Posted on 10/16/2018 8:25:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
Over the weekend Donald Trump warned of "severe punishment" if an investigation concludes that a Saudi hit team murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Riyadh then counter-threatened, reminding us that, as the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia "plays an impactful and active role in the global economy."
Message: Sanction us, and we may just sanction you.
Some of us yet recall how President Nixon's rescue of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War triggered a Saudi oil embargo that led to months of long gas lines in the United States, and contributed to Nixon's fall.
Yesterday, a week after Jared Kushner had been assured by his friend Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that Khashoggi walked out of the consulate, Trump put through a call to King Salman himself.
According to a Trump tweet, the king denied "any knowledge of whatever may have happened 'to our Saudi Arabian citizen.'"
Trump said he was "immediately" sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh to meet with the king on the crisis. The confrontation is escalating. Crown Prince Mohammed and King Salman have both now put their nation's honor and credibility on the line.
Both are saying that what the Turks claim they can prove -- Khashoggi was tortured and murdered in the consulate, cut up, and his body parts flown to Saudi Arabia -- is a lie.
For Trump and the U.S., this appears a classic case of the claims of international morality clashing with the claims of national interest.
The archetype occurred in the mid-1870s when Ottoman Turks perpetrated a slaughter of Bulgarian Christians under their rule.
Former Prime Minister William Gladstone set Britain ablaze with a pamphlet titled, "The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East," calling for the expulsion of the Turks from Europe.
Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and Queen Victoria were apoplectic. For they were relying on the Turks to block the encroachment of Czarist Russia into the Eastern Balkans and down to the Turkish Straits.
Disraeli prevailed. The Brits put morality on the shelf.
For the U.S., morality and interests collided when FDR recognized the Bolshevik regime of Joseph Stalin in 1933, even as Stalin's agents were starving to death millions of Ukrainian peasants and landowners.
Foreign policy moralists also took a holiday to cheer Nixon for flying to Peking and toasting Mao Zedong, even as Chairman Mao's Red Guards were carrying out the national pogrom known as the Cultural Revolution.
Questions arise: If Khashoggi was assassinated and the order came from the royal family, does that make the Saudis morally unacceptable to us as allies or partners in the Middle East? And if it does, how do we justify our Cold War ties to autocrats such as Chile's Gen. Pinochet, South Korea's Gen. Park Chung-hee, the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, or the Shah of Iran?
How did Franklin Roosevelt handle such associations? "He may be an SOB," FDR said of one Caribbean dictator, "but he's our SOB."
During World War II, when the Germans uncovered in the Katyn Forest a vast gravesite containing the remains of thousands from Poland's officer corps, dating to Stalin's occupation, Poles in Britain came to Prime Minister Churchill to ask for an investigation.
Churchill, for whom Stalin was by now an indispensable ally, replied dismissively: "There is no use prowling round the three-year-old graves of Smolensk."
Nor is it only during wartime that the U.S. has associated with authoritarians with repellent human rights records.
The U.S. maintains a treaty alliance with the Philippines of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has approved the extrajudicial killing of drug dealers, thousands of whom have been murdered.
Gen. el-Sissi came to power in Cairo in a military coup that ousted an elected government headed by a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who is, along with thousands of Brotherhood members, now in prison.
Since the coup attempt in NATO ally Turkey in 2017, President Recep Erdogan has imprisoned thousands, including more journalists than any country on earth.
Last week came reports that China has arrested the head of Interpol, and has indeed been operating an archipelago of re-education camps in its west to purge the ethnic and religious beliefs of the Uighur people.
As for Saudi Arabia, members of Congress are said to be readying sanctions to impose on the Saudi regime if it is proven Khashoggi was killed on royal orders.
However, which would be a greater violation of human rights: the sanctioned killing of a political enemy of the regime or 10,000 dead Yemenis, including women and children, and millions facing malnutrition and starvation in a Saudi war of aggression being fought with the complicity and cooperation of the United States?
Rather than resist Congress' proposed sanctions, President Trump might take this opportunity to begin a long withdrawal from decades of entanglement in Mideast wars that have availed us nothing and cost us greatly.
MsB is bringing SA into the 21st Century. Also there’s enough being found to confirm that the “reporter” was a bad actor. His father was a arms dealer, so this could be retribution for an action of his father. Arab culture allows for little forgiveness.
As far as the technology is concerned, I have no doubt that China and Russian can replicate our technology. We are still dependent on Russia to get us to the Space station.
Saudi Arabia: US$133.6 billion (15.9% of total crude oil exports)
Russia: $93.3 billion (11.1%)
Iraq: $61.5 billion (7.3%)
Canada: $54 billion (6.4%)
United Arab Emirates: $49.3 billion (5.9%)
Iran: $40.1 billion (4.8%)
When Saudi Arabia welcomed Trump, they treated him like royalty.
Seriously, he made them his bitch. There was no bowing, no worshipping at their feet.
Our president demanded the best of the best be rolled out for his arrival. When he got home, he didn’t elevate them above anyone else. This is how the American President should behave, this is how I want to be represented on the global platform.
At least the Saudis and Kuwaitis paid the financial costs for our involvement in the first Gulf War—close to 30 billion dollars.
