Caiaphas, Trump, and moral bankruptcy

Earlier, some of us thought that the regime of Donald Trump followed no principles whatsoever. Now it appears to have embraced a variation of the Caiaphas Principle. The original Caiaphas Principle was formulated by Joseph Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest at the time of Jesus Christ. It reads: “It is expedient … that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish” (John 11:50). This was the rationale the Sanhedrin used in condemning Jesus to death. 
The Caiaphas Principle could be extended to mean: “Any evil can be justified if it brings sufficient benefits to me and my people.” 
The Trump Corollary would add: “and especially if it makes us a hell of a lot of money”.
In failing to call Saudi Arabia to account for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, Trump has brought about the moral bankruptcy of the United States. Now, when Iran calls “America the Great Satan”, we have to wonder if it’s not understating its case.
Philosophers and theologians have long debated the value of a human life. Trump’s answer: certainly less than $450 billion in arms deals. In more general terms, he’s saying, “Arms deals and military contracts are more important to us than a human life.” 
Under the bus goes Jamal Khashoggi, and with him go the entire tradition of Western humanistic values and any moral authority the US might conceivably claim to possess. 
The Talmud says: “Whoever destroys a soul, it is as if he [had] destroyed an entire world” (Yerushalmi Talmud 4:9, Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 37a). Jesus says: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?” (Matt. 16:26, Mark 8:36, Luke 9:25). Trump says: “Give me those arms deals, and it’s under the bus with a human life.” In the Trumpworld, dissembling trumps truth, convenience trumps principle, and money trumps life. 
Pragmatists will object, “There’s no use crying over spilled milk. Khashoggi is dead, we can’t resurrect him, so let’s cut out the moralistic grandstanding and move on.” The advocates of expediency always quote that cheap little mantra “Let’s move on” whenever they want to forget past blunders and go on to commit more. What’s needed is to study those past blunders, learn from them, and apply their lessons to avoid repeating them in the future.
At the very least, the US government ought to issue a formal statement condemning the Saudi government for permitting, if not for causing, the brutal murder of a human being on its own sovereign territory, its embassy in Turkey. That will not bring justice to Khashoggi, but it’s better than nothing. For justice to be served, human beings will have to do something, and they probably won’t. We can only cling to the frail hope that “the mills of the gods grind exceedingly slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine”.
In this case, let’s hope that they grind faster and finer.
Ye Olde Theologian