Trump’s Saudi Arabia Visit Exposes Extreme Hypocrisy

On Saturday, Trump had the chance to enlighten us all by giving a riveting speech showing how he never fails to have the exact wrong policy position on almost every single issue, this time, being Saudi Arabia.

Here’s some chunks of what he said:

I am honored to be received by such gracious hosts. I have always heard about the splendor of your country, and the kindness of your citizens. But words do not do justice to the grandeur of this remarkable place.

…

But no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists…safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in that region; I am speaking, of course, of Iran. From Lebanon, to Iraq, to Yemen, Iran funds arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region.

Let’s go step by step. First, he compliments the “grandeur” of a place which violates human rights left and right, doesn’t allow women to drive or do anything much without a “guardian”, considers atheists terrorists, and implements other terrible, inhumane aspects of Sharia law. Then, he says that Iran is funding and training terrorists and causing chaos in the Middle East, when the most major country causing chaos and funding terrorists is Saudi Arabia, and that Iran is currently fighting against ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

But it is indeed very interesting to watch him take this stance, since it completely contradicts the stance he had as Citizen Trump, instead of President Trump.

In his 2011 book “Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 again”, he says this about Saudi Arabia:

It’s the world’s biggest funder of terrorism. Saudi Arabia funnels our petro dollars, our very own money, to fund the terrorists that seek to destroy our people while the Saudis rely on us to protect them.

In an interview with Chuck Todd in mid-2015, he says this:

Saudi Arabia makes a billion dollars a day, okay? They make a billion dollars a day. Saudi Arabia, if it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t be there. They wouldn’t exist. They should pay us.

And in early 2016, he implied Saudi Arabia was responsible for 9/11.

Just to be clear and accurate, these statements about Saudi Arabia are not entirely false. Saudi Arabia was involved in the funding for 9/11, and is still to this very day, involved in funding present-day terrorist groups, and also happens to actually be the biggest funder of terrorism. However, his immediate retraction of these claims for political influence shows that it wasn’t actually genuine, and that he probably has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

But as if his words weren’t bad enough already on their own, they had to come with a disastrous weapons deal that will help Saudi Arabia fund and arm even more terrorists, and their genocidal campaign in Yemen, among other lovely things they like to do with our money and weapons.

CNN reports: (https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/19/politics/jared-kushner-saudi-arms-deal-lockheed-martin/)

President Donald Trump signed a nearly $110 billion defense deal with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Saturday, signaling the United States’ renewed commitment to its alliance with the Gulf kingdom and desire to bolster its counterterrorism partnership.

Counterterrorism partnership, huh. Way to go CNN, fantastic reporting.

CNN continues:

On Saturday, near the end of Trump’s first day in the kingdom, the two leaders inked a deal green-lighting a $109 billion defense deal, which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said was a component of $350 billion in economic and defense investments between the two countries over the next 10 years.

Lockheed’s [Marillyn] Hewson was on hand Saturday in the cavernous Riyadh ballroom where Trump and Salman made the deal official. The company was “proud to be part of this historic announcement that will strengthen the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia,” Hewson said.

Basically, Trump has decided to continue the long-standing cycle of thriving and profiting off of Saudi Arabia’s oil in exchange for letting them, in a way, help us, and join us in bombing the hell out of the Middle East. How can you be tough on “radical islamic terrorism” when you are completely fine with giving hundreds of billions to radical islamic terrorism? How can you pretend to care about human rights and innocent civilians (bombing Syria after the chemical weapons attack) when you support a regime that is prosecuting a genocidal campaign in Yemen that includes brutally murdering completely innocent women and children, bombing schools (including one for the blind), and shutting out humanitarian aid, effectively starving millions of people, again, including women and children?

If this is not the immediate textbook definition of the word Hypocrisy, I wouldn’t know what is; what else could be?

Not only is this incredibly hypocritical, it’s dangerously hypocritical when taking into account how many lives are going to be taken by the terrorists that will use these weapons to their own wants.

All these expenses just so that the US stays militarily and economically “dominant” worldwide. Guess what, that does not take priority over lives and humanitarian dignity, Mr. Trump. This hypocrisy will not stand.

Trump’s Saudi Arabia Visit Exposes Extreme Hypocrisy was originally published in Extra Newsfeed on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.