THE DOCTRINE OF THE N.A.F.T.A. GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS IS TO SERVE THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ENDLESS WAVES OF INVADING 'CHEAP' LABOR SUBSIDIZED WITH WELFARE FUNDED BY TAXES ON MIDDLE AMERICA.
In many speeches, Mayorkas says he is building a mass migration system to deliver workers to wealthy employers and investors and “equity” to poor foreigners. The nation’s border laws are subordinate to elites’ opinion about “the values of our country,” Mayorkas claims.
Thursday, December 19, 2019
KURT SCHLICHTER - GET THE HELL OUT OF MUSLIM AFGHANISTAN! - AND WHAT? DEFEND U.S. BORDERS AGAINST THE NARCOMEX HEROIN CARTELS ON, UNDER AND OVER AMERICAN BORDERS???
“The
Wahhabis finance thousands of madrassahs throughout the world where young boys
are brainwashed into becoming fanatical foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush
Saudis and other emirs of the Persian Gulf.” AMIL
IMANI
Koran 2:191 "s lay the unbelievers wherever you find
them"
Koran 3:21 "Muslims must not take the infidels as friends"
Koran 5:33 "Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam"
Koran 8:12 "Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other
than the Koran"
Koran 8:60 " Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the
infidels"
Koran 8:65 "The unbelievers are stupid, urge all Muslims to fight
them"
Koran 9:5 "When the opportunity arises, k ill the infidels wherever you
find them"
Koran 9:123 "Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood"
Koran 22:19 "Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron
rods, boiling water, melt their skin and bellies"
Koran 47:4 "Do not hanker for peace with the infidels, behead them when
you catch them".
“The
tentacles of the Islamist hydra have deeply penetrated the world. The
Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood poses a clear threat in Egypt. The Muslim
Brotherhood also wages its deadly campaign through its dozens of
well-established and functioning branches all over the world.”
*
“The Wahhabis finance thousands of madrassahs
throughout the world where young boys are brainwashed into becoming fanatical
foot-soldiers for the petrodollar-flush Saudis and other emirs of the Persian
Gulf.” AMIL IMANI
* We will take advantage of their immigration
policy to infiltrate them.
* We will use their own welfare system to
provide us with food, housing, schooling, and health care, while we out breed
them and plot against them. We will Caliphate on their dime.
* We will use political correctness as a
weapon. Anyone who criticizes us, we will take the opportunity to grandstand
and curry favor from the media and Democrats and loudly accuse our critics of
being an Islamophobe.
* We will use their own discrimination
laws against them and slowly introduce Sharia Law into their culture..
Surprising
no one, recent revelations demonstrate
that not only is Afghanistan a hopeless wreck but our glorious foreign policy
elite has been lying about it for going on two decades. Remember, these people
are our betters, our moral superiors, the people we should genuflect to and
obey because of their wisdom and insights and credentials. And they are lying
garbage people. If it wasn’t for the ridiculous impeachment foolishness, maybe
our country could focus on this endless disaster – and one that is still
killing our best and our bravest.
Here’s the bottom line. Donald Trump’s instincts were right
when he looked at this Seventh Century wasteland and asked (I’m paraphrasing),
“What the hell are we doing still being here?”
We need to get out of Afghanistan yesterday. The 4K Trump’s
supposed to be pulling out soon should be the down payment. Bring our troops
all home.
The Taliban rules the countryside. The drug warlords are
laughing at us. Our corrupt “allies” are raking in our cash, with trillions of
our dollars spraying out of a massive spigot that the beneficiaries don’t want
to cut off. But worse, our troops are dying in drips and drabs. Hell, a year
ago one of my friends got shot there by somebody pretending to be our ally
right up until the moment that turd decided to blast the infidels with a weapon
we probably bought him. I do not presume to speak for my friend and I have no
idea where he stands on the politics – like all our great soldiers, he’ll go
where ordered and do his utmost – but I’m retired and I know where I
stand.
I stand
for lancing this festering boil of a war. End it. After nearly 20 years, it’s
not worth one more American limb or life.
