Monday, 18 May 2015 11:05
Barack Obama was hosting the royal rulers of the six Persian Gulf Arab states in Washington. First there was the VIP treatment and photo-ops on the White House's South Lawn, then a fireside chat in the Oval Office, followed by a private meeting at the president's mountain retreat at Camp David in Maryland, some 100km north of the capital.
What a sharp contrast and contradiction when it comes to human rights principles like freedom, justice, equality and the power of oil and petrodollar to buy even presidents and officials of big countries like those of France, UK and USA!
The Saudi royals' petrodollar kingdom of ignorance, darkness and blasphemy is indeed a flagrant example of how much petro dollar is the might and not the very simple right of every human worldwide! The Gulf Royals should be the last to speak about democracy, freedom and legitimacy.
The Royals forbid women even from driving cars, Christians and Jews even from entering the sacred places of God- and surely not of Al-Saud! The Royals of treason, murder, fratricide have no elections nor free point views!
According to Finian Cunningham, the Sputnik, the most repressive regimes on Earth were recently received with the finest American hospitality President Obama came out with some outlandish, ludicrous statements.
Barack Obama was hosting the royal rulers of the six Persian Gulf Arab states in Washington. First there was the VIP treatment and photo-ops on the White House's South Lawn, then a fireside chat in the Oval Office, followed by a private meeting at the president's mountain retreat at Camp David in Maryland, some 100km north of the capital.
The oil-rich Arab guests hailed from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain. These sheikhdoms — historically carved out of the Arabian desert by the British Empire — are among the most wealthy and the most repressive regimes in the world.
Their rulers are pampered hereditary scions who systematically curtail free speech and public gatherings, ruling with an iron-fist. In all of these despotic regimes, people are routinely flung into dungeons for daring to make public comments that might be deemed critical of the ruling elite.
In Qatar, for example, a young poet was jailed for 15 years because he wrote a poem that was mildly critical of the ruling Al Thani family, whose emir, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, was in Obama's company.
In Saudi Arabia, the ruling House of Saud has publicly beheaded 80 people this year alone; their blood-stained corpses were then dangled from helicopters as a warning to would-be offenders. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef was also among those enjoying Obama's hospitality.
Furthermore, the warped version of Islam espoused by the Gulf despots — called Wahhabism — is rabidly intolerant of any other form of religion, including more conventional forms of Sunni or Shia Islam, let alone Christianity and other faiths. All are condemned as "infidels" by the Gulf Arab rulers in their obscurantist, backward ideology.
The Arab sheikhs in Washington this past week are among the foremost treasurers and arms suppliers for the myriad terror groups ranging from Al Qaeda to ISIL. These groups continue to threaten the Middle East, inciting sectarian conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon, destabilizing governments and fomenting regime change, as in Libya and Syria, added Cunningham.
The financial and armaments links between the Saudis, Qataris and other Gulf despots on the one hand and terrorist mercenary groups on the other is well documented. Even US officials have acknowledged this; for example, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was revealed through WikiLeaks disclosures to be well aware of the role of Saudi Arabia in supporting Al Qaeda-linked terror networks. So too was the former US ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, who is also on record in 2010 as saying that the Saudi regime was instrumental in fuelling sectarian violence in that country.
Yet Obama regaled the Arab tyrants in Washington last week, saying that the US and the sheikhdoms are the "cornerstone of peace, stability and security in the Middle East." The president added: "The United States and Saudi Arabia have an extraordinary friendship and relationship that dates back to Franklin Roosevelt [in 1945]."
All this was said by Obama with a straight face and sincere intonation. Which raises the question: is he a very good liar, or is this guy just really stupid? Why does the US continue to funnel billions of dollars of weapons every year to the Gulf dictatorships in the hopes that this will ensure peace and stability if these regimes are complicit in the terrorist activity that threatens the tranquility of the Muslim world?
Right now and for the past nearly seven weeks, the Saudi-led Gulf states have been pounding the people of Yemen day and night with American-supplied warplanes and bombs, including internationally banned cluster bombs that kill everything in their blast radius. Thousands of Yemeni women and children have been slaughtered in this US-backed campaign against the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.
The Saudi-led aerial bombardment has blockaded Yemen from air and sea routes delivering food, fuel and medical aid. The country depends on exports for 90 per cent of its food and fuel. Some 80 per cent of the Yemeni population of 24 million are now feared to be facing starvation and extreme privation. Children are dying from wounds and diseases because there is no transportation. Families are huddling in sewers to avoid air strikes.
In this desert country, diesel fuel is essential for drawing drinking-water from wells. Because of the Saudi-imposed blockade on Yemen, people are left without any drinking-water. This Saudi-led and American-backed barbarity breaks every precept of international and humanitarian law under the baseless, contemptible pretext of "protecting Yemen from Iranian-supported rebels."
This barbarity of collective punishment meted out to civilians was condemned this week by United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Johannes van der Klaauw.
On April 28, American-supplied Saudi fighter jets bombed the runway and traffic-control tower of the international airport in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in order to prevent an Iranian civilian cargo plane from landing with humanitarian aid. An Iranian cargo ship, coordinated with the International Red Cross Committee, is due to dock in Yemen next week with food and medical supplies. The vessel may again be blocked by Saudi forces, thus provoking a possible war with Iran.
These are the kind of maniacal, lawless regimes that Washington considers "extraordinary friends", who together, allegedly, maintain peace, stability and security in the Middle East, concluded Cunningham.
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