Saudi Arabia funds and exports Islamic extremism: The truth behind the toxic U.S. relationship with

[applegrove]

Saudi Arabia funds and exports Islamic extremism: The truth behind the toxic U.S. relationship with the theocratic monarchy
by Ben Norton at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/saudi_arabia_funds_and_exports_islamic_extremism_the_truth_behind_the_toxic_u_s_relationship_with_the_theocratic_nation/

"SNIP.............


Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading sponsor of Islamic extremism. It is also a close U.S. ally. This contradiction, although responsible for a lot of human suffering, is frequently ignored. Yet it recently plunged back into the limelight with the Saudi monarchy’s largest mass execution in decades.

On Jan. 2, Saudi Arabia beheaded 47 people across 13 cities. Among the executed was cleric Nimr al-Nimr, a leader from the country’s Shia religious minority who was arrested for leading peaceful protests against the regime in 2011-12.

Sheikh al-Nimr was known throughout the Islamic world for his staunch opposition to sectarianism. The outspoken Saudi dissident firmly insisted that Sunnis and Shias are not enemies, and should unite against the sectarian regimes oppressing them. “The oppressed should unite together against the oppressors, instead of becoming tools in the hands of the oppressors,” he declared.

By executing a dissident who challenged sectarianism, the Saudi monarchy was only further fomenting it.



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[summerschild]

1. I want to see the friggin 28 pages!!!

[hifiguy]

2. Worst country/culture/government/religion on earth

and they own large chunks of this country and its government.

Now the neo-cons are back in bed with KSA. I am sure the money was well spent.

It’s remarkable that just 14 years ago, neocons like Richard Perle were calling for the Bush administration to include Riyadh among the capitals on Washington’s post-9/11 target list. Now the Saud family has again become their dearest friend. No less remarkable is how those fearless defenders of Western values and democratic governance are rallying in defense of an absolute monarchy and the undisputed and deep-pocketed leader of the counter-revolution against the reformist movements of the “Arab Spring.”

That great champion of human rights and democracy, Elliott Abrams, and the hard-line neocon’s most influential print medium, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, were quickest off the mark in attacking Iran and defending the poor, abandoned Saudis, respectively. Bill Kristol’s Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), meanwhile, made it clear which side should be favored in a release posted on its website early Tuesday afternoon. Its list of “resources” made clear that, no matter the provocation, Iran should always be considered “Public Enemy #1.” The administration’s attempt to appear more-or-less even-handed in the escalating crisis—or even a little critical of Riyadh—was yet another deplorable example of Obama’s weakness and appeasement. The clearest critique came from Abrams’s fellow senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Max Boot, in a Commentary Contentions post with the title “An American Ally of Necessity.”

In the lawless jungle that is the international system, nations seldom have the luxury of choosing good over evil. Usually, it is a matter of choosing a lesser evil over a greater evil. So it was in World War II, when we allied with Stalin to stop Hitler, and so it is today in the case of Saudi Arabia versus Iran. The two countries are in a contest for power and influence across the Middle East. Both are human-rights violators, but we should make no mistake that Iran is far worse from the American perspective: not only morally but also strategically.

The American policy should be clear: We should stand with the Saudis – and the Egyptians, and the Jordanians, and the Emiratis, and the Turks, and the Israels [sic], and all of our other allies – to stop the new Persian Empire. But the Obama administration, morally and strategically confused, is instead coddling Iran in the vain hope that it will somehow turn Tehran from enemy into friend.

Much more at http://lobelog.com/neocons-defend-saudi-arabia/