Why war with Syria might just be promoting a false reality...
It has often been the case of late that pro-interventionists (I will grant the benefit of the doubt and not tag them as "war mongers" because that is disingenuous) argue that those who are anti-intervention (please grant us the benefit of the doubt that we are not simply greedy isolationists) must respond with a peaceful means of resolution. That we must give an answer to the question of what we can do if not go to war.
Here's the cold reality: An answer does not necessarily exist. This entire issue is a matter of philosophical quarrel. Not all philosophical quarrels have meaningful answers or resolutions.
We live in a world where every evil MUST have an effective response. That's what we tell ourselves. In reality, evil persists against and even evades good. Not necessarily because we do nothing but because there is nothing we can do.
What has become a bit of a cliche is still an excellent statement of poetry:
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
But this is still assuming that the evil/good dichotomy actually exists. If I've learned anything from learning how to think critically, it is that these binaries must be deconstructed. Break it down into its constituent faculties. Evil and good.
It may be the case that there are responses to everything but that they are all a measure of good and evil. So we bomb Syria. That is certainly a response. Is it a good response? Does its good overwhelm its evil? I'm not so sure. Maybe evil and good exist only in theory and practice makes the identifiers unnecessary.
There is no easy answer to the situation in Syria.
I wish reason and compassion were the bases for war. Then none of this would have happened. But war is not often grounded in reason or love. The civil war in Syria certainly is no exception. Willful participation of thousands of people in fighting to the death does not promote much self-reflection.. This is especially the case when the fear of imminent death precludes the possibility of reflection on the field of battle.
When you have an abundance of irrationality, the rejection of the rational, being rational is no longer an effective response. So war devolves into a series of irrationalities that are justified not because they are effective but because they necessarily follow the former and necessarily predict the next. Each irrationality is possessed with a sense that it is not as insane as the former. So it is endorsed for no other reason than the fact that it seems like a wise decision in the face of such stupidity and poor judgement.
I don't think there is a single person here who looks upon the death of 1500+ people from a horrific chemical as a formality of war. It is atrocious in ways most of us will likely never understand. While I know much more about the horrors of radiation poisoning, I still know enough about nerve gas to understand the kind of death dealt upon its victims.
And I'll end on that. What happened was and continues to be a tragedy worthy of international attention and debate. So let's actually reflect on this.
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