Clean and Dirty Weapons.

I’m going out on a limb a bit here, but I have to admit to being a little confused over the reaction of the Americans, British and French over the business in Syria.

OK, I know that chemical weapons are nasty, not only because of what they do to people but also because they’re indiscriminate. But carpet bombing is pretty indiscriminate too, and I remember those horrifying scenes of allied missiles raining down on Baghdad at the start of the war in Iraq.

It seems odd to me that we find it tolerable, if not actually acceptable, that regimes can shoot people, crush people, burn people to death, and blow people’s limbs off, but when they bring out the chemical weapons we’re rushing to become militarily involved. We didn’t need the use of chemical weapons to become militarily involved against Saddam or Gaddafi.

Is this simply a matter of accepting that wars between Governments and Rebels are none of our business until the ‘collateral damage’ goes beyond boundaries which we define? Is it simply a matter of international legality, in which case shouldn’t we be asking whether it’s truly the reason or merely a convenient excuse? And shouldn’t we, perhaps, be questioning both the boundaries and efficacy of international law?

It seems to me that Assad and his type need to be removed from the face of humanity, but why wait until now? Maybe I’m missing a nuance somewhere, or maybe it’s just another example of an abusive, murderous, tyrannical situation being ‘complicated.’

I wish I knew, and I also wish I knew why the human animal hasn’t moved on very much since its inception.