Brandishing the official excuse that near-nonagenarian King Abdullah was not able to receive him, Charles of Arabia declined to discuss with the House of Saud the absolutely appalling women’s rights, migrant workers’ rights and for that matter the full human rights situation in the kingdom. Of course not; this is only brought up when demonizing Russia, China and/or Iran.
The US Empire, in its efforts to contain, and therefore dominate and control such a strategic and resource-rich region, is more than content to allow its reactionary and sectarian clients to incite the conflict necessary to subvert, fracture and divide the inevitable power a unified Middle East could claim: if only their progressive aspirations and unity were not repeatedly “set back” by Zionist occupation and manufactured antagonism.
How can Washington and its allies even begin to justify to their public sending weapons to al-Qaeda terrorists? That conundrum was highlighted with reports last week of the US Congress secretly voting to step up its munitions supply to Syria.
The Geneva II conference, which claims to be seeking to end the war in Syria, seems designed to fail and instead to provide an excuse for military intervention by the United States and its allies. Human rights activist Ajamu Baraka describes the negotiations as an “Orwellian subterfuge” designed to provide justification for war and a lot of facts support his view.
When the Russians refused to betray their Syrian allies, Prince Bandar then threatened Russia with the cancellation of the second planned peace conference in Geneva and with the unleashing of the military option against the Syrians the leak imparts.
This leak, which presents a veiled Saudi threat about the intended attacks on the Winter Olympics in Sochi, led to a frenzy of speculations internationally until the end of August 2013, amid the high tensions arising from the US threats to attack Syria and the threats coming from Iran to intervene on the side of their Syrians allies against the United States.
The discovery of links connecting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Al- Qaeda is upsetting Turkish politics. Ankara not only actively supported terrorism in Syria, but did so as part of a NATO strategy. For Thierry Meyssan, the case also shows the artificiality of armed groups fighting against the government and the Syrian people.
Russian intelligence has now reportedly obtained solid proof that Saudi Arabia was directly involved in the twin terror attacks on the city of Volgograd.
The attacks killed more than 32 people and injured over 100 others. Most of the victims were civilians.
In reality, Bandar bin Sultan is the protégé and successor of Bin Laden; he has deepened and systematized global terrorism. Bandar’s terror network has murdered far more innocent victims than Bin Laden. That, of course, is to be expected; after all he has billions of dollars from the Saudi treasury, training from the CIA and the handshake of Netanyahu!
For 2014 though, plenty of signs point to a tectonic shift in the geopolitical map of Eurasia, with Iran finally emerging as the real superpower in Southwest Asia over the designs of both Israel and the House of Saud. Now that’s (geopolitical) entertainment. Happy New Year.
The US secretary of state vowed Washington’s support for the Iraqi government in its fight to regain control of towns in its western province taken over by militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
That’s rich. The government of Syria is battling to root out these same al-Qaeda-linked militants. But in that country, Washington offers no such support.
The sad truth is that Britain sells arms to repressive regimes in the Middle East, and elsewhere, mainly because it supports them. It wants to keep them in power, and often prefers them to democratic movements which may not support Western policies. This is not simply my view. It is what policy makers have expressed in private government planning files, which are declassified after 30 years. British arms exports have for decades helped favoured regimes maintain ‘internal security’, meaning repression
The simple fact is that the sectarian bloodshed inundating Syria and Iraq, and increasingly now in Lebanon, as well as in countries as far apart as Yemen and Russia, would not be happening if it were not for the blood money flowing from Saudi Arabia.
