bogarde73 wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2016 at 8:20am:



Oil for Terror ... this is why conservatives are silent on Saudi Arabia being world central for Islamic Fundamentalism ... and conservatives ignoring it.

They would rather western civilians killed in attack after attack so they can try and garnish political advantage out of the blood and guts.

But hey, you flitter around the edges of actually debating the topic ... like the trolls.

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


The little-told history of the U.S.-Saudi "special relationship" is a story of blood, oil & violent fundamentalism


“Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.” So advised world-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky, one of the most cited thinkers in human history.

The counsel may sound simple and intuitive — that’s because it is. But when it comes to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. ignores it.

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.

Human rights organizations condemned the executions. Amnesty International said the Saudi regime is “using the death penalty in the name of counter-terror to settle scores and crush dissidents,” sentencing activists “to death after grossly unfair trials.” Amnesty called this “a monstrous and irreversible injustice.”

Yet atrocities like the mass beheadings are by no means new in Saudi Arabia. What is new is the global attention to them.

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the nephew of the murdered cleric, was arrested at age 17 for attending a peaceful pro-democracy protest in 2012. He was allegedly tortured, before being sentenced to death by beheading and crucifixion.

Saudi Arabia is one of the last places on the planet where crucifixions are still practiced — ordered by the government itself.

In recent years, the Saudi monarchy has also arrested at least two other peaceful teenage pro-democracy activists and sentenced them to death.

Furthermore, a Palestinian poet was sentenced to death by Saudi Arabia in November for renouncing Islam and criticizing the royal family.

In 2015, the Saudi regime executed 158 people, largely by beheading. On average, approximately half (47 percent) of people executed in Saudi Arabia are killed for drug-related offenses, according to Amnesty International. Every four days, then, on average, the Saudi monarchy executes someone for drugs — while its own princes are caught with thousands of pounds of drugs at foreign airports.

Journalist Abby Martin devoted an episode of her show “The Empire Files” to exploring the Saudi-U.S. relationship. The episode, aptly titled “Inside Saudi Arabia: Butchery, Slavery & History of Revolt,” displays the brutality of the monarchy in excruciating detail.

“If the Saudi kingdom were an enemy of the U.S. government, we’d be shown these images and facts every day on the mainstream media,” Martin observes.

The internal repression and human rights abuses inside Saudi Arabia is one thing. Perhaps even more troubling, however, is the monarchy’s support for violent religious extremism. It is here that Chomsky’s advice on stopping terrorism becomes so important. By continually aligning itself with the Saudi regime, the U.S. is fueling the very fire it is fighting in the so-called War on Terror.

Saudi support for extremism
Saudi Arabia is a theocratic absolute monarchy that governs based on an extreme interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law). It is so extreme, it has been widely compared to ISIS. Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud characterized Saudi Arabia in an op-ed in The New York Times as “an ISIS that has made it.”

“Black Daesh, white Daesh,” Daoud wrote, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. “The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia.”

“In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other,” Daoud continued. “This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.”

Since the November Paris attacks, in which 130 people were massacred in a series of bombings and shootings for which ISIS claimed responsibility, the West has constantly spoken of the importance of fighting extremism. At the same time, however, the U.S., U.K., France, and other Western nations have continued supporting the Saudi regime that fuels such extremism.

Saudi political dissidents like Turki al-Hamad have constantly argued this point. In a TV interview, al-Hamad insisted the religious extremism p

a “close ally.” The State Department calls Saudi Arabia “a strong partner in regional security and counterterrorism efforts, providing military, diplomatic, and financial cooperation.” It stated in September 2015 it “welcomed” the appointment of Saudi Arabia to the head of a U.N. human rights panel. “We’re close allies,” the State Department remarked.

In order to understand where this intimate relationship came from, and why it is so important to the U.S., it is important to look back at history

.A history of “precious jewels”
The U.S.-Saudi relationship has its origins in the early 20th century. It was at this time that Saudi Arabia was discovered to have what were believed to be the world’s largest oil reserves. The largest oil reserves are now known to actually be in Venezuela, but Saudi Arabia has the second-largest. And when Saudi Arabia is combined with neighboring Gulf states Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, it is by far the most oil-dense region of the planet.

This abundance in natural resources has led to a kind of special relationship, if you will, like the one between the U.S. and the U.K. or the U.S. and Israel.

In 1945, just before he died, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud, the first king and founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Roosevelt promised the regent the U.S. would support his kingdom in return for oil. This relationship has continued to this day.

Still now, American politicians openly cite these oil reserves as an important reason for U.S. support. In October 2015, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Bahrain, where he declared, “Our engagement today is grounded by our deep and enduring commitment to the Middle East and to its people. This region is home to some of our oldest and closest friends and allies.”

