US Takes a Break from Condemning Tyranny to Celebrate Obama’s Visit to Saudi Arabia
IN FOCUS, 31 Mar 2014
Glenn Greenwald – The Intercept
President Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah in June 2010 in the Oval Office of the White House.
AP Photo/Ron Edmonds
Selecting the year’s single most brazen example of political self-delusion is never easy, but if forced to choose for 2013, I’d pick British Prime Minister David Cameron’s public condemnation of George Galloway. The Scottish MP had stood to question Cameron about the UK’s military support for Syrian rebels. As is typical for Western discourse, criticizing western government militarism was immediately equated with support for whatever tyrants those governments happened to be opposing at the time: “Some things come and go,” proclaimed the Prime Minister, “but there is one thing that is certain: wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator in the world, he will have the support of [Galloway].”
What made Cameron’s statement so notable wasn’t the trite tactic of depicting opposition to western intervention as tantamount to support for dictators. That’s far too common to be noteworthy (if you oppose the war in Iraq, you are pro-Saddam; if you oppose intervention in Libya, you love Ghaddafi, if you oppose US involvement in Ukraine, you’re a shill for Putin, etc. etc.). What was so remarkable is that David Cameron – the person accusing Galloway of supporting every “brutal Arab dictator” he can find – is easily one of the world’s most loyal, constant, and generous supporters of the most brutal Arab despots. He has continuously lavished money, diplomatic support, arms and all sorts of obsequious praise on intensely repressive regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Egypt. That this steadfast supporter of the worst Arab dictators could parade around accusing others of supporting bad Arab regimes was about as stunning a display of western self-delusion as I could have imagined . . .
Tommy Vietor at home (Bloomberg TV):
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/from-the-oval-office-to-d-c-s-hottest-free-agent-EEcyljPTQ4O1tfTk9OkTyw.html
Until this week. Tommy Vietor was President’s Obama National Security Council spokesman during the first term. He left to form a consulting firm (along with Obama’s former speechwriter Jon Favreau) that trades on his White House connections by forming messaging and communications strategies for corporations that have extensive business with the government, although he still literally adorns the walls of his home with multiple large posters of President Obama (see this remarkable 3-minute video profile of Vietor and his new work, which a friend sent with the title “the care and feeding of a young imperial bureaucrat” (it features a bonus pre-Snowden quote angrily condemning the Chinese for hacking)). Vietor’s function, which he performs quite faithfully, is simple: to express and embody the most conventional, defining views of official imperial Washington about itself.
On Monday [24 Mar 2014], Vietor took to Twitter to try to publicly embarrass Oliver Stone for expressing support for the Maduro government in Venezuela:
This, of course, is nothing more than the long-standing favored tactic of official Washington: cynically feigning concern for human rights as a means to undermine the governments that do not comply with US dictates. To the Tommy Vietors of the world, the Maduro government isn’t bad because it “illegally jails opposition leaders”; it’s bad because it opposes US policy, refuses to obey US dictates, and defeats neo-liberal, US-subservient candidates in popular elections. That’s all obvious.
But what never ceases to amaze me is the ability of the Tommy Vietors – like David Cameron before him – to convince first themselves, and then others, that they are able to issue these denunciations without instantly being driven from the public square in shame. The very same person invoking human rights concerns to publicly condemn Stone for supporting the democratically elected government of Venezuela spent years working to support and prop up far more brutal, vicious, oppressive tyrannies, ones never elected to anything.
The Obama administration for which Vietor was a spokesman repeatedly supplied arms to the regime in Bahrain as they brutally crushed democratic protesters. They vigorously supported the repellent Mubarak regime, the long-time US ally, until his downfall became inevitable; Hillary Clinton, upon being named Secretary of State, gushed: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.” Obama has continually embraced the anti-democratic Gulf monarchs ruling Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. And all of that is independent of the unparalleled political, financial, diplomatic and military support which the US lavishes on Israel as it engaged in all sorts of decades-long occupation, repression and aggression.
And then there’s the closest US ally of them all, which also just happens to be one of the world’s most brutally repressive regimes: the House of Saud. During Vietor’s tenure, the administration revealed “plans to offer advanced aircraft to Saudi Arabia worth up to $60 billion, the largest US arms deal ever, and is in talks with the kingdom about potential naval and missile-defense upgrades that could be worth tens of billions of dollars more.” Five months ago, the Pentagon announced “plans to sell Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates $10.8 billion in advanced weaponry, including air-launched cruise missiles and precision munitions,” a package that “includes the first US sales to Middle East allies of new Raytheon and Boeing weapons that can be launched at a distance from Saudi F-15 and UAE F-16 fighters.” The Obama White House has repeatedly affirmed its “strong partnership” with the Saudi tyranny.
Today, Obama arrives in Riyadh to assure the Saudi monarchs that the US is as committed as ever to its close partnership in the wake of Saudi anxiety. He’ll meet with King Abdullah, “the president’s third official meeting with the king in six years.” The purpose of this trip: “trying to smooth relations with Saudi Arabia without making the longtime US ally seem like an afterthought.” Indeed, “top presidential advisors say the visit is an ‘investment’ in one of the most important US relationships in the Middle East.”
If you want to justify all of this by cynically arguing that it benefits the US to support repressive and brutal tyrannies, go ahead. At least that’s an honest posture. But don’t run around acting as though the US is some sort of stalwart opponent of political repression and human rights violations when the exact opposite is so plainly true. And if you’re someone who has worked extensively to provide the world’s worst regimes with all sorts of vital support, don’t hold yourself out as the leader of the mob condemning others for expressing support for far more benign governments.
UPDATE: After the meeting today between President Obama and King Abdullah, a “senior administration official” told CNN that, despite policy differences over Iran and Syria, “the United States and Saudi Arabia are ‘very much aligned.’” Moreover, “Obama and Abdullah steered clear of international complaints of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia” (they also presumably “steered clear” of human rights abuses in the U.S., although CNN – which likely does not recognize the existence of such abuses – did not indicate whether this was the case). So all in all, it sounds like it was a very harmonious and constructive meeting between these two close, long-time allies and partners.
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Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, and author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His fifth book, No Place to Hide, about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world, will be released in April 2014. Prior to his collaboration with Pierre Omidyar, Glenn’s column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. He was the debut winner, along with Amy Goodman, of the Park Center I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2008, and also received the 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the abusive detention conditions of Chelsea Manning. For his 2013 NSA reporting, he received the Gannett Foundation award for investigative journalism and the Gannett Foundation watchdog journalism award; the Esso Premio for Excellence in Investigative Reporting in Brazil (the first non-Brazilian to win), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award. Along with Laura Poitras, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013. He lives in Rio, Brazil.
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