non-existent? my arse

the Normster draws our attention to a piece by the Rev. Dr. Peter Mullen, who is a Church of England cleric, about Syria.  The Rev. Dr. Mullen appears to be trying, as a number of commentators have in recent days, to justify leaving the Syrian regime to slaughter its people.  Note, however, this:

I’m afraid we have to repeat the old lesson again and again. Nations act in their perceived national interests. Sometimes the consequences are benign, but it does no good at all to imagine that they will always be so. A particular state may even sometimes take an internationalist stance. But – if its leaders are in their right minds – it will not do so out of a sentimental attachment to non-existent universal values, but only from what it calculates as its own interest.


Nations act in their perceived national interest.  Yep.  But where does Responsibility to Protect come from?  Whose national interests are served by that?  It's likely that Russia at least prefers to retain a client in the Middle East, and sees Syria as precisely that, and that both China and Russia do not want their own minority nationalities to get ideas.  (Sorry chaps, they already have).


Jolly good.  I am no theologian, but Peter Mullen has been ordained and does not believe in universal values?  Who does the Gospel apply to then?  The Ten Commandments?  Only nice people who read the Guardian?  Not a bunch of stone-throwing brown-skin Ay-rabs?  And if what I write here offends anyone, good.


The piece quoted from is to be found in the Telegraph.  Peter Mullen is:

The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He is Chaplain to six Livery Companies of the City of London and has written for many publications including the Wall Street Journal.