What are they stroking under those robes?
"Reassuring a fearful ally" January 02, 2014
Much has been made of the fact that Saudi Arabia — one of the staunchest US allies in the Middle East — opposes the nuclear deal with Iran. A leading Saudi prince, Turki al-Faisal, recently blasted the Obama administration for keeping Saudi Arabia in the dark on its secret talks with Iran. He also demanded a place at the international negotiating table.
Another "ally" in the region was even angrier.
Saudi Arabia is a key ally and a regional power, so the Obama administration would do well to listen to the kingdom’s concerns. Saudi officials ought to be told about controversial US decisions firsthand, rather than reading about them in the newspaper. The recent trip by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to Riyadh was a good step, but it is no replacement for sustained dialogue.
Diplomatic courtesies aside, though, the kingdom must also understand that its interests are not identical to those of the United States, especially when it comes to Iran. Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy that is the custodian of the holiest sites in Islam, and Iran, which is home to 60 million rival Shiite Muslims, have been competing for religious, military, and economic dominance for three decades. Their militaries stare each other down across the Persian Gulf. Their proxy fighters engage in wars across the region.
Iran sends soldiers to prop up Bashar Assad in Syria, while Saudi Arabia sends weapons to the rebels trying to topple him. Iran tried to plot the assassination of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington.
See: This Post is the Bomb
A lemon that stinks and they still cite it.
Saudi Arabia has been accused of playing a role in a deadly bombing outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut.
Related:
Even if Iran’s nuclear program were dismantled tomorrow, Saudi Arabia would still have a powerful interest in maintaining international sanctions on its greatest foe.
The United States — Saudi Arabia’s friend and protector — has been at loggerheads with Iran since 1979. Now, Saudi officials fear Washington will make a deal with Iran and abandon them. But better relations with Iran don’t have to mean abandoning Saudi Arabia. The Obama administration ought to find ways to soothe Saudi anxieties. A high-level working group that focuses on Saudi security concerns, as well as economic planning for the region’s future, could help.
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Related(?): Saudi Arabia Says No Thanks to Security Council Seat
Time to turn out those terrorists, too:
"Saudi Arabia deports thousands of Somalis" by Aya Batrawy | Associated Press, February 20, 2014
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabian authorities have deported more than 12,000 migrants back to their native Somalia, where many now face life-threatening situations, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
First French, then the Israelis (I'm sure there were some gays in the mix, too), and now the Saudis.
The New York-based group said in a statement that hundreds of women and children are among the migrants sent back to a country where hundreds of thousands live in dire conditions in camps in the capital, Mogadishu, after fleeing famine and violence elsewhere.
See: Somali Shell Game
Just leaves one confused.
A number of the deportees are from south-central Somalia, where security has broken down and danger is rampant.
So how many troops we gotta send, sigh?
The deportations are part of a Saudi campaign to remove undocumented foreign workers after decades of lax immigration enforcement allowed migrants to take many low-wage jobs that the kingdom’s own citizens shunned. Saudi authorities, grappling with high unemployment, now want those jobs for the kingdom’s citizens.
Sounds really familiar doesn't it, Americans?
The International Organization for Migration says the Somali government expects Saudi Arabia to deport another 30,000 people in the coming weeks. The United Nations refugee agency says its staff has been denied access to the detained Somalis.
Human Rights Watch said that major donors to the UN refugee agency, including the European Union and the United States, should press Saudi Arabia to end the deportations.
How can they press them on something they do themselves?
Who is Human Rights Watch anyway?
Now it all makes sense. Agenda-pushing found in my paper as the Saudis must be straying about something. Won't last long though. Saudi to important a key to rule in the region and resource extraction for the military machine.
‘‘The Saudi government is entitled to promote employment opportunities for its own citizens, but it needs to make sure it’s not sending people back to a life-threatening situation,’’ Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher, said. ‘‘Saudi Arabia has no excuse for not offering protection to some of the world’s most vulnerable people.’’
Offer what the EUSraeli Empire uses as an excuse.
Human Rights Watch said it spoke to Somalis who were recently deported who say they were held for weeks in ‘‘appalling conditions.’’
A woman in her ninth month of pregnancy told Human Rights Watch she was detained in Saudi Arabia and separated from her husband. She said a Saudi policewoman beat her on the back with a baton while she stood in line at the airport. She went into labor and gave birth on the cabin floor of the plane as it flew to Mogadishu, the group said.
That's akin to birth in a taxi on the way to the hospital, right?
The group said others described severe overcrowding, sweltering heat, lack of access to fresh air, and limited medical assistance in Saudi detention centers.
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Please don't take the perceived defense as an endorsement of the odious Saudi regime; I'm just pointing out the selective coverage of the propaganda pre$$ as well as its potential me$$age.
"Migrants surrender to Saudi police" Associated Press, November 11, 2013
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Thousands of African migrants residing illegally in Saudi Arabia’s main city of Riyadh surrendered to police on Sunday, residents said, a day after two people were killed in clashes between Ethiopians and vigilante residents backed by police.
The clashes, which also injured 68, were the clearest sign yet of how rapidly a nationwide crackdown on millions of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia could spiral into chaos and instability in the tightly controlled kingdom.
That is the LAST THING THEY WANT! They avoided an Arab Spring movement (hmmmm).
