Two moralities: clash or complement? One immoral act may be the only way to achieve the moral goal of peace

Pope Francis’ plea for peace in Syria and a day of prayer last Sunday defined what much of the world fervently hopes is the end result of what is an appalling civil war. Almost simultaneously The White House released video clips of children and old people gassed and dying from an attack of chemical weapons, weapons  that the world proclaimed were above and beyond the norms of civilization a hundred years ago and agreed  to ban them for use in war forever. 

  The Pope saw the use of force to be immoral; the Obama administration saw the use of chemical weapons as immoral.   This appears to be  an unsolvable  moral dilemma that gives  shelter to both sides, to  those who oppose US limited intervention in Syria  and the rationalization for the advocates who want to strike.  It is not.   To use one immoral act may be the only way to achieve the moral goal of peace.

Peace, defined as a negotiated end to the conflict that stops the slaughter,  is a wish, a prayer, and a hope, but to get there may require more violence.  So many are  expressing  a belief that if the world put pressure on the Assad regime, embargoes, or so many of the non violent strategies tried to change the behavior of Iran or North Korea, Assad would find his way to the negotiating table.

 It is  not just any  negotiation we should seek. It is negotiation in good faith that would end the conflict and also protect the Christian and Alawite  minorities in Syria from being wiped out by  Sunni  victors.  The specter  of the ethnic cleansing of the Balkan wars  has been  invoked as the reason to protect the Assad regime from collapsing because of US intervention.

That view is  neither logical nor is the goal achievable.  The question  is how can anyone from the outside of Syria convince Bashar al Assad that it is in his interest to negotiate in good faith?  So long as he has allies of Russia and Iran to supply  him with weapons or trading partners in China, embargoes and economic pressure or world condemnation  would not work.  So long as he perceives he is winning, that he controls every major urban city, as he does now, why should he give away  ground or power?

Something must change. Either the West arming the moderate opposition or a strike that would take out Assad’s air and delivery systems so that the playing field is so leveled the futility of continued bloodshed will be obvious to both sides.  The sad part is that combatants who holster their WMD will still draw out the shed of civilian blood for a long time with conventional methods, but a strategic strike by missiles and air that levels the playing field  would have quicker results.  What about collateral damage of missile and air strikes? It all depends upon the surgical skill of those able to carry out the mission, and only the US has that  capability.

 That is the lesson of the NATO intervention in Bosnia in the 1990’s.  Until airstrikes took down the Serbian air force ,  the Bosnian Serbs/Serbia itself, saw no reason to come to the table.  The massacre of 7,000 men  in the killing fields of Srebrenica and the shelling of Sarajevo and  Dubrovnik caused moral outrage throughout the world , but  moral condemnation was not enough.  The reality of those desperately  seeking or keeping power is that they only understand the use of sticks and stones, because words would never hurt them. The skill of US armed forces, without boots on the ground, kept resulting civilian casualties to a bare minimum and resulted in the Dayton accord that ended the bloodshed while protecting  the minorities.

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Outrage. I think we should have more. Liberals used to have it, but not about Syria

Outrage.   I  think we should have more.    Listening to the Senate hearings and cable talk , I was amazed how  the degree of outrage about Syria  broke along ideological lines.  The Tea Party and the libertarians joined forces with the far left to conclude that whatever happened in Syria was   was not worth risking the unforeseen fallout from any military action, no matter how limited.  “Yes, so sad those pictures of innocent children wrapped in white lying side by side, sometimes next to their parents, but it is none of our business and feared repercussions make the risk of an even limited strike  too much".

 I would expect no less from   the ideological isolationists. They are related to those who turned a blind eye as England was blitzed and Hitler marched across Europe.  But  excuse me,  liberals. It used to be your business.

  You used to be the outraged ones. Chemical  weapons may be 100 years old so  memory dims but there was enough concern that this new weapon used in World War I  could kill or maim so many that most of the world condemned its use and signed onto treaties banning it even in war. Syria was one of the signers. Horrified at the killing of populations in Nagasaki and Hiroshima with nuclear bombs, fear of a  nuclear threat we experienced  the cold war is much more recent since so many of us are still alive whose heart stops at a picture of a mushroom cloud.

