Hypocrisies abound as report highlights Saudi links to UK extremism | France24 |
While Saudi Arabia accuses Qatar of aiding extremism, a think tank report released Wednesday said Riyadh was funding hardline Islamism in the UK. But with the British government refusing to release its own report, immediate answers seem unlikely.
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“Since the 1960s, Saudi Arabia has been committed to a policy of promoting the kingdom’s hardline interpretation of Wahhabi Islam globally,” said a damning report by the Henry Jackson Society [by most definitions, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant].
The report’s release came at a sensitive time for Saudi Arabia, as the kingdom – along with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt – are accusing Qatar of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organisation that has directly or indirectly participated in the democratic process in several Muslim-majority countries.
While the report has accused Riyadh of hypocrisy, the Saudi Embassy in London has dismissed its findings as “categorically false”.
But Saudi Arabia is not the only kingdom to be accused of official hypocrisy in the fight against Islamist extremism.
Weeks after the British monarch announced a government plan to establish a Commission for Countering Extremism in the UK, her subjects continue to be denied access to a “public” inquiry into Saudi funding of Wahhabi extremism in the UK.
The inquiry was commissioned in January 2016, while Theresa May was Britain’s home secretary (the UK equivalent of interior minister). As prime minister, May is believed to have received the inquiry findings six months ago, but has continued to resist pressure to release it.
Trump and King Salman talk a big, big arms contract | The Atlantic |
The U.S. State Department approved the sale of $1.4 billion in military training and equipment to Saudi Arabia as part of a larger arms deal signed by President Trump in May, the Pentagon announced Monday. Prior to his two-day visit to Saudi Arabia last month, Trump sanctioned a deal spearheaded by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that would provide the nation with around $110 billion in defense items such as tanks, fighter planes, combat ships, and precision-guided bombs over the next ten years.
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○ US and Saudi Arabia agree ‘$350 billion arms deal’ | Al-Arabya |
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Last month, The New York Times reported that Kushner was instrumental in brokering a deal over the radar system–known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD. During a meeting with high-level Saudi officials, Kushner reportedly called the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the system’s prime contractor, and asked her to drive down the price. The CEO later referred to the deal as “historic” and said her company was proud to be a part of it. A White House Official also called the deal “a significant expansion of the over seven-decade long security relationship between” Saudi Arabia and the U.S.Trump Just Strengthened the House of Saud in the Gulf Region
○ Deep State Signs $12bn F-15 Contract w Qatar
○ Undeniable Blowback from Decades US Foreign Policy – 1996
