The question of US intervention in Syria became more urgent over the weekend in light of the apparently execution style murders of more than 100 people, as many as 40 of them children.  How could it be otherwise, especially after one has seen the images of the tiny bodies wrapped for burial or worse, the images of those same bodies absent the wrappings, in all of their graphic clarity?  

Unless one's heart is made of stone, the sense that "we must do something, and do it now" is unavoidable.  In fact, the sense that now may be a time for US military intervention was voiced by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey who told Congress that escalating atrocities in Syria could trigger a military response.  

Going even further, Arizona Sen. John McCain, referring to lack of US military involvement, called this "a shameful moment in US history...an abdication of everything America stands for and believes in."