I am old enough to remember the anti nuclear movements of the post World War II  and the pre Viet Nam eras. Spread of nuclear weapons, fear of mutual self destruction, home bomb shelters, under  desk drills in schools, cold fear as I sat in ground zero in New York city in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis waiting for a bomb to drop on me (and as we learned later, it came close to  happening). Remember the anti nuclear marches with saffron robed monks drumming in front of activists?

 That was the outrage then and  rational leaders  saw the writing on the wall. Arms treaties, weapons inspectors, and world condemnation of the spread to unstable nations still reverberate today.

War is hell, but some wars are more hell than others, especially when the  use of chemicals and nuclear explosions kill so many innocent.

While 100,000 of a Syrian population of 20 million have died in mortar attacks and gunfire and mostly conventional weapons, and , we  tsk tsk, with the nonsensical argument that we did not feel a need to intervene then, so why should we now with only 1400 killed.   What sets apart recent events in Syria is the choice of weapons and fear of the future use of chemical weapons condemned by the world.  That is the outrage that exceeds the usual civil war combat totals.  

 Do not think those rogue nations and others are not watching us to see if we care not nor do we think it is important to stop any usage.  Our unwillingness to put our foot down is switching on  the green light for the irresponsible, power grabbers and power maintainers, to use such weapons again and again, with no repercussions.  In fact, we are experiencing the results of our  turning  a blind eye to Saddam’s killing the Kurds and the small scale use of Assad’s use in the civil war prior to the Damascus suburb attack in August. They got away with it then and they must be smiling as their calculations are proving correct. They could get away with it now, too.  Or will they?

 And the Syrians  must be smiling as anti war liberals piously push negotiation by embargoes and international  condemnation as the solution, too.  Been there, done that. Let us get real. Experience has been  negotiated settlements only happen when both sides reach a stalemate. If we continue to allow Assad to have the upper hand and the free use of chemical weapons, why should he negotiate in any good faith. He has nothing to gain.  We did not get a Dayton accord in the Bosnian conflict until after we intervened militarily, and we only had to do take out the Serbian's  air capacity  and we never had to put boots on the ground. 
 

We will  be tested again  and again in the future if we do nothing. Those who want to use chemical and nuclear weapons will have learned their lesson.   How then will we respond?  Not enough people died because of a chemical attack? Or it is none of our business; we’ve got our own troubles at home? Or let others lead, unequipped and unable as they are, so we can truly  lead from behind ?  

 So how many should die before we become outraged enough to be moved to take action?  What is your outrage number?

Should US foreign policy be shaped by public opinion alone? The writers of the Constitution did not think so.

 I sit in wonder at the wisdom of those who drew up our Constitution.  They believed the right structure for our democracy should be representative, not direct. They realized that there are details of government that should not be left to the masses, and in those days of  lack of education, access to special knowledge and parochial views were characteristics of the general public , so they put  ultimate war powers in the hands of a wiser Congress.Later, Congress gave the President the power to take action temporarily before consulting Congress.  On the other hand, the elected representatives still  had the duty to represent their constituencies, even though their personal judgments may have differed. 

That tension, between Washington legislators  and their constituents  is playing out now in the Syria debate as public opinion has jelled to oppose any intervention and many Congresspeople are sitting on the fence. It will take some profiles in courage for any of them  to buck public opinion.

I for one am usually skeptical  of both the unquestioned wisdom of our leaders and of  public opinion, but in this case, I am also aware that emotions of recent events cannot be the sole determinant and  override the enlightened rationality  of many leaders in Washington when it comes to shaping and  conducting  foreign policy. That is  especially true when all but less than 30%  of the public have been paying little attention and are just waking up to where Syria is and what is going on there. We can fault our education system or our preoccupation with daily struggles or an ideology  or media inattention ,   but often our  view of  world history  is limited to  just this side of recent events.

I remember public opposition to intervention in the Balkans in the 1990’s , but most of the public could not identify Kosovo or Bosnia  on the map nor could they grasp its complex history. Nonetheless, we look back at US limited action there as a success   even with our airplanes zooming to targets  at  the same moment the  Senate voted against it. 

 The public’s lack  of trust in the President’s or Washington’s  leadership, as Peggy Noonan asserted in a recent Wall Street Journal  column, is due to his perceived failures in  handling the Arab Spring.  But this lack of trust is  not just five years old. It is also a product of   decisions of the Bush administration that got us into Iraq and Afghanistan, bolstered by a public that only wanted to “get” someone, anyone,  for bringing down the World Trade Center towers.

