Big American Turnout To Pay Respects And Meet The New King

Saudi Arabia’s one claim on American attention is its money, derived not from any industry on the part of its subjects, or entrepreneurial flair, but solely as the result of an accident of geology. For its security, for its doctors, for its engineers, for its-practically-everything, it relies on the advanced West. Its mosques and school textbooks continue to inculcate hatred of non-Muslims. Individual Saudis, and some institutions too, support such groups as the Muslim Brotherhood (and Hamas, which is the embodiment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza and “the West Bank”), All-Nusra Front and even the Islamic State. Saudi Arabia stands for unenlightened despotism,the criminal law according to the Shari’a, or hudud (that is, floggings and the lopping off of limbs and decapitations, and being able to buy your way out of punishment by the payment of money to a victim’s family), the treating of women as mute niqabbed chattel, and the mistreatment even of foreign non-Muslims who dare, behind closed doors, to try to sing Christmas carols, or observe some Hindu ritual.

The Saudis, totally dependent on the West, are encouraged to think that the Western world needs to court them, and few things do as much to swell their heads, quiite unnecessarily, as this visit by so many American dignitaries to “pay their respects” to the dead king, Abdullah, and to his successor Salman. Quite a contrast to the American absence at the Charlie-Hebdo march in Paris, a few weeks ago.

The report here.