The head of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, led his country into aggression in 2015 on neighboring Yemen, which was undergoing a civil war. That war continues. There is every evidence of substantial war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign, which receives critical assistance from the U.S. (see here, here and here). Famine has been a Saudi weapon of choice through bombing and blockade: “Fighting on the ground and air strikes on rebel-held areas by a Saudi-led coalition backed by the US and UK have displaced more than three million people. And seven million people do not know where their next meal might come from.” “The UN recorded 13,045 civilian casualties, including 4,773 killed, between 26 March 2015, when the coalition air campaign began, and 26 March 2017.”
The Saudis haven’t achieved their objective either, which was to install a new Yemen government friendly to them. The war escalation for which bin Salman shares major responsibility has also been a strategic failure (see here, here and here).
Bin Salman began a public relations effort to clean up his image by casting himself as reformer inside his country. Does allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia cancel out his war crimes? Of course not. He cannot be his own judge of his crimes and provide his own measure of redemption. His role in killing Yemenis is not balanced by reforms within Saudi Arabia or by plans for economic growth. That role is also not negated by the existence of a coalition that entered the war under their own pretexts.
The Prince is visiting America where he is being received by various notables. They include Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. “He will also meet an array of power CEOs including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, as well as sitting down with major publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and the San Francisco Chronicle.”
This public relations effort is a facade, a fake, because it ignores bin Salman’s crimes in Yemen. His trip and meetings afford him a stage to build up his image, build up business connections and solidify his military alliance with the U.S., which is aimed at Iran.
An America on a right path would never have supported the Prince in his aggression against Yemen. It would not be covering his and its own shedding of blood with speeches, headlines and interviews. This publicity, like that showing George W. Bush as an artist, is a ruse to present the Prince as humane and progressive while avoiding the reality of his crimes against humanity.
9:27 am on March 30, 2018
