By Robert Barsocchini at Washington’s Blog
Five points on Saudi Arabia that “US officials and the establishment media are neglecting to talk about”:
1) Sharia Law runs the country.
2) Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian dictatorship: There are no national elections, no parties, and no rights.
3) People are publicly beheaded in the Kingdom.
4) Human rights for Saudi women are among the worst in the world.
5) The monarchy is a cash machine for terrorists.
(Chris Ernesto assembled and gives details on each point here.)
The Saudi dictatorship is the recipient of the biggest arms sale in US history, secured by Obama in 2010:
CNN, 2010: “U.S. plans $60B, 20-year arms deal with Saudi Arabia”
And that did not include the nearly $1 billion worth of banned cluster bombs Obama sold to the Saudi dictator to help him stay in power:
Foreign Policy, 2013: “U.S. Shipping Thousands of Cluster Bombs to Saudis, Despite Global Ban”
The massive influx of weaponry came after a US cable leaked in 2009 stated:
Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide…
According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia got more repressive under the previous dictator, who just died and was replaced by corrupt billionaire Salman bin Abdulaziz, who stands accused of personally supporting al Qaeda (as many in the Saudi “royal” family and country in general are known by the US to do). Salman lashes writers and rape victims, publicly chops peoples’ heads off, and, coordinating with Washington, burns women and children alive in terrorist attacks that kill hundreds.
And now, the Saudi dictator is ordering his goons to open fire on Saudis protesting Salman and Washington’s illegal attack on Yemen:
Antiwar: “2 Killed, 30 Protesters Wounded as Saudi Forces Attack Antiwar Rally”
(Washington also continues to back, for example, Israel and Egypt, each of which have recently massacred thousands.)
Washington is currently sanctioning almost thirty countries, including Venezuela (which has received over 8 million signatures on a petition condemning US aggression) and Iran. Venezuela is a democracy, and Iran, as noted by Newsweek, has (in the sense of elite-run countries such as the US or China) “democratic” institutions. Saudi dictators laugh at such notions.
Neither a mystery nor an example of inconsistency, Washington massively supports the Saudi regime but sanctions and overthrows democracies and nominally democratic countries because Saudi Arabia collaborates with Washington on what Washington, itself a brutal oligarchy that guns down around a thousand of its own people per year (not to mention kills millions abroad), cares about.
