Sarah AB at Harry's Place has posted a highly pertinent piece called Responding to the death of King Abdullah.
She notes that notorious Israel-basher Ben White and pro-Israel blogger Guido Fawkes have come together (coincidentally) in astonished condemnation of the West's obsequiousness in the wake of the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's death.
Sarah's question is, given that the punishments prescribed for various crimes by the Saudi regime and by ISIS are pretty much identical, "How far can Realpolitik excuse the inconsistencies of Western foreign policy?" [For the pro-Realpolitik side, please read Con Coughlin at the Telegraph.]
Being Harry's Place, the comments - as fleeting as mayfly (dying after a mere seven days, poor things...ahem) - are well worth a read too.
Having not seen a great deal of the Beeb's King Abdullah coverage [other than Frank Gardner's News at Six report on BBC One, where he didn't mention flogged blogger Raif Badawi], I can't say how true this is (though it certainly rings true)...
....but there's a comment at HP about the BBC's reporting of the story that highlights another species of BBC bias:
Shazza • 6 hours agoLoved the way the BBC showed pictures of GW Bush having tea with King Abdullah but not the ones showing Obama bowing and showing obeisance (isn't he supposed to be a republican and hence did not show our Queen the same respect?) to this ghastly moslem king.
I think the BBC has been careful to emphasize the difficulties the Saudi Royals have to grapple with in the shape of the ‘conservatively religious‘ majority in their society.
ReplyDeleteFrank Gardner believes King Abdullah has attempted to modernise, and says that making progress is a slow, treacherous, walking on eggshells affair. The fact that there’s little or no outward sign of improvement doesn’t really help that case. It would be nice to believe that wouldn’t it.
I can’t access Con Coughlin (paywall) but the Arab Spring tell us that Tyrants and vicious dictators might be the only way to keep the lid on clannish turbulent volatile societies. They say the House of Saud controls unrest with bribery and the relative calm there indicates it works.
The appalling medieval punishment system outweighs all of that.
As for this country’s financial dependency on Saudi cash, it’s frightening. Prostitution of the most depraved kind. Universities, educational establishments, palatial residential buy-ups, shops, mosques, banking systems, all under the influence. Hence, I suppose all the grovelling.