The Literature our Leaders Should Read Before Commenting on Military Strikes

Morality is not subjective. It is not a matter of convenience or of popular vote. It cannot be brushed aside or ignored when it requires sacrifice. Leaders should know this. We should at the very least demand this of them.

I don't what the right answer is regarding the situation in Syria. I largely steer clear of national security debates on this blog because I recognize that people much smarter than me, with much more information than me, with greater public trust than me, are on the job. While I may have an opinion, it does little good to offer it here.

What I found in the paper this morning, however, disturbed me. Four elected leaders from the state of Iowa were asked their position on Syria and where they stand regarding a military strike. The quotes they included regarding Syria's actions include the following:

• "abhorrent" (Chuck Grassley)
• "an affront to human values (Tom Harkin)
• "breaking international law" (Bruce Braley)
• "an absolute atrocity" (Tom Latham)

Despite these descriptors, they then each in turn fall over themselves to find reasons not to be involved. Based on their statements in the Des Moines Register, they each seem to establish that they believe Syria's actions are immoral and destructive to innocent human life. They see a distinct and reprehensible wrong in the world. Yet they are very quick to say, "Yeah, but. . ."

They each offer reason after reason for America to sit back and watch: It is not our business. It will hurt our business. Our reputation will suffer. No one else is doing it.

These sound quite similar to excuses made in a previous generation. Marred in a civil rights quagmire, many good and decent people who knew better watched bigotry and racism and economic rivalry decimate the hopes of African-Americans. One man, though, called them out on it. Martin Luther King, Jr., from a jail cell in Birmingham, wrote a letter that has become one of the major literary pieces of our nation's history In it, he worked not to call out those drenched in the guilt of their own discriminatory practices; King instead addressed his letter to the white clergy in the South who sat idly by and watched, attempting to protect their conscience with the excuse of not being directly involved. 

Wrote King: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Those words are praised as key communicators of the values of our nation. 

I don't know the right answers in Syria. I don't pretend to be a military family with a serious perspective on the consequences of upcoming decisions or a national security advisory with knowledge of the region. 

What does seem apparent, though, is that tough decisions like this one will be faced by a collection of elected leaders who have no problem recognizing immorality, but a big problem with taking responsibility for it.