The current war weariness and  anti war sentiment is also kin to the disillusionment of the public nearer the end of the Viet Nam war..  Public opinion was “gung  ho” at the beginning, remember? Or remember in the wake of World War I, our isolationist popular opinion pressured FDR  to sit back while Hitler blitzed England and rolled across  Europe.

Ah, you say. In some cases the administration lied to us.  No doubt that explains why so many in Congress this time  have been made privy to classified information and only but the most extreme feel the intelligence about Assad’s role in the gassing  is a lie. Besides, limited action being proposed in Syria is not boots on the ground as it was in Iraq, World War I or II, or Viet Nam, either .It is more like our Balkan intervention motivated by outrage at the   human suffering at the hands of perpetrators of ethnic cleansing.

Will we wait until Assad or some other rogue nation thinks they can get away with use of chemical weapons or ethnic cleansing  and test us once more ?  Then what? My guess future presidents will not consult  Congress  in advance of  limited military action  again. It is just too gut wrenching.  Presidents have the constitutional powers to take short term action, but they will have learned the consequences of asking Congress first.

Colorado's new mental health legislation may help curb mass violence

Nearly every couple of weeks, it seems, we hear of another school or mass  shooting or a bomb being planted in this or that public place.  Even among my European friends, Colorado is famous, not for its skiing or tourist destination, but for Columbine and Aurora.

 Several months ago, a 16 year old placed explosives in a Colorado suburban school and, as the judge  ruled last week, he  will be tried as an adult for attempted murder..  The accused defense: it was just a prank and the bomb batteries were dead.

 What is wrong with Colorado?, they ask.  I remind them that it has become a phenomena in other parts of the world, but world perception is that is it more of a problem in America than elsewhere.  The most recent incident at McNair Academy outside Atlanta, fortunately ending without casualties thanks to a brave bookkeeper, Antoinette Tuff.  Newtown, Connecticut has entered national consciousness with the same intensity as does the word “Columbine”. 

While every incident is a little different, what appears to be common to most , whether AK 47’s with 500 rounds of ammo or a homemade bomb are the weapons, are mental health issues . The McNair 20 year old male mentioned to Ms. Tuff that he was “ off his psych meds.” The known mental health problems of the Aurora movie theatre shooter is the main focus of  that trial and his insanity defense.  Whether it is out of control rage, revenge for wrongs, a sense of being victimized, a cry for help,  or seeking death by cop  in a media  blaze of notoriety, we  see a common thread of mental health problems.

 There is no “silver bullet”  (so to speak) to forever ending  commission of such kinds of violence. It takes a variety of approaches that can only make such acts less likely.  Whatever your stance on the interpretation of the 2^nd amendment,  mental health issues have  usually been overshadowed by the debate over  constitutional rights. One exception is  Colorado. Both tougher gun laws and mental health legislation have been enacted this spring.

Where the 2^nd amendment and mental health issues intersect is in tightening the rules on  background checks.  If  we all agree that those with a history of mental illness should not be able to buy  weapons,  can anyone tell me how that can be policed without comprehensive background checks?  I do get the argument that these laws  would not have deterred Newtown, Columbine, or those using explosive devices, but there are other instances where it could have had some impact such as in Aurora and/ or if access and reporting laws were improved.  

One of the deterrents to  intercepting those with mental health problems is that seeking professional help has not been affordable.  One of the little noticed provisions of Obamacare is mental health parity. Access to medications and time spent with a professional receives similar coverage as other chronic diseases, like diabetes or high blood pressure, and would not be considered a pre-existing condition, disclosure to insurers of  which until now shot up the cost of health insurance premiums or led to denial. 

In response to Aurora,  legislation was passed in May  which would provide $20 million for expansion of mental health services. Early next year, the state plans to establish walk-in crisis centers around Colorado, a 24-hour mental health hotline,  mobile units to travel to rural areas where access to mental health services is limited, and greater access to 24 hour holds. The hotline will be particularly helpful to parents and friends at wits end about what to do if they fear a child or a friend is  out of control or for those realizing they themselves fear they  may be tempted to act out and commit violence against others.