Delusion: Discord is caused by the song, not the singer

Roger Kimball says that Andy McCarthy has written the best piece yet on Syria (at NRO). An excerpt from Andy:

I am unimpressed by the Western obsession over chemical weapons. They are ghastly, yes. But so, in the wrong hands, are bombs and jumbo jets and hollow-point bullets. To me, the shrieking over weapons of mass destruction is the international version of the Left’s domestic campaign against guns, and of a piece with its trendy revulsion against land- and sea-mines. This is the delusion that discord is caused by the song, not the singer. It is a cop-out: the pretense that there is a valid excuse for failing to grapple with the players and the ideologies that resort to violence — as if we live in a make-believe world where destructive weapons in the right hands are unnecessary to keep us safe; and where laws, conventions, and purported “norms” against various types of weapons are effective against rogues like Assad and al-Qaeda.

Roger writes,

Andy ends with a question I wish someone would put to John Kerry: “Why is Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons worse than the rebels’ use of al-Qaeda?”