US diplomats must be busy. Spying on the UN and other countries. And pimping for Boeing. The glories of empire, indeed: The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force One. The president of Turkey wanted the Obama administration to let a…
Showing all posts tagged Saudi Arabia
Wikileaks Swedish problem
Julian Assange: Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism. I fell into a hornets’ nest of revolutionary feminism.
Our jolly good mates in Saudi laugh at our oil dependence
Wikileaks-released cable about Saudi Arabia, our cuddly fundamentalist friend in the Middle East. We’ve been supporting these brutes for decades and yet no major Western leader seems to think it may be a good idea to move away from them. Alternative energy anybody? Summary: The Saudi regulatory system offers the al-Saud regime a means to…
Saudi elites drink, smoke and sleep around (thanks for the help, world)
Our close friends in Saudi Arabia are a bunch of hypocritical bigots who love a good party like the rest of us. Oh, they also don’t allow women to work or vote, support terrorist organisations and hate democracy. Just the kind of friend the West loves: United States diplomats have described a world of “sex,…
Whispering sweet Saudi nothings into Obama’s ear
One of America’s finest allies in the Middle East: Last year, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia proposed an unorthodox way to return Guantánamo Bay prisoners to a chaotic country like Yemen without fear that they would disappear and join a terrorist group. The king told a top White House aide, John O. Brennan, that the…
More weapons, more profits, more death
The privatisation of war is a growing phenomenon across the world. It’s rarely examined (Jeremy Scahill is a notable and noble exception). And now here’s David Ignatius in the Washington Post on the brave new world of killing “terrorists” and not telling anybody about it: A new arsenal of drones and satellite-guided weapons is changing…
2SER Radio interview on US/Saudi arms deal
The proposed arms sale by the US to Saudi Arabia of $60 billion worth of death is a huge story that hasn’t received the attention it deserves. I was interviewed on the weekend by Sydney’s 2SER Radio about it:
What good friends do for each other; sell death
I‘ve written before about the massive US arms deal to Saudi Arabia (US$60 billion). Now it’s been officially approved by the powers that be in Washington, so see how the State Department defends the weapons to one of the most brutal regimes in the world.
New Greens MP; sustainability doesn’t mean just selling more coal to whores
The first Australian Green in the House of Representatives, Adam Bandt, gave his first speech in Parliament yesterday. It’s a moving affair with many highlights but this struck me: A sustainable future means rethinking our infrastructure priorities, industry policy and the regulation of energy supply. Maybe its something in the water in the electorate of…
Hello my name is Barack and please don’t hate me for begging Israel on a daily basis
So, two years into the Obama administration and America is again rightly viewed as hopelessly compromised in the Middle East and a backer of Israeli apartheid, repression across the region, occupations etc etc: Approval of U.S. leadership is now similar or lower than what it was in 2008 in several of the Middle East and…