A lot of Americans justify the most recent missile attack on Syria by arguing “we” have a moral obligation to protect innocent people from chemical weapons, or at least punish the evil-doers. I’ve seen a lot of comment such as, “We can’t let Assad get away with it.” Some even go as far as to claim if the U.S. does not respond, all Americans become complicit in Syrian evil.

Supporters of intervention in foreign countries to “stop evil” often turn to the following analogy to defend their position.

“If I see a woman in your neighborhood getting raped, you wouldn’t just walk away, would you?”

No. I wouldn’t.

On the surface, this seems like a compelling argument. But it becomes problematic when you try to shoehorn a situation involving two individuals into a collectivist context.

I agree. If you see a guy raping your neighbor, you should probably step in. You have a good chance of saving her by intervening.  That’s pretty cut and dry.

But it doesn’t quite work that way in a collectivist context. When it comes to foreign policy, the reality looks more like this: You hear a rumor about some guy raping your neighbor so you get a bunch of guys from your hood and throw firebombs in the bad guy’s neighborhood. You may or may not get the guy responsible, but in the process, you kill three of his buddies who had nothing to do with the rape. Now people in that neighborhood are pissed, so they get a bunch of people together and throw some firebombs in your neighborhood to avenge the death of their friends and family.

And on and on it goes.

We condemn street gangs for this nonsense, but when governments do it, it suddenly becomes a legitimate way to interact with each other.

It’s not.

Killing people because they happen to live within the same geographical boundaries drawn on a map as other people who ordered or perpetrated evil doesn’t stop evil. It extends evil. It magnifies evil. It feeds evil.

As Jesus said, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”