It’s not just nature that abhors a vacuum
As I slithered up the greasy pole of local government, my mentors were to
be found in what some regarded as a comedy programme but I, and my ilk,
knew was really a documentary series.
“Yes Minister” was, and remains, the ultimate primer for anyone serving
politicians and proves the adage that a cynic is what an idealist calls a
realist!
In one particularly memorable episode, Bernard feels he is in danger of
losing his moral compass, and seeks some words of wisdom from my hero,
the utterly amoral Sir Humphrey:
Bernard Woolley:
“I mean, will I end up as a moral vacuum too?”
Sir Humphrey Appleby:
“Oh, I hope so, Bernard. If you work hard enough”.
It seems though that those serving the politicians no longer have a monopoly
on such attitudes.
Witness the latest shenanigans in the Arsenal of Democracy. The most
powerful nation on earth and one now led by a man whose attitudes and
antics make Sir Humphrey seem like a latter-day St Francis of Assisi!
In the course of the last few weeks we have seen the debacle of the
confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh’s elevation to the Supreme
Court, an appointment akin to putting Hitler in charge of a Kibbutz.
This was followed up by Trump’s apologia for Saudi Arabia whose
apparently barbarous acts of repression showed, if the accusations prove to
be accurate, the contempt in which they hold not merely their own citizens,
but the entire world.
It seems that if you buy your military hardware in sufficient volumes from the
aforementioned Arsenal of Democracy, then you have carte blanche to cross
all moral and legal boundaries in pursuit of your intolerance of any criticism
of totalitarian dictatorship.
Of course, this is not merely (admittedly, a singularly inappropriate word)
about the alleged killing of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in
Istanbul.
Indeed, appalling though that appears to have been, it pales into - if not
insignificance - at least into a different perspective, when juxtaposed with
what Saudi Arabia is doling in Yemen.
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