Asking the Wrong Question Always Gets a Wrong Answer 2

Judging from the headlines at the news sites I frequent, the Very Serious People seem to have decided that the crucial question regarding Syria is whether or not Syria used gas warfare. Framing the question in that way implies that, if the answer is yes, some sort of attack is ipso facto justified.

Ignoring that there is no such thing as a “surgical strike” except in the fantasies of warmongers, the actual question is lost in the frame:

What would an attack accomplish, other than killing some folks?

• Would it end the civil war in Syria?
• Would it topple the bad guys and elevate the good guys (ignoring, again, that there don’t seem to be any good guys on either side of the fighting, just innocents in the middle)?
• Would it protect the innocents?
• Is there anything outsiders can do to end the carnage?

No one argues that any of these can be answered with a “yes.”

The argument instead seems to be that, by raining remote-controlled death, our disapproval would be made manifest, as a God rains lightning from the sky.

In other words, it is the “diplomatic” equivalent of punching a hole in a wall out of frustration.

The frustration still exists, and now your hand is injured and you have to repair a hole.

This is not diplomacy.

This is the impotent masturbating with missiles.

Image via BartCop.