A MORAL DELIMMA

Few things in life are black and white; good or bad; right or wrong.  

We live in a world of grey hues.  

The Syrian government has brutally killed civilians using so called weapon of mass destruction – indiscriminate gassing of a population.

When we see the pictures of the suffering and dying our moral instinct is to want to intervene: retribution – revenge against the perpetrators of this atrocity.  

But let’s put this in a microcosm we can relate to: 

You are taking a walk with your family in early Harlan, Kentucky.  Across the street you see a young Hatfield man shaking and slapping his McCoy wife.   The Hatfields are a clan and if you interfere you and your family will be the target of Hatfield aggression for a long as you live in Harlan.   The McCoys will be outraged at the Hatfields for the violence against their kin, but you are an outsider and they have no commitment to you.      

Other people are watching and not getting involved: what do you do?

Syria is the same thing in a macro scale.  The middle-east is divided into the Hatfields and McCoys: Sunni and Shiite.  

To further complicate things the Russians are bringing guided missile destroyers and anti-submarine attack destroyers into the Gulf.   What could possibly go wrong there?  

Before we get too morally pious we must remember that the United States is the only country to ever use weapons of mass destruction on a civilian population on a major scale.

I’m just asking.

the Ol’Buzzard