Saudi "Justice" And American "Consequences"

 

 

As Saudi butcher Mohammed "Bone Saw" bin Salman draws closer to his fellow immoral ally Putin, we learn of another outrageous violation of decency and law in the native land of 15 of the 9/11 terrorists and Osama bin Laden:

Many dictatorships unjustly imprison Americans. But while the Biden administration has gone to considerable effort to secure the release of high-profile Americans from Russia, Venezuela and Iran, it has been less public and less successful in securing the release of U.S. citizens held in Saudi Arabia. In fact, despite that Saudi Arabia is supposedly a U.S. ally, the Saudi government under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is dealing with its U.S.-citizen critics more harshly than ever. The latest and most egregious example concerns Saudi American Saad Ibrahim Almadi.

Almadi is not a dissident or an activist; he is simply a project manager from Florida who decided to practice his right to free speech inside the United States. But last November, when he traveled to Riyadh to visit family, he was detained regarding 14 tweets posted on his account over the previous seven years. One of the cited tweets referenced Jamal Khashoggi, the Post contributing columnist who was murdered by Saudi agents in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Other tweets criticized the Saudi government’s policies and the corruption in the Saudi system.

“He had what I would call mild opinions about the government,” his son Ibrahim told me. “They took him from the airport.”

Almadi was charged with harboring a terrorist ideology, trying to destabilize the kingdom, as well as supporting and funding terrorism. He was also charged with failing to report terrorism, a charge related to tweets Ibrahim sent on a separate account.

On Oct. 3, Almadi was sentenced to 16 years in prison. He also received a 16-year travel ban on top of that. If he serves his whole sentence, he will leave prison at age 87 — and would have to live to 104 before he could return to the United States.

The author goes on to note the missteps and apparent lack of forceful push-back from the State Department.  The bottom line seems to be that MBS doesn't fear reprisals from the United States, as most recently evidenced by his alignment with fellow autocrat Putin over cutting oil production.  But, whether it's the Saudi's vile human rights record or its backstabbing American and Western diplomacy, a serious response from the United States is long overdue.

While President Biden vows unspecified "consequences" for the Saudi action on oil production, Democrats are proposing freezing arms sales, withdrawing U.S. troops and air defense systems, and making OPEC member states subject to anti-trust laws.  A specific "consequence" of Saudi bad behavior would be to pull the plug on the proposed Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center, "a military testing facility in Saudi Arabia that would 'test new technologies to combat the growing threat from unmanned drones, and it will develop and test integrated air and missile defense capabilities.'” With Saudi Arabia's mortal enemy Iran entering into a more public military alliance with Russia, that could serve as a lesson to the regime that biting the hand that protects you with the best defense systems in the world isn't a wise strategy.

MBS gave the Biden Administration an "October surprise" with his decision to cut oil production, hoping to damage Democratic prospects and aid Putin.  Soon, a "November surprise" calling MBS' bluff on oil extortion and human rights will be in order.

(Photo: BBC News)