On October 31, 2021
© By John Arkelian
The Free World needs to be far more discriminating about whom we call allies, let alone friends. During the Cold War, we supported any number of repugnant regimes throughout the Third World. If they were hostile to communism and pliable to our economic interests, it mattered not one whit if they savagely oppressed and murdered their own people. That shameful legacy continues to run riot today. Principles, values, legal accountability, even mere common decency — they count for nothing against perceived material benefit or short-term geopolitical expediency. Consider the case of Saudi Arabia. Its vile regime is antithetical to all we hold dear. It has contempt for human rights; indeed, disagreeing with that regime can be a capital crime. It is an undemocratic tyranny; it oppresses women; it imprisons or kills non-violent critics; it wages a ruinous war in neighboring Yemen (with our tacit blessing) which has created a major humanitarian crisis. It is beholden and allied to ‘Wahhabism,’ a harsh, hateful, and extremist form of Islam that spawned the 9/11 terrorists (most of whom were Saudis). And, it encourages us in protracted hostility toward its sectarian and geopolitical rival Iran, when, in fact, there is little to qualitatively recommend one of those antagonists over the other. It brazenly murdered a resident of the United States who was a journalist with a leading American newspaper. And, it, and/or some of its agents, may have aided and abetted the murderous 9/11 attack upon the American homeland. And so we ask: With “friends” like these, who needs enemies?
See “With ‘Friends’ Like These…” at: https://artsforum.ca/ideas/the-wide-world