Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), arrived in Washington last week eager to purchase the latest in American weapons wizardry.
Predictably, Trump seemed totally unconcerned with Saudi’s appalling human rights violations and was only interested in Saudi’s enormous wealth which will be used to purchase weapons of war. The two leaders finalized a $12.5 billion weapons deal. This comes on the heels of a massive $110 billion arms deal. During the meeting, Trump held up grotesque posters of recent Saudi weapon purchases making us the leading merchant of death in the world. Forgotten is the inconvenient truth that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 911 were Saudis. Trade always seems to triumph concerns for human life. The Senate moved in lockstep with Trump and failed to block the arms sales. In a race to the bottom, the UK also approved £283m of arms sales to the Saudis. This makes the US and the UK complicit in war crimes. Outside the White House, peace activists denounced bin Salman as a violent and dangerous war criminal.
The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes and naval blockade have devastated Yemen’s health, water and sanitation systems, sparking a massive cholera outbreak and pushing millions of Yemenis to the brink of starvation. So confident was Salman’s hold over the money-obsessed Trump family that he boasted he has Kushner, “in his pocket.”
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