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Thursday, February 04, 2016

The US is about to sell $1 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia

At the end of January, attachés to US Secretary of State John Kerry dusted off the typical lines about Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses. Concerns were expressed, disappointments were level led.

Kerry made his first visit to Riyadh after the mass execution of 47 people, including Muslim cleric and opposition leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, three political dissidents, several mentally ill prisoners, and multiple prisoners arrested for crimes committed as minors.

It is unclear exactly what issues Secretary Kerry raised in these high-level meetings.

Despite a flurry of international criticism regarding Saudi Arabia's mass execution, the US government has been exceptionally muted in its response. After the executions, the State Department reported that it had "expressed [its] concerns" about the legal process in Saudi Arabia and raised those concerns at "high levels of the Saudi government".

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, now they can defend themselves, so our military isn't "obligated" to. And there's no excuse for them to expect us to intervene in their interests. They won't maintain a significant standing army of Saudi nationals though, because they consider themselves above such servitude. They've got the weapons, and they have the money to hire a mercenary military if they feel the need to...they have been funding jihadists for many years. If there's problems over there, let the Islamic countries turn to Saudi Arabia for "peacekeeping" and "nation building" and supporting all their "refugees".

Anonymous said...

They are a multi trillion dollar country why don't they have a top military Ohhh because us USA military fight for them while they raped us over the coals at the gas pumps up until a year ago.