The Saudis are our friends?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – as those tanks left Kuwait in March 2003, they should have headed south instead of north.

The Saudis are NOT our friends.

Let’s just set aside that they killed a journalist in a consulate. We’ll cover that in a minute.

First, let’s not forget that the Saudis are working to make Qatar a pariah in the region, with the Saudis getting allies to cut off all ties with Qatar. Even President Trump supported them on this. The evidence for which the Saudis allege that Qatar should be cut off is flimsy at best and likely fabricated, but it was enough for Trump to jump on the Saudi bandwagon.

You might have heard of Qatar; it’s home to Al Udeid Air Base, home of 11,000 American troops fighting ISIS and trying to maintain stability in the region. You might also want to look up why the troops are there and NOT at Prince Sultan Airbase, where they were located during Desert Shield/Storm, and when that happened.

That’s because the move occurred just after 9/11/2001. And that’s the big one we can’t forget – 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. They weren’t Afghani or Iraqi; nope, they were our “friends” the Saudis.

Now, let’s get back to the killing of the journalist. He was a US resident who entered a Saudi consulate and never exited. President Trump would have us believe that “rogue killers” just happened to accidentally kill him in the consulate and the government knew nothing about it. That could be a believable story if it happened at a nightclub; but this was on politically protected soil in a government building owned and operated by the Saudi government!

So what is the life of a journalist worth in President Trump’s eyes? Apparently less than $110 billion. Trump said he doesn’t want to scrap $110 billion of arms sales over this.

For the reasons I laid out above – and the mere fact that any country who is willing to resort to such drastic measures to silence their critics is certainly not our “friend” – perhaps we shouldn’t be doing business with them – and certainly NOT selling them a crap load of hi-tech weapons.