Were we defeated? Not in any meaningful sense. We just have
nothing to gain by fighting it anymore. We came to kill al-Qaeda. We killed
heaps of those scumbags. But somehow that mission morphed into making
Afghanistan a place that didn’t suck. That’s crazy. It’s always sucked and it
always will suck and its suckiness is not our problem.
We didn’t “win,” in the sense that we did not crush all
opposition. To say we cannot win in Afghanistan is wrong. Of course we can win.
What we cannot do is summon up the will to do what it would take to win.
Perhaps we do not want to –
and there are plenty of good reasons not to do the hard and horrendous things
necessary to pacify that backwater hellhole. But we could, if we wanted to. We
have the combat power. What we do not have is the will – and again, maybe we
don’t want to have the will to do it. We beat Germany and Japan by, in large
part, annihilating their cities. But both were existential threats to our
country. Afghanistan, if it provides a refuge for jihadi degenerates
again, is a threat, but hardly an existential threat.
Winning in Afghanistan means exponentially more blood and
treasure. We would need to flood the country with troops, and flood it with
even more money. It would take hundreds of thousands of soldiers, which we
could send. But would we want to? Do we want that butcher’s bill?
As for money, well, the reports make clear that we have
flooded that country with cash for two decades and all we have to show for it
are rich grifters and…more rich grifters, American and Afghani. That’s it. We
could have set those trillions of bucks on fire and at least we would not have
had to bury a few thousand of our troops.
And to pacify the countryside means putting aside the
counterinsurgency fad that’s led to two decades of treading water in a sea of
American blood. Julius Caesar understood how to pacify a country. So did Curtis
LeMay. You go in and wipe out your enemies. You kill them in massive quantities
until they beg you to surrender. And you destroy their territory, leaving it a
wasteland. We did that in World War II, not coincidentally the last war we
unequivocally won.
But would we do that here? Do we want to shed that amount of
blood? Let’s not dance around it – we don’t want to, as a country. We have no
stomach for the kind of meat grinder warfare we used to practice, at least not
in this scenario. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe the objective of a pacified
Afghanistan is not worth the moral cost of victory. But there’s no need to even
think about it because there is not going to be a consensus in our country to
do what we would have to do to win. We’re not going for Dresden II: Pashtun Boogaloo. So let’s stop
this bloody Groundhog Day of a war, after countless funerals, countless
dollars, and countless years.
If a war is not important enough to win, then it’s sure as
hell not important enough to not win for years and years and years.
So, what happens to our allies? Some of our “allies” are
apparently less allies than parasites. They’ll be fine, and if they aren’t, too
bad. The ones who truly stood with us, who fought beside our men and shed blood
with them, we should take care of. That might mean arming them. That might mean
bringing them here. But it does not mean running on this miserable rat wheel
forever.
“But,” warn those who want to stay, “if we abandon our allies
what message does that send?” Well, it sends the message that if we prop you up
for two decades and you still can’t hack it, yeah, you’re on your own. That is not a bad message to send.
It’s their country. If they want to fight for it, that’s
their choice. And if they don’t, that’s also their choice. But after 20 years,
it’s not our problem anymore. The fact that we’ve been stupid enough to waste
blood and bucks on Afghanistan for two decades – when the reason we came there
in the first place was to exact vengeance on terrorists, not remake its entire
primitive society – does not somehow morally obligate us to keep doing so
forever.
“The terrorists might come back” is another
argument. That’s true. But then we can come back too – in the form of drones or
bombers or special ops guys, and we can kill them. If the Taliban takes over,
that’s bad. But then the Taliban has taken over. It would have something to
lose.
Might terrorists threaten us from there again even though we
would hold the local warlord responsible? Maybe. But right now, Afghans are
actively trying to kill Americans who are, conveniently, right there. How are we
worse off removing the enemy’s targets across an ocean?
A lot of people have an interest in this fiasco continuing.
The foreigners our fecklessness have made rich. The contractors cashing in on
Uncle Sam’s cash. Even our military has an interest in continuing it. It’s not
some sort of evil delight in war, but professionals tend to want to use their
skills. Afghanistan is a mission, and our military – because it is mostly
composed of aggressive achievers, except in the JAG Corps – likes having a
mission. But the military works for us, and we should tell it, “Nope. Thanks,
but you’re done. Pack up and redeploy.”
