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Thursday, April 21, 2016

Saudi Arabia gets nine of Guantanamo

From The World Can’t Wait:

Nine more prisoners — 8 of whom were cleared for release in 2009 — were let out of Guantanamo last week, sent to the U.S. close ally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The 9 men are from Yemen... the country Saudi Arabia is relentlessly bombing.

Obama is in the Kingdom now, reinforcing the close relationship the U.S. keeps with it. Zaid Jilani and Alex Emmons wrote April 19 in Obama Went From Condemning Saudis for Abuses to Arming Them to the Teeth:
In January, after a record-setting year for Saudi beheadings, Saudi authorities set off protests by executing Shia cleric and regime critic Nimr al-Nimr. U.S. response was muted. The State Department merely said the execution “risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced” — and then fell silent on the repression of the following protests.

Last year, amazingly enough, Saudi Arabia became the head of the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council. When a State Department spokesperson was asked for his reaction, he 
responded: “Frankly, we would welcome it. We’re close allies.”
A recent State Department report on the Kingdom ignored the thousands of civilian casualties, presumbably because Saudi actions - and the sale to it of "record-breaking" arms sales — are seen by the people who run this country as being in the interests of the U.S.
Above, people protesting in Sana, Yemen

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