Trump Approves F-35s for MBS. What’s a Khashoggi Between Friends?
President Trump's decision to push F-35 fighter jet sales to Saudi Arabia ahead of MBS’s White House visit, as Bloomberg details, conveniently sidesteps any inconvenient questions about the Kingdom's use of existing U.S.-supplied weaponry. Remember the ongoing U.S.-backed Saudi campaign in Yemen, which has fueled one of the world's worst humanitarian crises? Or the small matter of Jamal
Khashoggi's brutal murder, which U.S. intelligence linked directly to MBS? These advanced jets are not for 'stability,' they're for maintaining a regional strongman and bolstering defense industry profits. Weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, a consistent feature across administrations, are reliably framed as promoting 'security' while enabling documented atrocities. This isn't just about selling jets;
it's about legitimizing a regime with a long history of human rights abuses, funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars and arms deals. It makes one wonder: how many 'strategic partnerships' require ignoring war crimes?