Some others warn, “Well, China will go in if we go out.” Oh
no, that would be awful.
There is one more argument. There are folks who worry that leaving
will render our sacrifices meaningless. But that’s not so. The courage and
sacrifice of our warriors under unbelievable conditions was not in vain. Those
who served in Afghanistan have a right to be proud; we should be proud of them.
They were never defeated. They are leaving not because they were forced out but
because we called them home. They should leave with their heads held high as
the heroes they are.
And it’s precisely because they are heroes that we owe them
this tough decision to finally end this war.
With so many real-world disasters going on, you need a break.
Go ahead and check out my new novel Collapse.
It’s the pro-military, action-packed, yet cynically funny, sequel to People's Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. Liberal
madness has broken our country in two. In the blue states, political
correctness has reached peak insanity. And all hell is breaking loose. Collapse is fun. In fact, check them
all out – Bill Kristol (Ahoy! He shows up
too!) calls them “appalling” so you know they’re good.
GOP/Democrats Slip Amnesty for 1K Liberian Nationals into Defense Budget
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
2:15
Senate Republicans and Democrats approved a defense budget for Fiscal Year 2020 after slipping into it an amnesty for nearly 1,000 Liberian nationals who will now be eligible for American citizenship.
This week, the Senate passed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act that includes a provision that gives amnesty to about 840 Liberian nationals and their children who would otherwise have self-deported from the United States in March.
In early 2018, President Trump ended Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberia, which acted as a de facto amnesty for Liberians to stay in the U.S. since 1991. Liberians were first given the temporary amnesty in the early 1990s due to a civil war in their nation.
After decades of renewing the temporary amnesty by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama — despite the nation’s civil war long having ended — Trump reviewed their DED status and determined that Liberia is safe for nationals in the U.S. to return to.
The amnesty for Liberian nationals slipped into the defense budget had been pushed for months by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and a handful of Minnesota lawmakers. Effectively, all Liberian nationals who were allowed to stay in the U.S. over the last few decades will now be allowed to adjust their immigration status, making them permanent residences who can eventually apply to become American citizens.
Liberian nationals will only be disqualified from the amnesty if they have been convicted of aggravated felonies such as murder, rape, child sex abuse, sex trafficking, and kidnapping.
Also included in the defense budget is billions of American taxpayer money that will continue funding border security measures in foreign countries like Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Meanwhile, less than $1.4 billion is explicitly authorized for the construction of a border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
House Votes to 'Enhance the Border Security' of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia--Not the USA
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has voted to fund efforts to "enhance the border security" of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia while moving to deny all funding to build walls, fencing or any other structures to enhance the border security of the United States.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants have their priorities.
To them, borders on the other side of the world are more important than our own.
On June 19, the House approved a massive spending bill. In an act of legislative polygamy, it "married" the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense to the appropriations bills for the Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.
Yet there is one thing this bill would forbid the Trump administration from spending one penny to accomplish.
On page 304 (of 650), it says: "None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act or any prior Department of Defense appropriations Acts may be used to construct a wall, fence, border barriers, or border security infrastructure along the southern land border of the United States."
A month later, the House Appropriations Committee sent the full House a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
President Trump had requested that it include $5 billion to use in constructing barriers at the border.
How much did the committee give him?
"No funding is provided in the bill for new physical barriers along the southwest border," said the committee report.
It also said, "The recommendation provides no funding for additional Border Patrol Agents."
Thus, the Democrat-controlled House is advancing discretionary appropriations bills that would spend more than $1 trillion in one year but provide zero dollars to build physical barriers to stop illegal aliens, human traffickers and drug smugglers from crossing our southern border.
Yet that does not mean the Democrat-controlled House is not planning to spend some money to enhance border security.
It just depends where the border is.
In that 650-page spending bill that prohibits Defense Department money from being used to defend the southern border of the United States, there is a section that creates a $1.295 billion fund for use by the secretary of defense.
