Where Men Should Fear to Tread

It finally struck home to me today what it is about the Syria issue that bothers me so much, aside from my inherent aversion to war except as a last resort. Supposing we send in a few cruise missiles. Blow up a few buildings, kill some people, teach some lessons. Do we have any notion that the guys we are blowing up participated in, knew about or approved of the chemical weapons attacks? Or would they just be random people who happened to be on the chalkboard when we wrote the lesson? I bet on the latter. Since the idea is to punish Assad, who kills his own people without concern, how will our killing his people teach him a lesson? So, let us suppose that instead of random people, we shoot one right at Assad. That would certainly punish him. But then what have we done? We have tried the president of Syria, for crimes committed in Syria, in a closed-door trial in Washington, DC, and found him guilty and sentenced him to death and then executed him. We have made our chief executive the judge, jury and executioner of the head of a foreign state. I know it would not be the first time, but I had hoped that the last time would be the last time. I suppose Assad may have it coming. I have no love for the man. But being the only superpower left in the world brings with it the responsibility to not act like we are. It requires, if we do it right, that we remember that the fact that we can do something does not mean we should, even if somebody really should. Not even God kills everybody who He could kill and seems to deserve it, and as much as I hate to break it to them, our government is not God.