Saudi prince is our newest Saddam

[riversedge]

Saudi prince is our newest Saddam



https://www.stripes.com/opinion/saudi-prince-is-our-newest-saddam-1.589422


By JACKSON DIEHL | The Washington Post | Published: July 8, 2019

Once upon a time, there was a brutal and reckless dictator of an oil-rich Arab country who, despite his well-documented excesses, was stroked and supported by the United States and other Western governments. His crimes were terrible, went the rationale, but he was modernizing his country and he was holding the line against Islamist jihadism and Iran. Anyway, there was probably no alternative.

The ruler heard that message. He concluded that, as long as he kept supplying oil and opposing Iran, he was free to butcher his opponents and bully his neighbors.

His name, of course, was Saddam Hussein. The bet made on him by the United States and its allies directly led to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and from there to the “endless wars” in the Middle East that are now almost universally bemoaned by the West’s foreign policy establishment.

And yet, 30 years later, those mandarins and the politicians they report to are blindly repeating the mistake. They are saying they abhor the blatant crimes of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, including the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the torture and imprisonment of women seeking greater rights. They see his bombing campaign in Yemen as a war-crime-ridden disaster..................................

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. This makes it sound as if Saddam defied the U.S. and invaded Kuwait.

I thought Saddam asked for U.S. opinion before the invasion, via our ambassador April Glaspie, who told Saddam that the U.S. was not interested, would view such an invasion as an internal issue in the Arab world.

It was only when a Kuwaiti princess, in guise as an average Kuwaiti, came to congress and told us of Iraqis stealing incubators after throwing the preemies on the floor, that our government "took offense" and was sucked into Desert Shield/Storm.

Kuwait was, and is, no bastion of equality and democracy.

[trusty elf]

2. anagram for "Saddam Hussein"...

Send Saudis Ham

[Initech]

3. I've been saying since 9/11 that the Saudis are dirty dealers.

Of course it has come to Kashoogi's murder before the whole world realizes it.