Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Trump holds a chart of weapon sales as he welcomes Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office,  March 20, 2018. (Photo: Reuters)

Silencing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul was a feat of primeval brutality that sent a shudder through even the most hardened officials.  The House of Saud, and in particular certain members of it, had gotten a taste for blood. Soon after Khashoggi’s slicing and dicing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul at the hands of a specially assembled hit squad, another was sent ostensibly to do away with Saad al-Jabri, a former Saudi Arabian intelligence official.

As Canadians focus on the coronavirus pandemic the Trudeau government announced it was lifting its suspension of arms export permits to Saudi Arabia. It has also renegotiated the government’s $14 billion armoured vehicle deal with the belligerent, repressive, monarchy.

For the past three years, several dozen New Yorkers have gathered each Saturday at Union Square, at 11:00 a.m. to vigil for peace in Yemen.

Submitted by George Callaghan…
By many measures Saudi Arabia is the most unfree country in the world. The country is an absolute monarchy and the most oppressive theocracy of all. People have no right to vote, no right to speak freely, no right to access information, no right to a fair trial. In short, they have no rights. Women have no right to leave the country without permission. Women are always under the thumb of a male relative due to the pernicious guardian system.

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the latest MbS purge in Saudi Arabia, as the Kingdom accelerates towards insolvency.

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is opening up to the world. It used to be absolutely impossible to get a visa to enter, unless you were a religious pilgrim (therefore officially a Muslim), NATO military personnel, or a businessman or woman, invited by a local company or by the Saudi government. Even if you secured approval, visas were outrageously expensive, costing several hundreds of dollars. The only loophole was a “transit visa” for those who were going to drive from Oman or Bahrain to Jordan.

Heinous. Savage. Ghastly. It’s hard to find the words to describe the act of luring journalist Jamal Khashoggi into a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, suffocating him, chopping him up and dissolving his bones. Yet a year later, governments and business people around the world are eager to forgive and forget — or already have.

Only a few years ago this geo-political portmanteau would have seemed fanciful to farcical.  Saudi Arabia, that theocratic monarchy, and Israel, a Western-styled democracy?  But times have changed, and all signs point to a confluence of interest between these two ideologically opposed, Middle Eastern states.  Moreover, this curious confluence flows through the Mesopotomac swamp of Washington, D.C.