The terrorist attacks in Paris last week that resulted in the deaths of 129 people and the wounding of several hundred more are the latest tragedy in a world becoming all too familiar with violence of this type and magnitude.

Somehow, we divorce ourselves from the fatal incidents and suicide bombings occurring across the globe until they happen to people we connect with.

We didn’t light candles and paint ourselves in the colors of the Lebanese flag (Quick – without looking – can you describe Lebanon’s flag?) when, just one day before the hair-raising shootings and bombings in Paris, twin suicide bombers took the lives of more than 40 people and wounded more than 240 others on a crowded street around the capital of Beirut.

Why is it that we feel the pain of the Parisians — Nous sommes tous Parisiens — but we didn’t mourn in solidarity with the Lebanese?

Go back just a few months to April. Where were the international outrage and tears over the deaths of 147 students and others gunned down by terrorists on the campus of Garissa University in Kenya? More than 500 students managed to flee as four gunmen opened fire and then detonated their suicide vests when they were surrounded.

We do not condone the actions of terrorists in any of these or other attacks. But we urge caution by the United States and other nations as they grapple with the appropriate response. Just days after the Paris attacks, the French led targeted airstrikes on the terrorist Islamic State, or ISIL, that claimed responsibility. The United States joined in those airstrikes in Raqqa, Syria.

According to a Sept. 30 Newsweek article, 13 countries already were bombing Syria before the Paris attacks, among them Russia, Jordan, Bahrain, Canada, Australia, England, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. — all for different reasons.

Russia began another round of airstrikes Tuesday after confirming that the Russian airliner that crashed Oct. 31 shortly after takeoff in Egypt was brought down by a bomb planted by ISIL. All 224 people aboard were killed.

The entire situation is fraught with confusion. And we are distressed at some of the responses by those who purport to be leaders in the United States. We have heard presidential candidates say, “I would bomb the sh.. out of them,” (Donald Trump) to others’ strident calls for sending in ground troops (Jeb Bush) and shutting the U.S. borders to Syrian refugees (Ben Carson).

We acknowledge that balancing compassion and security is difficult. But turning our backs on the suffering of others can change friends into foes. Fighting terrorism often turns people into terrorists. (See the United States’ bombing of a Doctors Without Borders trauma center in Afghanistan in October.)

We are bolstered by the statement released Monday by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who appears unbowed by the fears that cripple more than 30 governors who say Syrian refugees are not welcome in their states. While Gov. McAuliffe talked about maintaining close contact with federal and local public safety officials to ensure the protection of our communities, he did not send the Virginia National Guard to seal off the state to anyone identified as a refugee from Syria. Brian McCoy, a spokesman for the governor, said Wednesday that 25 Syrians were resettled in Virginia during the 2014-15 fiscal year, but none have arrived since July 1 and none are in the pipeline.

As we, the people, in the United States and Virginia maneuver through this social-political minefield that threatens to blow up into World War III, we must seek sources of information that are authentic and untainted by forces whose agendas may seek to engage us in an all-out war. (Recall the false reports of weapons of mass destruction that sucked us into an ultra-expensive and protracted occupation of Iraq that has destabilized the Middle East and unleashed the warring factions and terrorist hounds of hell we currently face.)

We also call on the United Nations to take a leadership role in crafting a global strategy to combat ISIL and its terrorist sympathizers. What is taking place is bigger than the French, the United States, Russia and even NATO. The battle against terrorism must include a wider group, not just Western nations.

And until we see and understand that terrorism’s victims come from a range of nations, we will not come together at a wider, bigger table to try to restore peace.