Think First, Make Mistakes Later
So, just something I’ve noticed over the years. When someone tells you that there’s no time to consider something, that we have to make a decision right now, chances are that what they’re asking you to make is a bad decision. Maybe it’s buying something you don’t need, or succumbing to some kind of peer pressure, but when someone wants you to make up your mind about something without taking time to consider it, chances are that they’re afraid that if you take your time to consider it you’ll find good reason to do what they don’t want. If they need to shout at you to get you to make up your mind, chances are what they want is a bad idea.
This goes double when they’re asking you to bomb someone else’s country.
Now, sometimes you have to make up your mind in a hurry. Sometimes there’s a rock falling towards your head, or you need to decide whether to brake or swerve, or fight or flight. But that implies a window that is going to snap shut on you, that if you don’t do something your ability to do something will be taken away.
In Syria there doesn’t seem to be a deadline looming. Yes, it will be much harder to do something about chemical weapon attacks after the Civil War is over, but the war has been raging for over two years. It’s not like if we don’t bomb someone by Sunday the war will be over. Media hype aside, there hasn’t been a decisive change in the flow of the war for over a year. You can wait for the UN inspectors before bombing. You can wait for more information before bombing. You can wait to be sure that you have to bomb before bombing. It’ll just increase the time the Syrians have to be nervous.
And it’s not like the Syrian opposition is going to roll over because of a chemical attack. Yes, the death of possibly more than a thousand civilians is a terrible affair - but the war has killed over a hundred thousand people already. A hundred thousand. This isn’t a tragedy, it’s one percent of a tragedy, a horrible punctuation in a background of continual killing. The opposition didn’t fold for any of that, they’re not likely to fold now. We’re not going to end the killing, we’re not going to end the war, we’re just going to punish people for one little part of it that is probably lost in the morass and in the end will barely even matter.
So there’s no real downside to waiting. Which leads to the question of why certain people are pushing this decision so hard and so fast. What are they afraid we’re going to realize if we wait? Are we going to come to our senses? No, this is fundamentally a bad decision, and we should be smart enough not to let the hucksters take us for a ride.
This goes double when they’re asking you to bomb someone else’s country.
Now, sometimes you have to make up your mind in a hurry. Sometimes there’s a rock falling towards your head, or you need to decide whether to brake or swerve, or fight or flight. But that implies a window that is going to snap shut on you, that if you don’t do something your ability to do something will be taken away.
In Syria there doesn’t seem to be a deadline looming. Yes, it will be much harder to do something about chemical weapon attacks after the Civil War is over, but the war has been raging for over two years. It’s not like if we don’t bomb someone by Sunday the war will be over. Media hype aside, there hasn’t been a decisive change in the flow of the war for over a year. You can wait for the UN inspectors before bombing. You can wait for more information before bombing. You can wait to be sure that you have to bomb before bombing. It’ll just increase the time the Syrians have to be nervous.
And it’s not like the Syrian opposition is going to roll over because of a chemical attack. Yes, the death of possibly more than a thousand civilians is a terrible affair - but the war has killed over a hundred thousand people already. A hundred thousand. This isn’t a tragedy, it’s one percent of a tragedy, a horrible punctuation in a background of continual killing. The opposition didn’t fold for any of that, they’re not likely to fold now. We’re not going to end the killing, we’re not going to end the war, we’re just going to punish people for one little part of it that is probably lost in the morass and in the end will barely even matter.
So there’s no real downside to waiting. Which leads to the question of why certain people are pushing this decision so hard and so fast. What are they afraid we’re going to realize if we wait? Are we going to come to our senses? No, this is fundamentally a bad decision, and we should be smart enough not to let the hucksters take us for a ride.