I suspect this article is going to get some heated discussion pretty quickly.

I don't believe you have failed anyone and I hope you'll allow me to explain why I think so.

In the West (and developed countries), we expect our local authorities to deal with problems we see on a day to day basis. And they do. When you see a car accident, you call 911 and an ambulance and fire crew arrive, cut trapped people out and take them to hospital where doctors and nurses work to treat their injuries. Meantime, police turn up, close the road, help clear things up, set diversions and get traffic flowing, then clear everything up and everything goes back to normal.

Naturally, used to all this potency of our 'leaders', we see another horrible situation (e.g. Syria) and, based on our experience, we naturally expect our leaders to step in and fix that horrible situation too.

But they cannot.

To do so, you need to want your country to act like a colonial power and send in troops - some of whom will be killed - in order to suppress and defeat the evils we are so upset about.

We know from history that a colonial power, suppressing a local authority, must be prepared to be brutal (even more so than those being suppressed) in order to succeed.

But no-one wants to be a colonial power (ok, it's frowned upon in reasonably liberal democracies at least).

And any recent attempts (Vietnam on) have ended in miserable failure and basically made things worse.

Even if you are advocating for some World Police to move in and take over, there isn't even agreement on who that would be. Russians see that as their role, Americans see it as their role.

Neither country would accept the other doing it exclusively nor would they really be able to work together to do it as they both have different standards of what is acceptable and what is not.

So, unless there is an answer to all that, neither you nor anyone else outside the theater has a personal responsibility.

That does not stop you feeling legitimately upset or anguished about the situation. That's something completely different. But don't confuse the two issues.

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user:	mona_simpson
created:	October 17, 2016
karma:	27