Jon Stewart Rips Hypocrisy, Misses U.S. Hypocrisy on Saudi Arabia
Jon Stewart recently laid into Donald Trump and tech billionaires for their cozying up to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, rightly highlighting the blatant hypocrisy of doing business with a regime responsible for Jamal Khashoggi's murder. But while Stewart excoriates Trump for 'selling out' with a handshake, the corporate media consistently omits the fact that successive U.S.
administrations, Democrat and Republican alike, have been actively enabling Saudi Arabia for decades, often with little public protest from the very same commentators. Remember the $100 billion arms deal Trump inked in 2017, boosting Boeing and Raytheon's stock while Yemen was decimated? Or the ongoing military support under Biden? It's rich to criticize individual hypocrisy when the entire U.S.
foreign policy apparatus operates on a foundation of 'do as we say, not as we do' with human rights. While Stewart skewers the cash-for-access quid pro quo, he leaves untouched the systemic U.S. military-industrial complex that profits immensely from these 'strategic partnerships.' One might wonder if the outrage only truly ignites when the photo op is too egregious to ignore, rather than when the
quiet, consistent state-sponsored atrocities are committed with U.S. weapons and political cover.