
Bringing Human Rights to Saudi Arabia
Let me ask you a question. If on 9/11, 13 of the 16 hijackers were Iranian, what would have happened? My guess is that a bombing campaign would have been initiated by at least two nations, the U.S.A. and Israel. But since the 13 of 16 hijackers were Saudis, there was no reaction to where the terrorists came from. In fact, President Bush ensured that the Saudis living and studying in our country got home safely and immediately. My question is this, why did the U.S. government not send a squad of FBI agents and accountants to Saudi Arabia to see who in that society paid for that attack?
Since we did not bomb Saudi Arabia in retaliation, was it not logical to send in the FBI and the accountants to dig out the truth from their bank accounts? After all, for decades now, the Saudis have been sending their radicals abroad to terrorize other people and cause other nation's untold problems. Those exiled by Saudi Arabia cause problems for other nations and are funded from Saudi Arabia and/or their wealthy families. We need to remember Bin Laden, a radical ousted by the Saudis who was funded by the rich families of Saudi Arabia. Aside from funding Fox News, one of them also funded the startup call Al Qaeda.
Presently, Saudi Arabia is bombing the hell out of Yemen with no authorization from anyone. Over two thousand have died; many were civilians. Saudi gunboats are now stopping all shipping traffic, resulting in the civilian population beginning to drop from hunger and malnutrition. The citizens of Yemen are being killed and maimed by Saudi pilots in a nation that has a raging civil war. A civil war between the minority Shia is battling the Sunnis. Nothing new. But what and why do the Saudis have to do with this war? Their planes and gun boats have caused a crisis of major proportions. Four out of five Yemeni require humanitarian assistance. A million and a half are displaced within Yemen. More than a thousand children have been killed as well. All of this destruction has been aided by American intelligence and logistical support. (The Washington Diplomat, Oct. 2015, page 6). Boots on the ground are coming from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates to further the agony of this civil war.
The media in America blame the Houthis, who are Yemeni and who have lived there for centuries. No one blames the Saudi for killing innocent Houthis. The United Nations has not used its authority to stop this Saudi invasion, nor has it even brought the issue before the Security Council. In fact, the western powers stopped any human rights investigation into Saudi's abuses using their power in the United Nations.
Senators Chris Coons (Del.) and Mark Warner (Va.) also failed to press the issue of human rights when the writer Lee Fang from Intercept asked those Senators about the issues of this invasion and particularly the Saudi killing of 80 women out of 130 attendees at a wedding party. That plane as well as that bomb came from either the U.S.A. or Great Britain.
Then, the warlord Senator McCain, fresh from the disastrous Libyan invasion scrambled the facts and blamed the Houthis for civilian deaths they did not commit. Why doesn't McCain use his voice to ask the Saudi to bomb ISIS? Given that the Saudi's bomb citizens in Yemen, why do they not bomb ISIS?
Lots of jet fighters are in the air in the Middle East. Turks are bombing the Kurds. Russians are bombing antigovernment forces in Syria. Americans are bombing ISIS. Israelis are bombing perceived Hezbollah in Iraq. Saudis are bombing Yemen's Houthis. Jordanian planes are attacking ISIS. There are not many marching armies; just fly boys in the region. Large armies are available to fight ISIS, but those armies do not move out of Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
Europeans as usual hesitate to get involved. They did the same in Bosnia and Kosovo. They want Russian oil and Saudi oil just like the U.S.A. That is where the dirty deed is done. Human rights groups for years have reported the medieval use of caning; the frequent use of the death penalty by beheading; Saudi women not being allowed to drive a car; Saudi jails filled prisoners who are tortured regularly; and the government does not allow human rights organizations into Saudi Arabia ever; they send radicals to terrorize and disrupt other nations; the list is endless. The Saudi government is a leading human rights abuser.
Is it not time to call this human rights-abusing nation to task?
In 1993 at the Vienna Human Rights Conference, many of us human right people lobbied for the change to make human rights a higher priority by reforming the Human Rights Council in the United Nations in Geneva to make it more effective. Today, as Saudi Arabia destroys another neighbor, a Saudi official sits on the Human Rights Council. The joke is on the people of the world, to say nothing of the people supporting their high flying war machines with no accountability to anyone. ISIS is the beneficiary of this disaster because the Saudi leave them in place and do not attack them.
Tens of thousands refugees will be moving again. Europe will continue to act the victim and keep them out... Clean hands with stone hearts as children die.
Yemen is the poorest nation in the Arab world whose people are both Sunni and Shia. Thus, another rich nation is attacking another poor nation in the Middle East. Not the U.S.A. this time, but Saudi Arabia. No wonder the kings and princes went to Texas to get their hands washed by President Bush.
Does anyone remember that Saudi aided the Bahrain forces as they crushed violently the nonviolent protesters in that country? A nation that beheads and canes prisoners needs to be held accountable by the United Nations and the Human Rights Council. Their dollars pay for the madras in Afghanistan and Pakistan where many are trained to hate and then become soldiers aimed at western death and destruction.
American law says no country with a bad human rights record should receive American aid. Is it not time to let Saudi Arabia know that the world is waiting for them to stop bombing and get out of the Dark Ages? And finally, that American law should be upheld by the American government as they feed the Kingdom their planes and bombs?
What can you do? A young activist by the name off Ali al-Nimr is about to be executed for his human rights activity. Flood the Embassy of Saudi Arabia with letters to stop this execution and free this young brave Saudi.