Trump Declares Saudi Arabia 'Ally,' Forgets Khashoggi's Bone Saw
Bloomberg breathlessly reports that Donald Trump plans to designate Saudi Arabia a 'major non-NATO ally,' a move framed as strengthening ties to MBS. Perhaps Bloomberg's editorial board missed the memo on Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul back in 2018, an operation the CIA directly implicated MBS in. Or the brutal, years-long war in
Yemen, fueled by US-supplied weapons, that has created one of the worst humanitarian crises on Earth. A 'major non-NATO ally' status grants preferential access to US military equipment and training—a fine reward for a regime that regularly tortures dissidents, executes political opponents, and commits war crimes in neighboring countries. One might wonder if human rights abuses are now a feature,
not a bug, for America's chosen partners. How many more journalists must disappear before an 'ally' becomes a liability?