"For the 'Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Train and Equip Fund', $1,295,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2021," says the bill. "Provided, That such funds shall be available to the secretary of defense in coordination with the Secretary of State, to provide assistance, including training; equipment; logistics support, supplies, and services; stipends; infrastructure repair and renovation; and sustainment, to foreign security forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals participating, or preparing to participate in activities to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and their affiliated or associated groups."
"Provided further," says the bill, "That these funds may be used in such amounts as the Secretary of Defense may determine to enhance the border security of nations adjacent to conflict areas including Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia resulting from actions of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria."
So, the secretary of defense could take a chunk of this $1.295 billion and give it to the government of Egypt to secure its border with post-Gadhafi Libya, where ISIS is active.
And he could give a chunk to Tunisia to secure its border with Libya.
Or he could give some American tax dollars to unnamed "irregular forces, groups, or individuals" who, someplace in this world, are "preparing to participate in activities" to counter ISIS, or at least groups that are "affiliated or associated" with ISIS.
But according to the House appropriations bills, President Trump cannot spend a penny to build structures at our own border to secure our own territory and our own people.
By contrast, the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a Homeland Security spending bill that does include $5 billion to build "pedestrian fencing" — to stop people on foot and in vehicles from crossing our southern border. Also, that committee's defense spending bill does not prohibit the president from using defense money to build barriers to defend our own border.
It even includes a larger fund ($1.8 billion) than the House bill that, among other things, can be used "for enhanced border security" not only in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia but also in Oman.
We are now more than a month into fiscal 2020. The government is running on a continuing resolution that expires Nov. 21.
President Trump should deliver a simple message to Speaker Pelosi: He is not going to sign a spending bill that funds border security in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia but not California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
He should put America first — even if Pelosi will shut down the government trying to stop him.
(Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSNews.com.)
US sends 3,000 more troops to defend Saudi monarchy
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that 3,000 more US troops are being deployed to Saudi Arabia to defend the blood-soaked monarchy led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and prepare for war against Iran.
The deployment includes two fighter squadrons, one Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW), two more Patriot missile batteries, and one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD).
According to a Pentagon statement Friday, the US Secretary of Defense phoned Crown Prince bin Salman (who also holds the post of Saudi minister of defense) to inform him of the coming reinforcements, which he said were meant “to assure and enhance the defense of Saudi Arabia.”
The Pentagon also acknowledged that the latest escalation brings the number of additional troops sent into the Persian Gulf region since May to 14,000. They have been accompanied by an armada of US warships and a B-52-led bomber task force. The Pentagon has also announced that an aircraft carrier-led battle group will remain in the Persian Gulf.
US soldiers deployed in the Middle East (U.S. Army by 1st Lt. Jesse Glenn)
While initiated as a supposed response to unspecified threats from Iran, the US buildup in the Persian Gulf region has constituted from its outset a military provocation and preparation for a war of aggression. This military buildup has accompanied Washington’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of sweeping economic sanctions that are tantamount to a state of war. The aim, as the Trump administration has stated publicly, is to drive Iranian oil exports down to zero. By depriving Iran of its principal source of export income, Washington hopes to starve the Iranian people into submission and pave the way to regime change, bringing to power a US puppet regime in Tehran.
The latest military buildup was announced in the immediate aftermath of an attack on an Iranian tanker in the Red Sea, about 60 miles from the Saudi port of Jeddah.
The National Iranian Tanker Co. reported that its oil tanker, the Sabiti, was struck twice by explosives early Friday morning, leaving two holes in the vessel and causing a brief oil spill into the Red Sea.
While Iranian state news media blamed the damage on missile attacks, a spokesman for the company told the Wall Street Journal that the company was not sure of the cause.
Some security analysts have suggested that the fairly minor damage to the vessel could have been caused by limpet mines. Such mines were apparently used last June when two tankers—one Japanese and one Norwegian-owned—were hit by explosions in the Sea of Oman. At the time, Washington blamed the attacks on Iran, without providing any evidence. Tehran denied the charge, saying that it sent teams to rescue crew member of the damaged tankers.
The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted an unnamed Iranian government official as stating that the Iranian tanker had been the victim of a “terrorist attack.”
