…by Jonas E. Alexis
As Jim W. Dean would have put it, you can’t make this stuff up. Donald Trump has recently tweeted: “NYC terrorist was happy as he asked to hang ISIS flag in his hospital room. He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”
Let us grant Trump this premise and apply it to the Middle East. How in the world can Trump support terrorist states like Saudi Arabia? How could this man tell the American people last year that the Saudis were accomplices in the 9/11 attack and then made a deal with the same Saudis one year later? Isn’t it safe to say that this man is actually dumb on purpose?
Saudi Arabia has recently killed “29 people in Yemen, including children,” in a hotel. “Ahmed Mohammed, an eyewitness, insisted there were no fighters in the hotel.” Nobody has said a damn thing about this because Saudi Arabia and the United States are sleeping in the same ideological bed. The only person who has said something is Ahmed Mohammed himself:
“This is an act of aggression by the Americans, the Saudis, and the Zionists, and by God’s will we will take revenge one day. And even if we don’t get revenge, our children will.”
It has been reported that the war in Yemen alone “has killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced 3 million others, and has pushed the Arab world’s poorest country to the brink of famine.”
Where did the Saudis get the military leverage to wipe out the Yemenis? You guessed it: from America. It was reported last year that “The United States has approved the possible sale to Saudi Arabia of up to 153 tanks, hundreds of machine guns and other military gear in a deal worth $1.15bn.”[1] This year, the New York Times itself reported: “$110 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis Has Jared Kushner’s Personal Touch.” It stated last May:
“On the afternoon of May 1, President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, welcomed a high-level delegation of Saudis to a gilded reception room next door to the White House and delivered a brisk pep talk: ‘Let’s get this done today.’
“Mr. Kushner was referring to a $100 billion-plus arms deal that the administration hoped to seal with Saudi Arabia in time to announce it during Mr. Trump’s visit to the kingdom this weekend. The two sides discussed a shopping list that included planes, ships and precision-guided bombs. Then an American official raised the idea of the Saudis’ buying a sophisticated radar system designed to shoot down ballistic missiles.”[2]
The United States has always seen Saudi Arabia as an asset. US officials know that the Saudis have been in the business of committing terrorist crimes and abusing their citizens since the beginning of time. But US officials have ignored this for years, and now Trump is complaining that the alleged terrorist in New York deserves death penalty?
Will Trump stop supporting the Saudis? Will he eventually come to his senses and start taking things seriously? Or will he continue to make diabolical deals with terrorist states?
Moreover, what about the Trump administration killing at least 1,000 civilians in Iraq and Syria? As Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law has rightly pointed out:
“Since Bush launched this war after 9/11, we have become more vulnerable to terrorism. Civilian killings heighten anger toward the United States and lead to stepped-up recruitment of those who would do us harm.”
Last month, Foreign Affairs published an article in which it conclusively detailed that the so-called moderate rebels in Syria and Iraq were actually ISIS and al-Nusra. As the article put it, it was “the moderate face of al-Qaeda” or ISIS.[3]
America is still supporting those terrorist groups under Trump. Again, can this man really tell us that he really cares about civilian lives? Does it make sense for him to tell us that he felt sorry for the alleged attack in New York?
[1] “Saudi Arabia close to deal to buy $1.15bn worth of military equipment from US,” Guardian, August 10, 2016.
[2] Mark Landler, Erick Schmitt, and Matt Apuzzo, “$110 Billion Weapons Sale to Saudis Has Jared Kushner’s Personal Touch,” NY Times, May 18, 2017.
[3] Colin P. Clarke, “The Moderate Face of al-Qaeda: How the Group Has Rebranded Itself,” Foreign Affairs, October 24, 2017.
Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the book, Kevin MacDonald’s Metaphysical Failure: A Philosophical, Historical, and Moral Critique of Evolutionary Psychology, Sociobiology, and Identity Politics. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.
ATTENTION READERS
We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully InformedIn fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.
About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
Comments are closed.