“The Russians and Chinese will fill the vacuum left by the US departure. And add the radical Islamists. The Kingdom has the largest proven reserves in exportable oil in the world. Its impact on the global economy cannot be underestimated. We would be fools to sever our relationship over the death of a Saudi passport holder.”
Agreed.
The weapons sale to Saudi should be saved for the sake of the American worker.
The weapons sale to Saudi should be saved for the sake of the American worker.
This muslim brotherhood dead journalist is no concern of the US so we should keep things as they are with SA.
Oh by all means, end the relationship. That way Iran can take over the Middle East, destroy Israel, and then turn their attention to us. BUT, we have principles.
To be honest with you I don’t care what they did to this guy.
or the Israelis
or the Bush Administration
or the Illuminati
or the Zeta Reticulans
or ...
But before we separate ourselves from the Riyadh regime, we should ask what is the alternative if the House of Saud should be destabilized or fall? When Egypt's King Farouk was overthrown in 1952, we got Nasser. When young King Faisal was overthrown in Baghdad in 1958, we eventually got Saddam Hussein. When King Idris in Libya was ousted in 1969, we got Qaddafi. When Haile Selassie was overthrown and murdered in Ethiopia in 1974, we got Col. Mengistu and mass murder. When the Shah was overthrown in Iran in 1979, we got the Ayatollah. As World War I, when four empires fell, testifies, wars are hell on monarchies. And if a new and larger Middle East war, with Iran, should break out in the Gulf, some of the Arab kings, emirs and sultans will likely fall. And when they do, history shows, it is not usually democrats who rise to replace them.
With Friends Like These | Pat Puchanan | October 12, 2018 | Townhall
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Sadly, it has to, because of Iran and Syria’s threat to the entire near east.
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Saudi Arabia is actually a creation of Roth Schild Zionism (essentially the Vatican)
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I tend to agree.
Buchanan should go back to the pub and leave policy to the professionals.
You left out the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing of our Marines. 241 Marines dead, killed by Islamic Jihad, backed by Iran. SO it should be more like:
World’s Leading Sponsor of State Terrorism Iran: 241 (and Islamic Jihad was fully backed by Tehran, whereas the 9/11 hijackers didn’t do the arrack at the behest of Riyadh government).
ITEM <><> Prince of Abu Dhabi and Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahayan and the Al Nahayan family of Abu Dhabi's $5,000,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation's Global Initiative. got them (A) access to HRC at State Dept, and, (B) a $500,000 environmental speech by Bill Clinton given at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi while HRC was meeting in Washington with UAR's Shaikh Abdullah.
ITEM<><>EXCLUSIVE: Persian Gulf Sheikhs Gave Bill & Hillary $100 Million [VIDEO] A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation reveals that Bill and Hillary Clinton received at least $100 million from autocratic Persian Gulf states and their leaders, potentially undermining Democratic presidential candidate Hillary’s claim she can carry out independent Middle East policies.
ITEM <><> As a presidential candidate, the amount of foreign cash the Clintons have amassed from the Persian Gulf states is “simply unprecedented,” says national security analyst Patrick Poole. “These regimes are buying access. You’ve got the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, Oman, Qatar and the UAE. There are massive conflicts of interest. It’s beyond comprehension,” Poole told TheDCNF in an interview.
ITEM <><> Overall, the Clinton Foundation has received upwards of $85 million in donations from five Persian Gulf states and their monarchs, according to the foundation’s website. Activist groups have charged the five states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — committed numerous human rights abuses.
ITEM <><>the Saudis helped stage Hillary's election night "victory"---giving her a huge expensive flat screen TV supposedly to air her crashing through a symbolic 500,000 dollar glass ceiling. (This from a kingdom where women are not allowed to drive).
ITEM <><> Several Persian Gulf states contributed millions to the Clinton presidential library in Arkansas.
ITEM<><> Saudi Arabia Funded 20% Of Hillary's Presidential Campaign, / Zerohedge ^ | Jun 14, 2016| Tyler Durden / FR Posted by xzins
(NOTE: It is illegal in the United States for foreign countries to influence the outcome of elections by funding candidates. That appears not to have stopped the Saudis, however.)
“Saudi Arabia provided with full enthusiasm 20 percent of the cost of Hillary Clinton’s election"......the report quoted Saudi Prince Mohammed as having said. According to the US Federal Election commission, over the past two years Clinton has raised a little more than $211.8 million. 20% of this sum is $42.4 million. The Saudi Press Agency reported on Monday that the senior royal was due to fly to Washington where he will meet Obama admin officials to discuss US-Saudi ties. --SNIP--
ITEM<><> Links between Saudi Arabia and the Clinton family, including with Hillary’s campaign, are well reported. In 2008, it was revealed that the Gulf kingdom had donated between $10m and $25m to the Clinton Foundation, a charity set up by Hillary’s husband and former US President Bill Clinton.
ITEM<><> Last year the Centre for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court paid public relations firm the Podesta Group $200,000 for a month- long project to provide “public relations services”. The Podesta Group was founded in 1988 by brothers John and Tony Podesta. John Podesta is the chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Saudi Royals greet then-Secy Hillary (she checks to make sure she's on-camera).
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