“Examination of the details and perpetrators of this dangerous action continues and will be announced after reaching the result,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.
The National Iranian Tanker Co. issued a statement saying that there was no evidence that Saudi Arabia was behind the attack.
The incident raised the specter of an escalating tanker war that could disrupt shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows. News of the attack sent crude oil prices spiking by 2 percent.
In addition to the June attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of Oman, in July British commandos, acting on a request from Washington, stormed an Iranian super tanker, the Grace 1, in waters off the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. In apparent retaliation, Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized the British-flagged Stena Impero for what Tehran charged were violations of international maritime regulations as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz. Both tankers were subsequently released.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement charging that the Iranian super tanker, renamed the Adrian Darya 1, had offloaded its oil in Syria in violation of European Union sanctions and a pledge made by Tehran to the UK at the time of the vessel’s release. He demanded provocatively that “EU members should condemn this action, uphold the rule of law, and hold Iran accountable.”
The Trump administration, which in May of last year unilaterally and illegally abrogated the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and the major powers has been pressuring the European signatories to the deal—Germany, France and the UK—to follow suit.
While the respective governments of the three countries have insisted that they still support the nuclear agreement, they have repeatedly bowed to Washington’s war drive, while failing to take any significant actions to counter the effects of the US “maximum pressure” campaign and deliver to Tehran the sanctions relief and economic normalization that it was promised in exchange for curtailing its nuclear program.
Most recently, the three European governments backed Washington in blaming Iran for a September 14 attack on Saudi oil facilities that temporarily shut down half of the kingdom’s oil production and sent crude prices spiraling by 20 percent—again without providing a shred of proof.
Washington is seeking to topple the Iranian regime or bully it into accepting complete subordination to US imperialist predatory interests in the energy-rich and geostrategically vital Middle East.
The US sanctions regime and military buildup have placed the entire region on a hair trigger for the outbreak of a catastrophic war that could engulf not only the Middle East, but the entire planet.
All of the regimes involved in the escalating conflict are gripped by crises that make the drive to war all the more explosive.
The impact of the sanctions on Iran’s economy has been devastating. It is estimated that oil exports last month fell to just 400,000 barrels per day (b/d), compared to 1.95 million b/d in September 2018. Left with little means of combating spiraling inflation and growing unemployment, Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime is caught between intense pressure from imperialism on the one hand, and the growth of social opposition among Iranian workers and poor on the other.
The Saudi monarchy is confronting the debacle of its four-year-old and near genocidal war against the people of Yemen, made possible by the weapons and logistical aid provided by Washington, even as Prince bin Salman remains a global pariah for his ordering of the grisly assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year in Istanbul.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, incapable of forming a new government after two elections and confronting criminal indictments, has grown increasingly concerned over the apparent lack of appetite by the Persian Gulf Sunni monarchies for military confrontation with Iran and Washington’s failure to carry out military strikes after the downing of its drone in June and the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities last month. Clearly, Tel Aviv, which has cast Iran as its strategic enemy, would have a motive for attacking Iranian tankers in the hopes of provoking a response that could lead to US military action.
And then there is Trump. He has proclaimed his determination to halt the “endless wars” in the Middle East and provoked a political firestorm by pulling back a relative handful of US troops in Syria, allowing Turkey to launch a long-planned attack on the Pentagon’s erstwhile proxy force, the Kurdish-dominated YPG militia.
Faced with an escalating political crisis and growing social tensions within the US, along with an impeachment investigation by the Democrats in Congress that is focused entirely on the national security concerns of the CIA and the Pentagon, he has ample motive for launching a new war.
While the Democrats’ exclusive focus on Trump’s failure to pursue a sufficiently bellicose policy against Russia and prosecute the war for regime change in Syria has allowed the US president to absurdly posture as an opponent of war, the reality is that he has overseen a staggering increase in military spending designed to prepare for “great power” confrontations, particularly with China.
Meanwhile, whatever his political pretense, Trump has done nothing to end any of the wars in the Middle East. While he has ordered US troops to pull back, allowing the Turkish invasion, none of them have been withdrawn from Syria.
