With Friends Like These...

May 6, 2016

A couple weeks ago, President Obama visited Saudi Arabia. The usual diplomatic gibberish about “strategic allies” and “friendship” and the rest was much in evidence.

In truth, Saudi Arabia is not now — nor has it ever been — our friend, and our alleged alliance with them has been decidedly one-sided.

Saudi Arabia is more of a family business than anything we would recognize as a country. It’s actually named after the ruling Saud family. Nearly all government officials are part of that gigantic extended family.

Our relationship with them began long before our supposed alliance following 9/11. They had lots of sweet crude oil that required minimal refining and we needed some of it. As long as that need existed we were happy to play the role of oil serf to their monarchy. In doing so, we overlooked much that has led us to the quagmire that is now our involvement in the Middle East.

Whether or not the Saudis were involved in somehow supporting the 9/11 murderers as is now being speculated is moot. They were most certainly complicit in aiding and abetting the atmosphere that has led to jihadist extremism. They continue to do so even now.

Saudi Arabia finances madrasas (schools) that teach Wahhabism, the most extreme and oppressive form of Sunni Islam. It is the foundation of jihadi hatred and violence we’re now witnessing in too many parts of the globe.

It’s not just that the Saudis are in bed with those trying to destroy us. They are also among the most repressive and oppressive government regimes on earth.

There are no freedoms in Saudi Arabia as we would recognize them here. There is no freedom of speech, no free press, no freedom of religion. You can be imprisoned just for criticizing the royal family. You won’t do especially well in court, either. For many crimes you are allowed no defense at all; you’ll be dragged into court where you will join the other 99 percent of defendants found guilty.

If you’re a Saudi woman, things become exponentially worse.

Women were finally allowed to vote, in municipal elections only, for the first time last year. Some women were even elected to local governing councils. That was considered real progress.

But women still can’t drive, can’t own property in their own name, can’t go out in public without a male chaperon, can’t expose any part of their body in public other than their face and hands, can’t swim... it’s a long list. Most public buildings keep men and women segregated with interior walls, including at religious services. Women are not eligible for most jobs and almost no professional jobs at all other than medicine and education.

Two years ago, a young woman was gangraped in Riyadh, the capital city. There was no doubt it happened; the men involved admitted it. At “trial” it was revealed the woman was out in public without a chaperon. The rapists received lashes for their brutality. The young woman? Twice as many lashes for having “lured” the men into their crime.

It doesn’t get much better for women when they marry, oftentimes selected by the groomto-be’s family. Men are allowed four wives, women one husband. Men decide whether or not their wives can work, with whom they can socialize, whether daughters can go to school and they legally control the family’s finances.

Men can obtain a divorce simply by saying “I divorce you” three times. Seriously. If they change their minds, which they can do up to three times, their wife is compelled to stay with them. A woman, on the other hand, must go to court where she will face an all male tribunal that does not typically consider violent abuse a legitimate cause for divorce.

Last year, a woman was publicly stoned to death for the heinous crime of adultery. Bound, covered in a white cloth, and put in a hole up to her waist, people then threw rocks the size of baseballs and softballs at her head until she was dead. Her male lover was not prosecuted. Her husband approved of her execution.

These are our “friends” in the Middle East. They want us to fight their battles for them despite their having $100 billion in military hardware they bought from us. They want us to solve the Sunni vs. Shia ugliness in their favor, a more than five-century-old blood feud we should not and cannot fix. Everything about their government is antithetical to our beliefs.

We no longer need their oil, we can move our military bases out of their country, and we should stop tolerating their horrible human rights performance.

With friends like this, we don’t need enemies. In fact, these friends are our enemies.