The West's reaction to the apparent death of Jamal Kashoggi  has been appalling. Micheal Harris writes:

For sheer, cold-blooded monstrosity, you would have to review the handiwork of Jeffrey Dahmer to find an equivalent to Khashoggi’s end — assuming the Turks have, as they claim, the audio and video evidence to document the moment of his gruesome murder.

The Washington Post columnist entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as a whole person. He apparently left as a collection of pieces in the possession of the 15-person hit squad the Turks believe was dispatched from Riyadh to take his life.

Most of the 15 people who arrived and departed on chartered jets from Riyadh have been identified as having connections to Saudi Arabia’s state security apparatus.

Donald Trump was unfazed:

Trump emphasized that even if the allegations against the Saudis prove true, there wouldn’t be sanctions. Nor would he reconsider the $110 billion arms deal the U.S. recently inked in the wake of the president’s sword dance with Saudi royalty on his visit to Riyadh.

That, he explained, would cost “U.S. jobs.”

Likewise for Justin Trudeau:

Justin Trudeau has been uninspiring in his reaction as well, befitting a politician who signed off on a Harper-era sale of $15 billion worth of Canadian made armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The same Saudis who brutally invaded Bahrain in 2011 and are now conducting a genocidal war against the Houthi in Yemen.

A telling statistic: Although the Trudeau government has deplored the war in Yemen, it has sold $284 million worth of military equipment to the countries that are bombing the Houthis, primarily Saudi Arabia. By comparison, Canada has given the war torn country $65 million in aid. As with climate change, the Liberals say we can have it both ways.

The West is morally vapid. Meanwhile, authoritarians around the world are wrecking havoc:

Police in Dubai concluded that a team from Mossad carried out the assassination of Palestinian Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a city hotel in 2010.

The British concluded that Putin assassinated former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko with polonium, and suspect that members of a Russian spy unit poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England with novichok, a deadly nerve agent.

As Yeats wrote, The worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction."

Image: Scoopnest