January 05, 2016

Contrary To Media Claims U.S. Always Sides With Its Saudi Clients

The "western" public, especially in Europe, now prefers good relations with Iran over relations with Saudi Arabia. It is a natural development when one considers that jihadi terrorism is a real concern and that the people involved in most international terrorist incidents follow variants of the Saudi spread Wahhabi ideology.

This is now developing into a problem for the U.S. administration. Saudi Arabia, as other Gulf statelets, is a U.S. client state. Without U.S. support it would have ceased to exist a long time ago. The Saudis are made to pay for U.S. protection by buying overpriced U.S. weapon systems for tens of billion dollars per year. They also finance joint projects like the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and currently the U.S. regime change war on Syria.

U.S. relation with Iran have become somewhat better due to the nuclear deal. But the Islamic Republic of Iran will never be a U.S. client state. Seen from the perspective of the global strategic competition it is in the same camp as the U.S. foes Russia and China. Unless the U.S. ceases to strive for global dominance it will continue to support its proxies on the western side of the Persian Gulf rather then the Iranians of the eastern side.

The changed public view, very much visible after the recent Saudi execution of Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, necessitates to mask the real U.S. position by claiming that it is opposed to Saudi Arabian policies. The stenographers in U.S. media are always willing to help their government when such a cover up for a shoddy position is needed.

In the Washington Post Karen De Young supports the administration by providing this lie:

The United States has long joined international human rights organizations and other Western governments in criticizing Saudi human rights abuses ..

Her colleague David Sanger at the New York Times is debunks that nonsense point with a rare reference to reality:

The United States has usually looked the other way or issued carefully calibrated warnings in human rights reports as the Saudi royal family cracked down on dissent and free speech and allowed its elite to fund Islamic extremists.

Sanger then replaces the "U.S. supports human-rights in Saudi Arabia" lie with another blatant one:

the administration has [..] been sharply critical of the Saudi intervention in Yemen

The Obama administration has since March provided expedited arms sales, logistics support, targeting intelligence, air refueling and combat search and rescue for the Saudi war on Yemen. Its navy helps with the blockade of the Yemeni coast. How can the Obama administration be "sharply critical" of the Saudi war on Yemen when it provides the critical means for that war?

Since Sunday there have been at least 11 Saudi air attacks on Yemen's capital Sanaa. Last night another wedding hall, the Commerce Chamber and the AlNoor Centre for the Blind were destroyed by U.S. provided Saudi bombs. I doubt that we will hear any "sharply critical" condemnation of that bombing of civilian infrastructure from U.S. officials.

In the Saudi-Iran proxy conflicts the U.S. supports and urges the Saudis on because it is in its geopolitical interest. Saudi financed jihadist have been helpful in achieving U.S. geopolitical goals in the 1980s in Afghanistan against the Soviets, in Yugoslavia, in Chechnya as now in Syria against the Russians and in Xinjiang against the Chinese. There is no room for human rights or other concerns within that framework. There is room though for billions of weapon sales and millions given by the Saudis to U.S. and UK politicians as well as for public relations.

The New York Times editors falsely claim there is no choice for the U.S. other then to do what it does:

The tangled and volatile realities of the Middle East do not give the United States or the European Union the luxury of choosing or rejecting allies on moral criteria. Washington has no choice but to deal with regimes like those in Tehran [..] or in Riyadh to combat the clear and present danger posed by Islamist terrorists or to search for solutions to massively destabilizing conflicts like the Syrian civil war.

That is utter bullshit. The U.S. is working on regime change in Syria at least since 2006. The U.S. is enabling "the clear and present danger posed by Islamist terrorists" through its alliance with al-Qaeda. It always had and has the choice to cease and desist from meddling in the Middle East and elsewhere to the benefit of the average U.S. citizen as well as to the benefit of the people living in the Middle East.

U.S. media lie when they depict the U.S. as a benevolent entity that stumbles through the Middle East and other areas misled in the dark by Saudi Arabia and Israel. It is the U.S. that is the ruthless superpower that solely enables those barbaric entities to exist.

Posted by b on January 5, 2016 at 15:49 UTC | Permalink

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