The sweeps and deportations appear to have broad backing by Saudis since it is aimed largely at creating more job opportunities for the kingdom’s own citizens, who make up less than half of the country’s workforce.
The official Saudi news agency said police arrested 561 rioters who barricaded themselves in the narrow streets of Riyadh’s Manhoufa neighborhood Saturday night. It said they threw stones, threatened people with knives, and damaged more than 100 cars and many shops.
They didn't get the Ukranian treatment in terms of coverage? WTF?
The agency described the rioters as ‘‘anonymous’’ without saying why they were rioting. It quoted a Riyadh police spokesman as saying a Saudi man and an unidentified person were killed by rioters, who were mostly foreign workers without work permits and facing deportation.
An Egyptian resident said violence erupted when Ethiopian migrants with guns and sticks closed off busy streets and forced stores to close early in protest of the killing of an Ethiopian man by police last week during raids against foreigners.
Oh, that's what started all this as it usually does: violence BY the protecting authorities!
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Time to start checking cars:
"Saudi writer who opposed ban on women driving held" by AYA BATRAWY | Associated Press, October 31, 2013
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi authorities have detained a columnist who supported ending his country’s ban on women driving, activists said Wednesday.
Happy Halloween!
The activists, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, said Tariq al-Mubarak was called by investigators in the capital Riyadh concerning a stolen car over the weekend. When he arrived at the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigation Department on Sunday, he was interrogated instead about his role in a campaign launched by reformers seeking the right of women to drive in the kingdom.
When his friends were informed they could pick him up, they too were detained for several hours and questioned over the campaign’s activities, activists said.
Human Rights Watch and activists who know al-Mubarak say he remains in detention with no access to a lawyer. The New York-based organization called for al-Mubarak’s immediate release and on authorities ‘‘to stop harassing and trying to intimidate activists and women who defied the driving ban.’’
Them again.
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In a column published in the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat the day of his arrest, al-Mubarak said extremists are intimidating people from exercising their rights. He said the courts in Saudi Arabia do not have sufficient provisions to deter those who threaten and terrorize others from exercising their freedoms because ‘‘rights and freedoms . . . are not instilled in our culture, nor our interpretation of religion.’’
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This is what Saudi does with terrorists when not financing them and releasing them to the world:
"Dissenters ‘terrorists’ under Saudi law" Associated Press, February 03, 2014
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia put into effect a sweeping new counterterrorism law Sunday that human rights activists say allows the kingdom to prosecute as a terrorist anyone who demands reform, exposes corruption, or otherwise engages in dissent.
The law states that any act that ‘‘undermines’’ the state or society, including calls for regime change in Saudi Arabia, can be tried as an act of terrorism.
Well, if it is terrorism there it is terrorism in Syria and the Ukraine! And Iraq was terrorism!
It also grants security services broad powers to raid homes and track phone calls and Internet activity.
Set up their own NSA did they?
Human rights activists were alarmed by the law and said it is aimed at keeping the ruling Al Saud family firmly in control amid the demands for democratic reform that have grown louder since the Arab Spring protests that shook the region in 2011 and toppled longtime autocrats.
Yeah, strange how these $ickeningly corrupt and backwards bastards didn't have anything happen to them. Real strange.
Saudi activist Abdulaziz al-Shubaily described the law as a ‘‘catastrophe.’’ And Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle warned: ‘‘The new law is Draconian in spirit and letter, and there is every reason to fear that the authorities will easily and eagerly use it against peaceful dissidents.’’
Why is Saudi Arabia being singled out for flogging by HRW?
The measure was approved by the Cabinet on Dec. 16 and ratified by King Abdullah.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s last absolute monarchies.
Aren't we beyond divine majesties here in the 21st-century? Why not bring back slavery?
All decisions are centered in the hands of 89-year-old King Abdullah. There is no parliament. There is little written law, and judges — implementing a strict interpretation of Islam — have broad leeway to impose verdicts.
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"Saudi student’s death sparks outrage" by Abdullah Al-Shihri and Aya Batrawy | Associated Press, February 07, 2014
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Thousands of Saudis vented their anger online over a report Thursday that staff at a Riyadh university had barred male paramedics from entering a women’s-only campus to assist a student who had suffered a heart attack and later died.
The Okaz newspaper said administrators at the King Saud University impeded efforts by paramedics to save the student’s life because of rules banning men. According to the paper, the incident took place Wednesday and the school staff took an hour before letting the paramedics in.
However, the school’s rector, Badran Al-Omar, denied the report, saying there was no hesitation in letting the paramedics in. He said the university did all it could to save the student, Amna Bawazeer.
Omar said he met Bawazeer’s father, who told him his daughter had heart problems. The rector said Bawazeer suffered a heart attack and collapsed suddenly.
Her death sparked a debate on Twitter. In the debate, many Saudis said the kingdom’s strictly enforced rules governing the segregation of the sexes were to blame for the delay in care.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam. Sexes are segregated in schools and almost all Saudi universities. Women also have separate seating areas and often separate entrances in ‘‘family’’ sections of restaurants and cafes where single males are not allowed. The kingdom’s top cleric has warned against the mixing of the genders, saying it poses a threat to female chastity and society.
Professors at King Saud University have demanded an investigation.
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Also see: Saudi energy company opens Cambridge center
Then there is something about Lynch wanting to see the full 9/11 report, which is nothing more than an airing of dirty Saudi laundry. That ground already been cleared and covered up.
