Syrian Intervention for Fun and or profit.

There is an old PSA about the right time to talk to your children about relationship abuse.  It’s a steady shot of a man and his son in a diner, sitting uncomfortably as a couple have a fairly one-sided argument in which the man screams at her, degrades her with name calling and intimidation, and then ultimately decrees “We’re leaving;” pulling her out of the diner by the arm.  The father does nothing to intervene or assist the woman, who will likely get a few black eyes when she goes home with her date.  The ad then poses the question: “When should you intervene in an abusive relationship?” or some pointed question similar to that one.  It zooms in closer on the son, who looks like he just realized his father isn’t Superman, and says, “Right now.”  The idea is simple: end the abusive cycle by immunizing your own children against it.  I can’t seem to find the PSA anywhere online, probably because it’s a terrible PSA, and all PSAs should be banished to the festering wasteland of awful and obvious messages cobbled together by hack directors who couldn’t get a job directing a Ronco Food Dehydrator infomercial.

The notion that ending the cycle of relationship violence starts by never letting it begin is all well and good, but it ignores those who are suffering right now.  Most people who are abused, or witness domestic abuse when they are younger normalize that behavior and seek it, subconsciously, as adults.  Sitting in a diner watching the beginnings of a family beat-down over your turkey club isn’t going to instill in your son that it is acceptable to open up a can of whoop-ass on his girlfriend in fifteen years.  The real danger is that the arguing couple, on their mad dash to leave the restaurant, had a child in tow, soaking all of this abusive behavior in.  You’re not stepping in to prevent violence against the woman so your own son can see it’s wrong, you’re stepping in to let their child to see it’s wrong. 

Unfortunately, our society doesn’t really view Samaritan intervention as positively as it should.  We have a highly individualistic society that promotes minding your own damn business, and letting other people solve their own problems. Intervention is often viewed as vigilantism. Calling the police to report suspected crimes is nosiness, or being a busybody.  We would rather tend to our own issues than help others.

This is an overly simplistic way of discussing the problems in Syria.  In this metaphor, Bashar al-Assad is the abusive boyfriend, and the Syrians he is gassing are the abused. The problem in Syria is one that doesn’t necessarily concern us.  We are not Syrian, nor does Syria have anything that could benefit the United States.  There are nebulous net positives in intervention – stabilizing the Middle East, promoting democracy, and ending genocide – but none of those things are direct positives for the United States.  There is no Pearl Harbor to which we are responding.  Our national security is not in doubt.  The question then becomes: with nothing to gain, why should we intervene?

 Let me pose to you a hypothetical: You are the father (or mother) at that diner in the PSA.  The abusive man, probably with tattoos, the faint whiff of Crystal Meth, and a greasy pony tail pulled through the back of his greasier ball cap, is flying into a rage, verbally abusing the woman.  Do you personally intervene in some way?  Do you say something?  Do you stand up and physically place yourself between the man and the woman?  Do you call the police?  Do you wait until they have left, record their license plate number, and call the police thereafter?  What is your opinion of each of those actions?  As I rank it, the levels of interaction are as follows, from least involved to most involved:

·      Do Nothing

·      Wait until the couple have left, record their license plate number, and call the police with a tip of potential domestic abuse

·      Say something while the couple are present in the diner

·      Call the police while the couple are present in the diner

·      Physically place yourself between the man and the woman

Few would fault anyone for refusing to place themselves in between the man and the woman – you’re asking for a black eye and to be engaged in some type of physical altercation.  Most people would take the first two options, preferring to avoid involving themselves in someone else’s problem.  Every 20/20 or Dateline report, when the producers stage some type of phony kidnapping to see how bystanders would react to that scenario, or that awful “What Would You Do?” show, seem to indicate that most everyone just wants to not be uncomfortable, rather than to actively do “good.”

            Taking that into account, now let’s alter this scenario slightly.  Ignore that these two new options are completely implausible.  Let’s say you are able to know, with certainty, that your interaction would prevent that woman from being abused by that man ever again.  Not that night, but ever again.  You gain absolutely nothing, otherwise, but the woman, and her child (yes, I’ve given them a child) would never have to be abused or subjected to the culture of domestic violence from that man ever again.  Her choices after that night would be her own, and she could wander into another abusive relationship with a different person, but for the time being, and under those circumstances, you would have stopped the culture of violence.  You won’t get a pat on the back, a free meal from the diner, or a year’s supply of Coca-Cola for intervening.  You may have your son continue to believe you are Superman a while longer, but your gain will be a net neutral.  Does this make you more, or less likely to intervene?

            The other scenario would be that, prior to intervening, you are able to know, with certainty, that your intervention would gain you notoriety and have a positive effect on your own life.  Instead of just being some couple, this is another couple in your condo that are always keeping you up at night, and terrorizing the other tenants.  Your intervention would prevent them from ever acting up again, and the diner would give you free food for life because of your heroism.  There is a local reporter who is having a quick meal at the counter who will make you one of the local heroes on the Friday local news broadcast, and your personal business (sorry, you’re a small business owner) will experience a boon in customers because of your mini-fame.  You cannot guarantee that your intervention will be effective at stopping the cycle of domestic violence otherwise.  Does this make you more or less likely to intervene?

            My overly simplistic, straw-man scenarios are pretty transparent.  Our arguments for and against military intervention in Syria are somewhat similar.  The arguments for are that we are the World’s Police, an argument that has become liberal in the past few years, as though liberals forgot they didn’t bandy behind Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s farcical marionette movie Team America: World Police as a searing liberal indictment of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring the fact that it was far more libertarian and isolationist in its message.  All the arguments for intervening in Darfur are the same as intervening in Syria.  We gain nothing as a country, other than to re-light the beacon of hope atop our metaphoric shining city on the hill.  These are extremely idealistic viewpoints, but as a country, it is better to always remain idealistic about our potential to form a better world than to remain cynical about the effects of our tarnished “brand.”

            The arguments against intervention are that there is nothing to gain from placing ourselves in harm’s way to protect the innocent people being killed in Syria because they have a sociopathic leader.  We gain nothing; there is no oil, there is no strategic military alliance, there is no base for terrorist activities.  This is not a foothold for democracy, or a nation we can build.  Why risk American lives?  Even for a bleeding heart liberal like myself, these rhetorical questions are pragmatic and hard to refute.  As a country, we ascribe to the notion that all men, a statement we have come to interpret as “people” are created equal.  We don’t say, “all Americans are created equal,” but rather all “men.”  Yet, sitting here in New York City, I can say that an American life feels more valuable than a Syrian life.  There isn’t a conversion rate on it, but knowing that a soldier would go to stand in between Bashar al-Assad’s poison gas attacks and the innocent people he would kill, daring him to provoke us, is knowing that there will be dead soldiers, tears, and heartache for American families.  If that makes me somewhat ethnocentric and foolishly jingoistic, so be it.

            The question of intervention in Syria then becomes a question of our own ability to suffer losses for an altruistic good.  As a country reeling from a major economic recession, two wars that cost a fortune in blood and treasure, and a meandering, reactionary political system that feels so broken that we can’t accomplish even the simplest of tasks, we do need to consider our own ability to intervene appropriately.  The notion of intervening for a net neutral personal outcome isn’t really possible at this point.  We would suffer losses. Is it imperialist, greedy, or opportunistic to intervene because Syria has some crazy cache of natural resources, strategic military opportunities, or personal safety? Is it worth our soldiers’ lives to do the right thing, intervening to save lives?