Reports that Saudi Arabia murdered a US-based journalist in its consulate in Istanbul led to an obvious conclusion: the US should sever diplomatic ties with the kingdom. But they can’t. The Saudis are too influential. So how is it that we are still considered a superpower?
We Must Sever Ties with Saudi Arabia. But We Can’t.
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
17 Comments. Leave new
The reading from his fitbit said his heart could handle it.
Damn!
We just can’t catch a break.
“Saudi Arabia is threatening to sell $750 billion in American assets if Congress passes a bill that would allow 9/11 victims to hold the kingdom legally responsible for the terrorist attacks, a report said.
“Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir warned the Obama administration and congressional leaders last month that the kingdom would sell treasury securities and other assets if Congress didn’t yank the bill, The New York Times reported.
“A Saudi sale could, in theory, destabilize the dollar and create global market turmoil, although some economists believe it is an empty threat.”
https://nypost.com/2016/04/17/saudis-threaten-economic-turmoil-over-911-bill/
The US should tread carefully when dealing with its owners. And with its 9-11 attack financiers.
Saudi Arabia has demonstrated it is not afraid to attack the US where it hurts.
Speaking of 9/11, remember how all the planes were grounded except that the Saudi royals got to fly home the next day?
Pictures of GW holding hands with the Prince soon thereafter?
Or that it was the Saudis who bailed out GW’s failing oil biz?
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a royal wedding sometime in the future, a scion of the House of al Saud to a Bush Princess. That would cement ties between our two kingdoms forever and aye.
One thing we can be certain of is that the Saudis will always be our friends. (by “our” I mean “the one percent”, and by “friends” I mean taking our money to finance terrorists who kill the 99%.)
+1
That’s FUNNY!
Trump caring about a dead journalist and dissing a brutal billionaire dictator. It is to laugh. Or cry – your choice.
Called it! Trump is defending the Saudis.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/pompeo-saudi-arabia-turkey.html
What’s all this fuss in the US about killing a journalist?
The US is killing Julian Assange.
How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. — Luke (not Skywalker)
In an embassy, to boot.
This journalist was in a protected class.
As you should be still.
It seems the assholes in charge are still trying to silence you.
It should go without saying that I wish you the best.
I think I misunderstood your “this” as a self-reference, Ted.
Unless Senator Durbin has been able to pass his “journalist license” plan without my noticing, I thought that all journalists were supposed to be a protected class.
All the countries on Earth, pretty much, have to do business with Saudi Arabia. I don’t kick the U.S. for it. What I kick the U.S. for is how we prop up the rulers of a country where homosexuality is punishable by death, a country which has been described by a Saudi feminist as the largest women’s prison on the planet. I wonder what will happen in 20 years when (a little too damned late) the Saudis are told to just leave all that oil in the ground because we don’t need any of it anymore?
No problem with sanctions on Russia, a nuclear-weapons power on a par with the United States, or on China, the largest (in PPP terms) or second largest (in nominal terms) economy in the world. But Saudi Arabia – forget it !…
Henri
It’s all about the petrodollar. Way back in the 70s, when Nixon took us off the gold standard, Henry Kissinger made a deal with the Saudis to prop up the dollar, by which the Saudis (and therefore OPEC) would make sure everyone would have to convert their currency to dollars in order to buy their oil. This means the U.S. can borrow as much as it wants, and the dollars will be recycled by the major oil producers. If that comes to an end (which it will when other currencies like the Euro and Yuan assume an equal position) the following will take place, because suddenly all those petrodollars will come rushing back to the U.S. and the domestic economy won’t be able to use them:
1) Immediate contraction of the U.S. economy by 20-40%
2) Hyperinflation like Weimar Germany or Argentina. Suddenly your bank accounts will be worth nothing.
3) U.S. will not be able to support deficit spending without the petrodollar and will have to cut spending drastically, including the DOD. We won’t be able to play hegemon with 1,000+ bases all around the world. But your Social Security will also be in trouble.
So the Saudis can essentially bring an end to the American Empire by tanking the petrodollar whenever they want. That’s an incredible leverage over the U.S, a sword of Damocles just waiting to destroy our country.
https://medium.com/@Dylogue/petrodollar-recycling-a-symphony-of-oil-and-dollars-150739bc316
Indeed. But what’s the chance of electing a US president and/or senators or representatives who accept the fact that the days of the petrodollar are numbered and will work to escort the United States into a coming multipolar world – that is, in the event the US elite, in its frustration at seeing its fond dream of attaining global hegemony vanish into nothingness, does not choose to kick over the chessboard, in which case there will be no world at all ? Do US politics have room for such persons ? Can the US elite accept other states as equals to the Shining City on a Hill and convince the voting public to accept it as well ? Colour me skeptical….
Henri
Agree 110% with you Henri. If the plutocrats who run the U.S. Empire were rational, they would’ve worked over the past decades to ameliorate neoliberalism, maintain a better guns/butter balance, and to create a healthy world economy that isn’t a house of cards that collapses every decade or so. They would’ve come to a deal with China as an emerging power instead of trying to strangle it. Their unattainable dreams of “Full Spectrum Dominance” Forever are going to destroy this country. Going through the stages of every other empire in human history, we’re in the “imperial overstretch” phase as we head towards the collapse phase.