With the latest buildup of US forces in Saudi Arabia, Washington is preparing, behind the backs of the working class, to launch a catastrophic military conflict with Iran. The most urgent task posed by these developments is the building of a global antiwar movement led by the working class. This movement must be armed with a socialist and internationalist program to unify working people in the United States, Europe and the Middle East in a common struggle against imperialist war and its source, the capitalist system.
TRUMP AND THE MURDERING 9-11 MUSLIM SAUDIS…
Why is the Swamp Keeper and his family of parasites up their ar$es??
JOHN DEAN: Not so far. This has been right by the letter of the special counsel’s charter. He’s released the document. What I’m looking for is relief and understanding that there’s no witting or unwitting likelihood that the President is an agent of Russia. That’s when I’ll feel comfortable, and no evidence even hints at that. We don’t have that yet. We’re still in the process of unfolding the report to look at it. And its, as I say, if [Attornery General William Barr] honors his word, we’ll know more soon.
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and
Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---
- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
Opinion: Trump And Pompeo Have Enabled A Saudi Cover-Up Of The Khashoggi Killing
October 2, 201911:45 AM ET
AARON DAVID MILLER
RICHARD SOKOLSKY
In the weeks following the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump spent more time praising Saudi Arabia as a very important ally than he did reacting to the killing.
Hasan Jamali/AP
Aaron David Miller (@aarondmiller2) is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department Middle East analyst, adviser and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author most recently of the End of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President.
Richard Sokolsky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, worked in the State Department for six different administrations and was a member of the secretary of state's Office of Policy Planning from 2005 to 2015.
It has been a year since Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi entered Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul where he was slain and dismembered. There is still no objective or comprehensive Saudi or American accounting of what occurred, let alone any real accountability.
The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's admission in a recent CBS interview that he takes "full responsibility," while denying foreknowledge of the killing or that he ordered it, sweeps under the rug the lengths to which the Saudis have gone to obscure the truth about their involvement in the killing and cover-up.
The Saudi campaign of obfuscation, denial and cover-up would never have gotten off the ground had it not been for the Trump administration's support over the past year. The president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not only refused to distance themselves from the crown prince, known by his initials MBS, but also actively worked to relegitimize him. The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah status. In short, without Trump, the attempted makeover — such as it is — would not have been possible.
The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah status.
Weak administration response
The administration's weak and feckless response to Khashoggi's killing was foreshadowed a year before it occurred. In May 2017, in an unusual break with precedent, Trump visited Saudi Arabia on his inaugural presidential trip; gave his son-in-law the authority to manage the MBS file, which he did with the utmost secrecy; and made it unmistakably clear that Saudi money, oil, arm purchases and support for the administration's anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli policies would elevate the U.S.-Saudi "special relationship" to a new level.
Predictably, therefore, the administration's reaction to Khashoggi's killing was shaped by a desire to manage the damage and preserve the relationship. In the weeks following Khashoggi's death, Trump spent more time praising Saudi Arabia as a very important ally, especially as a purchaser of U.S. weapons and goods,than he did reacting to the killing. Trump vowed to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi killing but focused more on defending the crown prince, saying this was another example of being "guilty before being proven innocent."
Those pledges to investigate and impose accountability would continue to remain hollow. Over the past year, Trump and Pompeo have neither criticized nor repudiated Saudi actions that have harmed American interests in the Middle East. Two months after Khashoggi's death, the administration, in what Pompeo described as an "initial step," imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi individuals implicated in the killing. But no others have been forthcoming, and the visa restrictions that were imposed are meaningless because none of the sanctioned Saudiswould be foolish enough to seek entry into the United States.
What's more, the administration virtually ignored a congressional resolution imposing sanctions on the Saudis for human rights abuses and vetoed another bipartisan resolution that would have ended U.S. military assistance to Saudi Arabia's inhumane military campaign in Yemen.
The Saudis opened a trial in January of 11 men implicated in the killing, but the proceedings have been slow and secretive, leading the United Nations' top human rights expert to declare that "the trial underway in Saudi Arabia will not deliver credible accountability." Despite accusations that the crown prince's key adviser Saud al-Qahtani was involved in the killing, he's still advising MBS, has not stood trial and will likely escape punishment. A year later, there are still no reports of convictions or serious punishment.
