THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING
HEADLINE NEWS, Jan 24… The White House announced today that the president was canceling plans to visit the temple of love (Taj Mahal) in Agra, India. Instead Obama will go to Saudi Arabia to pay respects to the royal family following the death of King Abdullah.
VEEP BIDEN ALSO SHUNTED ASIDE SO PREZ COULD PERSONALLY WOO ROYAL SAUDIS
India was not the only party snubbed by Obama. Vice President Joe Biden, who had been due to fly to Saudi Arabia, “will remain in Washington” the White House statement said. The change means Obama will skip plans to see the Taj Mahal (right), the white marble monument of love (New York Times, Jan 24), so he could personally “kiss the ring” of the new oil king.
Hm… snubbing a nuclear power that is home to one-and-a-quarter billion people to bow before the new (allegedly demented) king in the land of oil and sand of just 29 million people has got be a new low even for Obama, an American president well practiced in the art of bowing and scraping before royalty. And not just before the late Saudi king.
Can you imagine a US president bowing before the emperor of Japan, for example? Well, no need to imagine it. Well, no need to imagine it. Take a look…
Americans killed on Tarawa beachhead
Over 100,000 Americans died fighting the Empire of Japan in WW II. Yet here’s a US President Obama bowing to Emperor Akihito in Nov 2009 in Tokyo (also see the “How Low Will He Go” Los Angeles Times story).
O tempora, o mores! (“Oh, what times, oh, what manners!” – Cicero) Who will he bow to next – the Burger King?
New Low Even for Obama
What Obama is planning to do this week is a new low even for him. Because it shows disgraceful subservience of “the most powerful nation in the world” to a brutal and autocratic regime. Saudi Arabia’s atrocious human rights record is among the “worst of the worst” in the world. And has been for years.
“The authoritarian regime ruling Saudi Arabia has one of the worst human rights records in the world, consistently ranking among the ‘worst of the worst’ (list) in Freedom House‘s annual survey of political and civil rights,” the Wiki reports.
Also, Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that forbids women from driving. Human rights activists have been campaigning unsuccessfully for years to have the ban lifted (see Queen Elizabeth Once Took King Abdullah For A Drive, Proved She’s A Badass and He a Wimp, HP, Jan 23).
Maybe Michelle Obama can offer the new king to take him for a spin in her husband’s “The Beast” limo? 🙂 Yeah, right. In another lifetime perhaps…
Furthermore, the late King Abdullah also snubbed of the US at the UN when it refused the Security Council seat in Oct 2013.
The Saudis’ Oct 2013 UN Snub Was a Message Meant for Obama
The dead king, whose memory and legacy Obama intends to honor, was actually one to do the snubbing – of Obama administration’s foreign policy.
Saudi Arabia’s abrupt rejection on Oct 18, 2013 of the UN Security Council seat to which it had just been elected was described as “bizarre” and “baffling,” a “perplexing” decision that that left diplomats “gasping” and was “met with incredulity.” No member of the United Nations had ever done such a thing, and the Saudi government’s explanation was about as subtle as an uppercut.
Why? To send Obama a stern message:
“The Saudis’ sudden about-face — which almost surely was ordered by King Abdullah himself — was certainly dramatic. But what was it supposed to accomplish?
The answer came from Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
“This was a message for the US, not the UN,” he told European diplomats, according to Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. Bandar, who spent 22 years as the Saudi ambassador to Washington, let it be known that relations between Riyadh and Washington, already badly strained over the Obama administration’s policies toward Syria, Egypt, and Iran, are poised to get worse.
He reportedly said that Saudi Arabia intends to scale back its cooperation with US intelligence agencies in assisting the Syrian rebels fighting against Assad, and will seek other allies to work with instead. “The shift away from the US is a major one,” Reuters’ source was quoted as saying.
In short, Saudi Arabia’s refusal to take its seat on the Security Council had much less to do with the UN than with calling attention to Riyadh’s alarm and frustration at how its most important Western ally has been acting.” (An excerpt from Townhall.com)
So it was the Saudis that first did the snubbing – of the world’s greatest power – America.
Why then does the U.S. put up with Saudi Arabia? Or even assume a subservient position?
The simplest explanation, of course, is oil. The kingdom is the largest and most important producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the bloc that controls around 40 percent of the world’s oil. Because the United States was until recently the world’s top oil importer, an alliance with Saudi Arabia made geopolitical sense.
And so that’s why this American president drops everything and, like a Mecca pilgrim, rushes off to Saudi Arabia to bow before the new king of oil, demented or not.
A sad time for America. But deja vu day for the New World Order where money is power, and power is everything.
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