Pacifism, Brotherly Love, and Hypocrisy

Another great moment in Euro-double think: Austria defended the sale of 50 caliber sniper rifles to Iran (which has nothing to do with the insurgents in Iraq, natürlich!).

American troops have recovered more than 100 "Steyr .50 HS" rifles in Iraq, part of an Austrian consignment of 800 such weapons delivered to Iran over American protests that they could be given to insurgents, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The Austrian government approved the sale of the rifles, made by precision weapons maker Steyr Mannlicher GmbH, after it concluded in 2004 that they would be used to fight narcotics smugglers.

They called the sale “unimpeachable” – whatever that was supposed to mean in this context.

Imagine, if you will anyone actually believing that any of this fine Austro-Iranian weaponry would actually be used in close-quarters work like drug interdiction and not an infantry setting or channeled directly to their mass-murdering “partners is peace” to pick off coalition troops and their armored equipment.

As usual, European industry and society has whored itself just to make a few bucks. How much of their strange little lives is spent trying to rationalize this stuff and consolidate it with what they like to think their societies hold up as virtues.