Writing my article last week got me to thinking about something else. It’s something that has crossed my mind a few times and I’ve never really thought of it in the sense that I have been this past week. It was my suggestion that the United States should take the position of non-involvement with the civil war taking place in Syria. That got me to thinking that I took part in a very similar situation when I deployed to Iraq. Iraq was on the brink of a civil war, and Saddam Hussein was essentially committing genocide against his people, and needed to be removed. I know there are a lot of different opinions when it comes to the war in Iraq. Many people were strongly opposed to sending troops in, but I rather hope that most people are against genocide.

Now there are people who are debating whether or not America should intervene in Syria before it turns into a full blown civil war. I’m of the opinion that war isn’t something that should be jumped into hastily, and should be avoided at all costs because of the toll it takes on a country and its citizens, but as we’ve learned, sometimes it cannot be avoided. Thus far in Syria there have been an estimated 90-100,000 deaths as a result of the conflict. America once had its own civil war that cost roughly 650,000 American lives. This is a tremendous price to pay for a difference of opinions. The difference between our Civil War and the one that’s about to lose control in Syria is the media and much more efficient methods of killing people. Now people from around the world can actually get live updates, see pictures, and hear first-hand stories as they happen about the atrocities of civil war. War is a very ugly thing, and sometimes bad things happen to good people, and that’s never been more evident than recent conflicts around the world being shoved in our faces on TV and the internet. People now can’t help but see what soldiers have seen for centuries. And the methods of killing people today are far more advanced than in the 1860’s. One person with a bomb can kill hundreds of people, and missiles can wipe out city blocks.

The question then becomes, does someone with the ability and resources to stop it, have the responsibility to help stop it? I know there are people who disagree with my, but I believe the best answer is no and that means people will die. As is usually the case, that will upset people, but the world is an imperfect and unfair place. The world has been shaped and reshaped by wars since the beginning of mankind. As evidenced in Iraq, we could send soldiers to Syria for ten years or one hundred years and the different religions, races, and political beliefs will still be killing each other when we leave. The only way that I see for this situation to eventually fizzle out is probably the worst one, and that is for the country to go through its own civil war, which would result in a lot of death and destruction. I realize the situation is far more complex than that when you take into consideration the effects it could have on the stability of the entire Middle East. I’m not a foreign policy expert, but if I’m aware that if we stop giving aid to countries in bad situations or with questionable leaders, someone else will step in and take our place, thus creating two enemies of America.

The points I’ve discussed have been building towards what I personally think is the best foreign policy in war torn places like Syria, and now, once again, Iraq as well. Any intervention inserted into that unstable of a situation is going to do two things immediately; one, it’s going to fuel the fires of whichever different factions are fighting, and two, it’s going to get American soldiers killed fighting for a cause that is not their own, and I can think of no worse tragedy than that. So once again, I’m back at completely staying out of it, which will undoubtedly result in some horrific and gruesome actions being taken during the course of their civil war. But, if the people fighting in it are not satisfied with its end result, then more will die and the process will continue until there is nothing left which would be another terrible tragedy in this period of time in which violence is the only international language that everyone seems to understand. I’ll wrap it up with a quote from George Carlin who explains it quite nicely when he says, “Live and let live, and anybody who can’t abide by that philosophy we take em out back and shoot em.”

drfarwell@hotmail.com