The Final Call

Protests, criticism greet Saudi prince during visit to America

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WASHINGTON—Absent a confirmed Secretary of State to help, President Donald J. Trump waded further into collaboration with the government of Saudi Arabia March 21, with a series of meetings with Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. That means arming the Saudis and helping them wage a bloody war against rebels in Yemen.

President Donald Trump shows a chart highlighting arms sales to Saudi Arabia during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House, March 20, in Washington. Photo: AP Photo

Activists welcomed the visitor by laying 5,000 flowers on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol to symbolize the 5,000 Yemeni children who have been killed or injured in the ongoing U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen.

“The fawning over Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is not just the Trump administration and Jared Kushner, but the entire world,” Brian Becker, with the International ANSWER Coalition told The Final Call. “All the leading lights of America’s political and economic and cultural establishment are bending over backwards to win favor with the Crown Prince.

“They’re making the argument that he’s a great reformer, but in fact, he’s on a shopping spree, for equipment for wars abroad, like the genocidal war against the people of Yemen. The Pentagon is actively supporting the war in Yemen, not only supporting the Saudi war, but they’re actually helping them conduct that bloody battle,” Mr. Becker continued.

“It’s an awful glorification of a bankrupt, fragile, decadent, debauched royal family, by the leading lights of American, Western imperialism,” he said.

“This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world right now,” protestor Iram Ali said, according to a published report. “And it is still ongoing, when it can be stopped with just passing this legislation and allowing humanitarian aid in.”

Activists called on lawmakers to support a new bipartisan resolution—Senate Joint Resolution 54—to end the U.S. military involvement in Yemen within 30 days, unless Congress formally authorizes the military action.

The brutal war waged by the Saudis in Yemen, makes them “war criminals, and we’re complicit,” Gayle Murphy, co-founder of Code Pink Women for Peace, told The Final Call. “I’m happy to be protesting every event that he’s either organized through his foundation or is going to be present at. We protested to remind Saudi Arabians that we’re not happy with their shelling of innocent civilians. Children are dying every day; the largest cholera outbreak in the world; and we just sold them more weapons. Unconscionable.”

But the Saudis waged a days-long “charm offensive” visiting multiple U.S. cities including Boston and Houston. “Well, they’re charming Trump,” said Ms. Murphy. “I wouldn’t say that most of the American people, if they were aware of what is going on in Yemen, the public is unaware of the atrocities that are going on in Yemen, with our support.”

With the assistance, some observers charge, of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, the Saudis have “infiltrated” the U.S. government. “It’s quite remarkable, the way the Saudis have managed to infiltrate within the United States,” Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin told “Democracy Now!” “You talk about Russian infiltration, but the Saudis have done it spectacularly.

“They have about 20 different PR and lobby firms based in Washington, D.C., many of them with former senators, congress people, and people from the Defense Department, who have direct contact with our Congress and our White House and State Department. They have incredible contacts in the think tanks. In fact, think tanks are putting on events for the Saudi prince while he is here.

“They have invested large sums in U.S. Ivy League colleges, so you see the kind of ideological infiltration in some of the most important universities in the United States. And then they have invested in Wall Street. And they are now here to invest more in U.S. companies,” Ms. Benjamin continued.

Mr. Kushner is accused of trading his influence for huge loans and investments into his private businesses. The Washington Post reported that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster “expressed early concern that Kushner was freelancing U.S. foreign policy.” According to the Post, Mr. Tillerson once asked staffers in frustration: “Who is the secretary of state here?”

At the same time Mr. Kushner was flexing his muscles in the White House, Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly claimed to have Mr. Kushner “in my pocket,” according to The Intercept.

During the summer of 2017, when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates initiated an economic blockade aimed at weakening their Gulf neighbor Qatar—a country which hosts a U.S. military installation. Mr. Tillerson’s attempts to mediate the crisis were quickly undercut by the president and Mr. Kushner, who supported the blockade. Three State Department officials told The Intercept that Mr. Tillerson was largely in the dark about Mr. Kushner’s private communications with the Crown Prince during that period.

During that same time frame, banks in Qatar denied hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments in Mr. Kushner’s real estate firm, while Saudi-linked banks granted those same loans, according to published reports.

“Just look at what happened in Qatar,” said Ms. Murphy. “Jared goes and has a couple of all-nighters with the Prince, and next thing you know, even though our State Department doesn’t support the blockade of Qatar, we do, right after Jared’s trip to Saudi Arabia. He must have promised things in exchange for whatever financial breaks he was looking for. It’s tragic,” said Ms. Murphy.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are also fierce opponents of the revolutionary government of Iran. “Unfortunately, Iran is playing a harmful role,” the Crown Prince said according to the translation of an interview rebroadcast on “Democracy Now!”

“The Iranian regime is based on pure ideology. Many of the Al-Qaeda operatives are protected in Iran, and it refuses to surrender them to justice and continues to refuse to extradite them to the United States. This includes the son of Osama bin Laden, the new leader of Al-Qaeda. He lives in Iran and works out of Iran. He is supported by Iran,” the Prince said.

The Saudis play on the widely reported media image of the Crown Prince as a “moderate reformer,” who is permitting women to drive, and who is rooting out corruption, leading his kingdom into principles embraced in the West.

“It doesn’t matter for the U.S. In spite of the fact that they (propagate) the idea that America would be the light of democracy, and freedom, and equality, the fact of the matter is, the Saudis play an instrumental and crucial role as an extension of American power in this resource rich and geo-strategically important part of the world,” said Mr. Becker.