“The region’s oil supplies have powered industries and economies for generations since the Gulf prospectors first struck oil in Bahrain in 1931,” Sec. Blinken continued. “And while we are now more energy sufficient, Middle East oil continues to drive the global market, and we remain determined to secure its supply.”

Every U.S. president since Roosevelt has worked with the Saudi monarchy — from Truman to Carter to Obama.

Eisenhower’s administration emphasized the “close cooperation” between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia on economic and military grounds. “Saudi Arabia, by virtue of its spiritual, geographical, and economic position, is of vital importance in the Middle East,” his administration insisted. “It is in the interests of world peace that this Kingdom be strengthened for the maintenance of its own stability and the safeguarding and progressive development of its institutions.”

The Nixon administration created a “Twin Pillars” Middle East policy, in which the U.S.-backed monarchies in Saudi Arabia and Iran were considered pillars of stability. In 1953, the CIA backed a coup that overthrew Iran’s first and only democratically elected head of state, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The U.S. subsequently propped up the Iranian monarch, known as the shah, until the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which permanently changed the U.S. relationship with Iran, moving the U.S. even closer to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

In September 2015, President Obama commended “the longstanding friendship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.” President Obama’s administration has in fact moved the U.S. even closer to the Saudi regime, particularly in the realm of military coordination. In the past five years, the U.S. has done more than $100 billion in arms deals with the Saudi monarchy.

Some analysts have downplayed the significance of oil in this special relationship, but it is hard to overstate the importance of oil to the modern industrial economy. To put it simply, things would simply collapse were it not for oil. Petroleum is in practically everything. It’s in our cars, airplanes, roads, buildings, and even products like toothpaste. The entire modern global economy is based on oil. This is why even a relatively small fluctuation in the price of oil can have enormous global economic effects.

A recent television program by National Geographic tried to envision what exactly would happen if the modern world ran out of oil. Its depiction is bleak and dystopian —it is a world in which life truly is nasty, brutish and short.

But critics do have a point; it is not just about oil — although petroleum is at the center of the U.S.-Saudi special relationship. Saudi Arabia, along with Israel, has also been an important political and military ally in the Middle East, that ensures U.S. dominance in the region.

Of all past U.S. presidents, President Reagan’s relationship with the Saudi monarchy is particularly relevant in these regards.

“The friendship and cooperation between our governments and people are precious jewels whose value we should never underestimate,” Reagan declared at the 1985 welcoming ceremony for then Saudi King Fahd.

Reagan told the monarch “you rightfully exert a strong moral influence in the world of Islam, and the people of the United States are proud of their leadership role among the democratic nations.” The U.S. president dubbed his country the regent of the West, and Saudi Arabia the regent of the Middle East.

“I firmly believe that in the years ahead, there should be and will be a more powerful recognition of the common interests shared by these two significant world forces. Already, the bonds of commerce are strong, especially between o

More here :

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


Until conservatives in Australia distance themselves from the funding of terror, they are part of the problem.

____ wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2016 at 9:05am:


Does anyone actually disagree that these dictatorships in the Middle East need to be gotten rid of? But do you understand how your argument is flawed when it comes to you regressive leftists? See, your problem is everything and anything wrong in the world has to somehow be linked to conservatives and to the USA and to the west.  Except in this case the west doesn't cause the Saudia Arabia regime. The ideology of Wahhabism wasn't derived from the US or from any western conservative. It was derived from the ideas of Islam.  And yet you just can't bring yourself to say this, because doing so would be "islamaphobia" so instead you find some ludicrous suggestion that it must be the US.  Sure, the US shouldn't support these tyrants and I'm in full support of them ending it. But likewise, why do you support terrorist organisations in Palestine? Why were you against the removal of sadam Hussein, a tyrant who killed over 2 million people? Why are you against action on IsIs?  I doubt very much that the us putting sanctions on Saudi Arabia will do much impact to Saudia Arabia, especially when you have the rest of the Muslim world and China ready to do trades.  The reality is this plan will not end date Terrorism. Yes, the US should stop dealing with Saudia Arabia, but it won't stop terrorism because this isn't the core cause of terrorism. I think you're just looking for scape goats because you can't bring yourself to see what the real problem actually is.  And no, it's not the west or conservatives in the west. It's also not hypocritical  regressive leftists like you, although you lot don't help. the real problem are the ideas of Islam. 

sir prince duke alevine wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2016 at 9:21am:



There has been no suggestion from me of replacing governments. The West is not the world's policemen because we are far from pure and correct.

1945, President Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia meet. For oil, the US agreed to protect Wahhabism.

This still is the situation and includes Australian conservatives. Conservatives refuse to stop funding terrorism through trade and protecting Saudi Arabia.

Conservatives have blood on their hands.