King Solomon and the Baby

There is a story I used to hear when I was little, about wise King Solomon and two women who were brought before him. They were arguing over a baby, and each claimed to be the child's mother. Solomon thought for a moment and then gave an order that the child be cut in half, and that each woman would get a part. The woman who wasn't the mother did not object, but the real mother was horrified, and she instantly agreed to let the other woman have the baby rather than see it harmed. He knew then that the baby was hers.

The Syrian people had agreed to let this regime have the baby for over forty years. They were quiet and afraid, and when they rose up it was because they just couldn't take anymore. I look at videos of child soldiers, of atrocities and dead bodies, and can feel nothing but sorrow for the state of affairs that we have reached. But then I remember that woman who didn't object to a baby being cut in half because it wasn't really hers. I look at the smirking man in a suit lie through his teeth and smile whilst he turns the country to rubble. He claims to be a child of this land, to care for its people, but in reality he doesn't care an ounce for what happens to it if he can't have it all.