"Amoral Propensity"
By Victor Davis Hanson is working on a novel. I’m sure it will be . . . uh . . . not good.
Meantime, Hanson among others has twisted his toga into a bundle over the allegation that Austrian sniper rifles sold to Iran have ended up killing Americans in Iraq. Hanson, employing his patented technique of argument by analogy, asks
If Austrian sniper rifles really were recently sold to Iran, brought into Iraq, and used to kill Americans, what would Europeans think if American sniper weaponry were sold, under our government’s auspices, to those supplying the Basque separatists to kill Spaniards? Why no outcry from the Euro-left about the continent’s amoral propensity to sell the Iranian thugocracy about anything it wants?
This should hardly require mentioning, but Hanson’s profound moral sensibilities are notably unburdened by the well-worn fact that 20 of the 25 top recipients of US military assistance are — by the US State Department’s own criteria — either undemocratic or have extensive records of human rights abuses. Though Hanson presents an erect posture on the question of Austrian sniper rifles, I doubt we’ll ever hear much from him on the “amoral propensity” of his own country to supply arms and other forms of military assistance to two-thirds of the countries mired in active conflicts. But I suppose Angolan, Uzbek or Nepalese lives just don’t measure up to Hanson’s standards; so long as Europeans aren’t being killed, who cares?