#253 / If I Had A Hammer...

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist. I am citing to him today for his "Law of the Instrument." The most memorable articulation of this Law is generally phrased this way: 

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

As Congress debates whether or not to permit our President to launch attacks on Syria, the fact that the United States has such massive military power available to it makes it tempting to think that we ought to be using that military power in this case. 

My sense is we should not. 

We have the hammer. No doubt about that. We can fire missiles, deploy bombs and do all the damage that our weapons are designed to produce. We can do it, but will that "nail" the problem we address?

Or is it more likely that trying to use a hammer when it's not really clear what to hit, and where, and when, will only screw things up even more?

Image Credit: 
http://activism.thenation.com/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11935&tag=email935