Legitimizing Mohammed bin Salman
The Trump administration has not only given the crown prince a pass on the Khashoggi killing, but it has also worked assiduously to remove his pariah status and rehabilitate his global image. Barely two months after the 2018 slaying, Trump was exchanging pleasantries with the crown prince at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires and holding out prospects of spending more time with him. Then this past June, at the G-20 in Osaka, Japan, Trump sang his praises while dodging questions about the killing. "It's an honor to be with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia," Trump said.
And you can bet that when Saudi Arabia hosts the G-20, scheduled to be held in its capital of Riyadh in November 2020, the Trump administration will be smiling as its rehab project takes another step in its desired direction.
What the U.S. should have done
Trump has failed to impose any serious costs or constraints on Saudi Arabia for the killing of a U.S. newspaper columnist who resided in Virginia or for the kingdom's aggressive policies, from Yemen to Qatar. In the wake of the Khashoggi killing, the administration should have made it unmistakably clear, both publicly and privately, that it expected a comprehensive and credible accounting and investigation.It should have suspended high-level contacts and arms sales with the kingdom for a period of time. And to make the point, the administration should have supported at least one congressional resolution taking the Saudis to task, in addition to triggering the Magnitsky Act, which would have required a U.S. investigation; a report to Congress; and sanctions if warranted.
Back to business as usual
The dark stain of the crown prince's apparent involvement in Khashoggi's death will not fade easily. But for Trump and Pompeo, it pales before the great expectations they still maintain for the kingdom to confront and contain their common enemy, Iran, as well as support the White House's plan for Middle East peace, defeat jihadists in the region and keep the oil spigot open.
Most of these goals are illusory. Saudi Arabia is a weak, fearful and unreliable ally. The kingdom has introduced significant social and cultural reforms but has imposed new levels of repression and authoritarianism. Its reckless policies toward Yemen and Qatar have expanded, not contracted, opportunities for Iran, while the Saudi military has demonstrated that, even after spending billions to buy America's most sophisticated weapons, it still can't defend itself without American help.
Meanwhile, recent attacks on critical Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. blames on Iran have helped rally more American and international support for the kingdom.
When it comes to the U.S.-Saudi relationship and the kingdom's callous reaction to Khashoggi's killing, the president and his secretary of state have been derelict in their duty: They have not only failed to advance American strategic interests but also undermined America's values in the process.
The U.S. Military is Sending Thousands of Troops and Even B-1 Bombers into Saudi Arabia (To Counter Iran)
On October 6, around fifty U.S. commandos in northeastern Syria tasked with hunting down ISIS forces were withdrawn from territory near the Turkish border controlled by the Kurdish-Arab SDF faction.
The U.S. withdrawal was a prerequisite for a Turkish attack against the SDF which subsequently took place. The remaining hundreds of U.S. forces elsewhere in northeastern Syria were endangered in the crossfire and had to be withdrawn a few days later.
The U.S. withdrawal was post-hoc justified on the basis that they were no longer needed in the Middle East and it was time to “bring the troops home.”
But in the weeks since, the United States has deployed over 3,000 more troops to the Middle East—including hundreds of National Guardsmen in Syria, and thousands of soldiers and airmen deployed to Saudi Arabia.
While a companion article looks at the deployment of a mechanized battalion to defend an oil field in southeastern Syria, this second part looks at the rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the wealthy Kingdom in response to intensifying clashes with Iran following the United State’s withdrawal from a nuclear deal with Tehran.
Return to the Kingdom
The deployments to Saudi Arabia marks a dramatic turn around from sixteen years earlier in 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pulled out thousands of U.S. troops. Their presence had long been cited as a factor radicalizing Muslims across the planet who objected to the presence of foreign troops so close to the holy city of Mecca.
Apparently, these concerns have since faded, despite political headwinds from a U.S. Congress angered by Saudi Arabia’s grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul.
First, following the loss of drones in June, that the Defense Department announced it was doubling troop deployment to the Kingdom from 500 to 1,000 personnel.
No comments:
Post a Comment