Here we go again.

Go to any gas station in Scarborough. I think there are seven of them. You will find one or two young men working, ages 18-25.

Go to a pizza shop in Scarborough. There are nine of them, think. Five will do delivery. Most have at least one high school or college guy as “Ford jockeys.”

Finally, go to the Town Pier at Pine Point. See the lobster boats and fishing boats. Look across the bay and see the clam flats near Ferry Beach. Again, three to five guys in their late teens, early 20s.

If we end up engaging in military battling of some type in the Middle East with the thugs perpetrating terror under the moniker ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), and if human bodies are needed in the effort, the only chance the land of 04074 has of making such a contribution will be from the above-named sources.

We will not send anyone who spends any time at a golf course or tennis court.

No one from a restaurant with an outdoor deck with umbrellas, or places where they charge $2 or more for a glass of water will go.

Gas station workers. Fishermen and clam diggers. Pizza delivery guys.

They are the ones who will go.

Fact.

Now, the preliminary question: Do we go to war, or engage in extensive bombing campaigns ($250 million will be budgeted per month for this undertaking, a Scarborough guy with Pentagon ties told me) when an individual from ISIS is pictured on You Tube or MSNBC or Fox News cutting off the head of a U.S. citizen, or the heads of two citizens.

I am not sure if you are ready for the answer.

It is no.

Are the acts horrific? Of course.

Do they violate all standards of human decency? Indisputable.

So why no massive war effort, or level of activity using other words you may prefer that involve “shock and awe,” etc. etc?

Because there is a checklist that people in charge of military operations go through that has not been gone through to date (both Republicans and Democrats, by the way).

Does the activity present an immediate threat to the country of the United States? Or is it, internationally speaking, a renegade organization (not a country) perpetrating the murderous campaign operating in an ad hoc fashion, here and there, targeting citizens of any country for no apparent thematic reason?

So far, inhuman televised scenes aside, the answers are no, and yes.

Picture a group of Canadian marauders operating a terrorist cell near Niagara Falls. They capture a U.S. tourist near Horseshoe Falls. They take him, tie him up, and hold him above the falls, with a small video camera trained on him. They announce they have grievances against both the U.S. and the United Nations. They then drop him over the falls. The camera captures his body smashing into the torrent of waters below. You soon see it floating, disfigured in the small bay below.

Then, say, it is done again the next week. This time the victims are U.S. honeymooners wearing tourist T-shirts.

By this time, the group calls itself the Canadian International Street Crime Army.

Add to the factual mix that colorful, zany, off-the-hook Toronto mayor Rob Ford is reported to be harboring the group, training them, hiding them from authorities.

Declaration of war? Appropriation of funds for a bombing campaign? Military assault either on the Canadian side of the falls, or Toronto?

When the people making these decisions are not the people whose kids are going to go carry out the decisions, bad decisions get made.

Slow down.

Dan Warren is a Scarborough lawyer. He can be reached by private Facebook message at the Jones & Warren Attorneys at Law Facebook page, or by e mail at: jonesandwarren@gmail.com.