

Jesus also said "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight...”. (John 18:36) So in some sense, since I am a disciple of Jesus, none of this is any of my business. I just find it depressing to watch and listen to it all again.