When I was a first time parent, honest to goodness, I didn’t know what I was doing. When my second child was born, I was a little better, but truth be told, I was by no means improved in all areas. I’d like to tell you that child number three resulted in perfection, but no, I humbly share that such a status does not exist.
One of the areas in which all parents must improve is discipline. In order for discipline to be effective, it needs to be 3 things: logical, consistent, and timely.
Today’s post, friends, is actually not about parenting. In fact, for the 3rd post in a row, the Intramuralist focuses on Syria. Why? Because world wars are started by singular acts. Because so many uncontrollable variables are involved here. Because like it or not, politics are in play on all sides of this equation. And because the wisdom and results of military action are ambiguous.
Tonight Pres. Obama will interrupt prime time television to address us on Syria. He proposes that the United States must take military action against Syria as a retaliatory response for their use of chemical weapons. Retaliatory means to return like for like… to reciprocate… sometimes, thus — like parenting — it means to discipline.
Is the proposed retaliation logical? Is bombing a logical response to the death of 1400 Syrian citizens at the hands of their own government? Does the so-called “punishment” fit the crime?
Is the proposed retaliation consistent? Thousands have died in other nations in recent years, albeit not via chemical weapons. Are we being consistent when the means of death — as opposed to the number of deaths — serves as this metaphorical red line?
And timely. Geepers. Don’t get me started. Let me attempt to address this respectfully via an analogy from my youth…
When I was a kid, we often played “Stratego,” the military strategy game where all roles and options remain hidden from the enemy until the time of attack. While I, for one, think no president should be able to authorize military intervention without a clear majority of congressional support, I do not understand the lengthy delay of the decision. Hence, any American response no longer seems timely.
A clear majority do not share the President’s desire to attack. The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 64% of the American public oppose military intervention. Hence, tonight’s goal is to persuade us that military intervention, regardless of logic, consistency, and timeliness is necessary.
Perhaps instead of any persuasive rhetoric, Obama could borrow from the unfiltered responses after yesterday’s slate of initial NFL games. In fact, I’m thinking I’d prefer all politicians were a little more unfiltered. Obama could indeed open with or include some of yesterday’s actual quotes…
“First off, it wasn’t a very smart play.”
“There were a lot of question marks… are the plays going to work?”
“I’m disappointed in myself. This loss is on me.”
“This is just one step in the right direction.”
“It wasn’t the easiest, but I’m not a person to make excuses.”
“Obviously, it wasn’t perfect. And there’s a lot of things we can do better.”
“We’ve got a lot of work to do. We need to understand that. We need to stick together and persevere.”
“We’ve got to go back and look and see exactly what they did and how they took us out of what we wanted to do on offense.”
“It’s not the way we drew it up. We’re all going to learn from this. There’s no reason to point any fingers.”
From NFL to parenting to military intervention, we must embrace logic, consistency, and timeliness. Being unfiltered, also, often helps.
Respectfully,
AR