Response To Comments

I had a few comments yesterday from my post on Facebook that linked my blog about Syria and not getting involved.  Before I begin my response, let me first state that both comments were from good friends of mine whose opinions I respect, yet still must respond to.  The first comment is as follows (and yes I am copy and pasting it without the explicit permission of the commenter): "Who is to hold Syria responsible for using Sarin gas on it's civilians? Do we let them just get away with their apparent disregard for international law and human rights? If so, what type of message does that send, and how will that message be interpreted by the rest of the world?"  If you want to talk about who is to hold Syria responsible, I thought that we had a United Nations (albeit a defunct U.N.) that was supposed to handle matters such as this.  It should be up to them to create a unified response to the chemical attack with the agreement of all nations who are members.  The fact that certain nations don't want to respond, i.e. Russia, possibly China, should not mean that we bypass them and act on our own or in accordance with 1 or 2 other countries.  Further, if we want to talk about holding countries responsible for chemical attacks, the worst one in modern history, the 1988 attack by Iraq on a small Kurdish town that killed over 3,000 went unanswered and the most that happened as a result was finger pointing.  Iran did it, no Iraq did it, no Iran.  Nobody felt the need to go in a bomb Iraq at that time or for that matter impose sanctions on them, in large part because there were a number of developed nations who supplied them with the chemical weapons they used in the attack.  What has changed since then?  We did not set the example then, so why set it now unilateraly or bilaterally or however you want to look at it.  Syria currently has not ratified the treaty or whatever you will on the use of chemical weapons, therefore, it can do what it wants.  A horrible position to take, yes, but if they have not agreed not to use chemical weapons in any means, who are we to fly halfway around the world and make them agree not to use them.  Granted, I agree that any use of chemical weapons should be banned world wide and the fact that they were used by Syria is a tragedy, but there should be a unified response to them.  I can hear the arguments already to my statements.  "Should we then follow the rest of the world and not be the bigger nation, the one who holds life and humanity a step above others?"  If that is the argument to my statements, then what about all those instances in Africa, crimes against humanity in which thousands of one tribe are raped, mutilated, and killed by another tribe that go unanswered and largely un-noticed by us?  If we put our foot into every instance in which a crime against humanity were committed, then we would be spread so thin we could be walked all over.  So 1400 Syrians are more important than a far larger number of tribal Africans?  Do we pick and choose which crime we answer to?  If so, then perhaps we should look at where our underlying interest are.  (And just for the record, my comment about Obama was not in reference to him getting us into any other war, I know he didn't start the issues in Iraq or Afghanistan, but he did bomb Libya.)

 

Now on to the second comment which reads: "Alex - I'm standing next to you and I'm beating up my little brother, wailing on him. Poor kid was pretty scrawny to begin with, but now I'm just stomping on him. You wouldn't do anything? What about the Jews during the holocaust? Should we have "let them figure out Germany." ? ?"   In regards to the second part of the comment in which Germany and the Jews were dredged out of history, I think I have answered that with part of my response to the first comment in which I state that if we are to respond to one act of genocide, use of chemical weapons, are crime against humanity, then we should respond to all of them.   Now on to the first part of the comment.  If I were standing next to you, Anthony as you were pummeling your little brother, would the correct response be to cut off your hands and your feet so that you could not pummel him anymore?  Or maybe I should take your head and slam it into the ground so that the thought of pummeling him were eradicated from your brain.   Neither response improves the situation.  By cutting of your hands and your feet, I am showing your little brother that the only way to solve a situation of violence is with more violence.  If he sees that and learns from it, what is to say that he doesn't react in a similar way at some future point in time.  Yes, by going in and bombing certain tragets in Syria that hold the capabilites for carrying out future chemical attacks we could potentially save thousands more.  But we can't bring back the dead.  No matter what we do, the suffering and loss already felt by those related to the victims of the chemical attack will not be healed by us bombing Syria.  Sure, we might make them feel better for a while, but it won't take away their loss.  What we are doing is acting out of revenge for lives lost.   Is violence answered by violence a way we want to teach our children to grow up?  You say that I am one of the most caring people you know.  Well, I do care about human life, but not the expense of more human life.  I would rather not have my son grow up in a world where the only response is a violent one.  We see where that has gotten us so far.  It has not decreased violence in the world, but added to it.  By re-inforcing that violent acts should be acted upon with more violent acts, we are only perpetuating violence in this world.  Is it a tragedy that those Syrians were killed with chemical weapons?  Absolutely, I would never say anything otherwise.  But for us to respond militarily is not the answer.  Do I have the answer?  Absolutely not, but I would advocate non-violent measures anyday over violent ones.   Reverting back to earlier in this paragraph, and just briefly before I wrap this up (I am sure temporarily), say their were people standing near by when I went to go cut off your hands and feet to save your brother with my samurai sword that I keep strapped to my back (hypothetically of course) and happened to injure them as well.  Would that "collateral damage" be acceptable if it were to save your brother from a pummeling? 

In the end, I do care about human life.  It is sacred, should never be taken by another, and we should always look to protect others.  That being said, we can't act violently against others in the wake of violence.   I do not have the answer, but for me, the answer is not going and bombing Syria.  That will solve nothing and in the long run, probably create more issues than there were to begin with.  Of course we can live with it because we are half a world away and as long as we take out chemical weapons, who cares.  There are much larger issues at stake than just taking out revenge for lives lost.  With that, I leave it in your hands.