Seems like a sick quid pro quo.
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, a known Saudi dissident an American citizen, was assassinated by Saudi Arabia at the Saudi embassy in Turkey.
The CIA recently published a report directly linking the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (or MBS), to the murder.
According to the Washington Post, “The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.”
During his campaign, Biden promised to crack down on Saudi Arabia and MBS for the journalist’s murder. But the fact that little has been done, shines a light on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy gone wild.
It’s complicated.
America needs Saudi Arabia as an ally because China is wiring most of the Middle East with 5G and is taking a patient approach to cozying up to the region in order to lock in long-term Chinese interests.
According to Business Insider,
“China’s intellectual-property theft is a significant cause for concern, and one that the U.S. is confronting, the report said. Between October and December, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Chinese hackers and intelligence personnel on charges of intellectual-property theft three times.
But it’s not just about IP theft — it’s also about China out-innovating the U.S., and that as its economy grows, it will continue to do so. The report stressed the necessity of federal funding for tech research and urged the Pentagon to fast-track the adoption of tech innovation in its bureaucratic systems — a problem China doesn’t have, thanks to its integration of military and civil technical innovation.”
Today it’s communication infrastructure, a few decades later it’s military hardware…
The Hypocrisy of American Diplomacy?
Let’s take a brief look back in time to the Obama administration.
President Barack Obama and VP Joe Biden’s administration became the first to execute an American citizen abroad without due process. This was also shortly after Obama had accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
Let that sink in for a minute…
In late 2011 the Obama administration ordered a drone strike on Anwar Awlaki, a known American dissident.
His 16-year old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, also an American citizen, was executed in a U.S. drone strike two weeks later while visiting family in Yemen.
According to a piece by the Intercept,
“Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boy’s 17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely ‘collateral damage.’ Abdulrahman’s grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman, which explained: ‘Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies. His Facebook page shows a typical kid.’
Few events pulled the mask off Obama officials like this one. It highlighted how the Obama administration was ravaging Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries: just weeks after he won the Nobel Prize, Obama used cluster bombs that killed 35 Yemeni women and children. Even Obama-supporting liberal comedians mocked the arguments of the Obama DOJ for why it had the right to execute Americans with no charges: ‘Due Process Just Means There’s A Process That You Do,’ snarked Stephen Colbert. And a firestorm erupted when former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs offered a sociopathic justification for killing the Colorado-born teenager, apparently blaming him for his own killing by saying he should have ‘had a more responsible father.'”
Summary
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
The above quote doesn’t work in parenting and sure as hell doesn’t work in telling the world to behave one way while American foreign policy skips to the head of the line when it wants.
You can’t sanction a Saudi Prince for killing a dissident when American leaders continue to use the same playbook offshore when it’s convenient.
Almost 10,000 men and women fought and died in directionless wars since 2003 for a much better America than this.
American foreign policy has to take the high ground once again and stand for something that everyone in America can easily comprehend.
The people should demand better: Lady liberty and a lot of good men and women deserve more.
Your thoughts below are appreciated.
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