Our government should cut all ties with Saudi Arabia. It undermines all our values. It attacks our people. It ignores the refugee crisis in its own orbit of influence. It takes our money. It foments terrorist acts like 9/11. It buys our military equipment.
And we’re just fine with it all? And we’re worried about North Korea? Really?
A Saudi man was sentenced to death basically for being an atheist. The link below for The Guardian provides more detail.
The religious police first detained Fayadh in August 2013 after receiving a complaint that he was cursing against Allah and the prophet Muhammad, insulting Saudi Arabia and distributing a book of his poems that promoted atheism. Fayadh said the complaint arose from a personal dispute with another artist during a discussion about contemporary art in a cafe in Abha.
Here is a regime that is extremely rich due to the oil bonanza in the Middle East. The United States supports this repressive (almost medieval) regime. Here is the link to the Saudi embassy web site.
What kind of country must kill those that don’t subscribe to its official religion? Christian countries did this for centuries. Muslim countries have always done it and are still doing it now.
And we stand by and watch and sell them F-35 fighter planes.
This short video is disturbing in many ways. Don’t even think about looking at the comments in YouTube below. Incidentally, what is it with YouTube comments? Why are they always puerile, offensive, disgusting or idiotic?
It starts with the title: Arab Woman in Burqa Eating Spaghetti – Hilarious!!
I don’t think this is hilarious at all. It illustrates like a caricature the systematic and humiliating oppression of women in Islam as it is supported by governments and monarchies all over the world.
We will never know how these women really feel. But I cannot imagine they are enjoying themselves in this role of non-personhood.
And we, the United States, stand behind a number of such oppressive, sick governments with our money and our soldiers.
American soldiers went to war on behalf of Kuwait. KUWAIT! One of the most repressive societies in the world. G.H.W. Bush sent 425,000 American soldiers to liberate Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991 and 383 Americans did not come back. The U.S. Department of Defense has estimated the cost of the Gulf War at $61 billion, of which Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states covered $36 billion and Germany and Japan covered $16 billion. More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed. While the U.S., for a change, didn’t pay the majority of the cost, we sent 425,000 of the 670,000 troops from 28 countries. That means we brought in two thirds of all the soldiers.
And what did we get from Kuwait in return?
What did the wives, parents and relatives of the 383 American soldiers who died there get for giving their lives for KUWAIT?
Our friends, the Saudis, are the other most oppressive regime on the planet.
What compels us to keep courting Middle Eastern countries? What do we get in return?
Cheap oil? – Not.
Money? – Not.
Thanks? – Are you kidding!
On this issue I am – and I hate to say it here – with Donald Trump. Our leaders don’t know what they are doing. Our so-called allies are laughing all the way to the bank while the American public is told our soldiers are dying for our freedom.
It’s a disgrace.
All that from watching a poor woman try to eat spaghetti.
A few days ago I objected to our government leaders fawning over King Abdullah after his death. I said that the King was a tyrant. Today I found this chart, that outlines crimes and their punishments. I must admit that I cannot find the source, and I could not firmly corroborate accuracy. I don’t read Arabic. If a reader wants to correct anything in this chart, please let me know. As it stands, it seems obvious that ISIS simply copied its commandments and their respective punishments from Saudi Arabia.
We hate ISIS for what it does to its people and those it subjugates, but Saudi Arabia is our friend?
…and we happily let it happen. We have already spent more than $1 billion on ISIS airstrikes, and we don’t have any money to repave the crumbling roads of Los Angeles and New York.
“I’m sitting here wondering where Saudi Arabia is, where Kuwait is, where Qatar is, I’ll be damned if kids in the state of Vermont — or taxpayers in the state of Vermont — have to defend the royal Saudi family, which is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”
— Sen. Bernie Sanders – check out his video at this link.
These super-wealthy Arab nations are laughing all the way to the bank, while their royal families shop in Beverly Hills and Fifth Avenue stores.