There is a new humanitarian crisis in Iraq which is partially product of all our previously attempt to improve the Middle East with freedom bombs and handing out weapons to the “good rebels.” Yet apparently our brilliant new solution to fix this latest problem is even more freedom bombs and more weapons for a new set of good guys

At what point do we start to accept we are not very good at improving lives with bombs and weapons? Each attempt has breeds new problems in a seemingly endless cycle.

We have a much better track record of actually helping people by welcoming them as political refugees. While we are clearly not perfect on this front we have a decent tract record of integrating them into the country and protecting them within our borders from widespread violence.

So if we are truly and deeply concerned about the safety of a minority in danger it would seem a better (and cheaper) way protect to them would be to help them come to the United States instead of dropping more bombs in their general region.

If politicians and pundits demanding military action aren’t willing to welcome these people then we need to seriously question how much they actually care and what their true motivations are. If we aren’t willing to provide shelter to these people but are happy to kill others for their supposed benefit we need to reevaluate our moral compass.

For some reason in our national debate the only two options for helping people in a war zone seems to be bombs or more bombs.

Photo by US Army under Creative Commons license