At the G20 summit today, we are told:
‘The Chinese deputy finance minister, Zhu Guangyao, told a pre-G20 briefing: “Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on oil prices ? it will cause a hike in the oil price.”‘
It doesn’t matter that little children are being gassed to death, it doesn’t matter that this horrible civil war had been dragging on for so long with so many casualties. Quite regardless of the rights or wrongs of any kind of intervention. The issue is not the legality or otherwise of a military strike. The issue is not how far such a strike even if legal will have any effect of reining in the bloody violence and the carnage. The death of civilians or anything like that.
No!
There is one argument and one argument only. It would be bad for business!
This is the face of today’s world. Human suffering means nothing. Values no longer exist. All that matters is what the markets want and that nothing that is bad for business must ever be undertaken. No matter what.
The Duc de la Rochefoucaild once said that hypocrisy is the tribute which vice pays to virtue.
It is a sorry sign of the times then when vice no longer even feels the need for hypocrisy any more.