In my opinion, the following needs to be looked at carefully. What’s really going on in Syria? What is ISIS, really? Is military action the right action? Where will we fight next? We are not hearing any good answers. The media and the experts drone on and on. And in the U.S. we just verbally battle over how much military might to throw at ISIS.      

These thoughts, questions and concerns are not just my own, of course. They come from those speaking and writing in ways that don’t excite the media and Americans in general. Their messages languish in the heap of unpopular stuff for too many.

Here’s a good example: There is a wonderful recent article by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynahan entitled “It’s Always the Same War.” It outlines so well how the U.S. is engaged in endless wars. The article reports what United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said:

“The continuing violence is a clear indication that a political solution to the conflict in Syria is desperately needed. The fighting must stop now. There is no military solution to the crisis, not in Syria or anywhere else. From Afghanistan to the Central African Republic, from Ukraine to Yemen, combatants and those who control them are defying humanity’s most basic rules.”

Do we listen? The Goodman/Moynahan article goes on to quote Andrew Bacevich — retired colonel, Boston University professor and Vietnam veteran — in saying how imperative it is now that we begin thinking differently about our approach in these regions. Bacevich’s son was killed while serving in Iraq in 2007.

“Finding an end to the ever-widening war is the responsibility of us all,” says the article. And this: “In 2001, when the Bush administration sought congressional approval to attack Afghanistan after 9/11, only one member of Congress voted no, California Rep. Barbara Lee.”

Yes, finding an end to ever-widening war is the responsibility of us all through how we think, who we vote for, how we treat each other, how we raise our children, and how we play our part in building America as a world leader in right actions. —Bob McClellan, Polson