Britain and America

In past years the British state rolled out the red carpet for Ceausescu and Mobutu; it's King Abdullah's turn today

The flag of Saudi Arabia flies over The Mall in London today as a major state visit by the Saudi dynasty begins.  The Mall, which leads up to Buckingham Palace, is carrying a flag that declares: "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Messenger".

The freedom that Britain rightly affords to Muslims to profess their faith is not given to other faith traditions by the Saudi authorities.  In recent years the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has heavily criticised the treatment of Christians and other believers in the 'desert kingdom'.

The Independent newspaper (which lazily and underhandedly reprinted a Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefing two weeks ago) won't have renewed any friendships at the FCO with its coverage today of the Saudi visit.

These are the highlights from a page one comment piece by Johann Hari:

• A quotation from Amnesty International: "Fear and secrecy permeate every aspect of life. Every day the most fundamental human rights of people in Saudi Arabia are being violated."
• Neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron will commit to even mention human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia when they meet King Abdullah al-Saud.
• King Abdullah al-Saud "will ride in a golden carriage with the Queen, and be guest of honour at a Buckingham Palace banquet. It is the start of a three-day state visit, funded by the British taxpayer."
• "While King Abdullah is cheered by our political leaders, many of his victims will be protesting outside. Sandy Mitchell, 52, went to Saudi Arabia to work as an anaesthetic technician at a hospital in Riyadh more than a decade ago – and got a rare outsider's glimpse into how the king maintains his power. He explains: "One day in 2000 I was getting out of my car at the hospital when I was pounced on. I was battered to the ground, a hood was put over my head, and they manacled my hands and feet. I thought – I'm being kidnapped."  He woke up in the Madhethe interrogation centre, where the Saudi police demanded he confess to being a British spy ordered to plant bombs in the country. He told then the bombs were obviously the work of Saudi Islamists – a view now accepted to be true – so they hung him upside down and began to beat his feet and buttocks with an axe handle for eight days. All the while, he could hear his friend Bill Sampson being gang-raped in the next room."
• Saudi women are "banned from driving, from leaving the house without a male guardian, even in a medical emergency, or from holding a passport."
• "As the dissident ex-CIA agent Robert Baer says: "Never forget that it is the al-Saud who sign the cheques for these extreme mosque schools all over the world. It's hush money to divert Muslims' attention from the [activities of] the al-Saud [royal family]." The Saudi dictatorship is slowly poisoning global Islam, ensuring the most austere and fanatical desert vision liquidates the softer, more mystical strands – and we are already seeing this backfire on to the streets of London and New York."

Protesting at the suppression of women, suffocation of religious freedom, suspected corruption as evidenced by the aborted BAe probe and for its subsidy of extremist Muslim ideologies, Vince Cable, the acting LibDem leader is boycotting the Buckingham Palace banquet.  Also in The Independent, Cable writes:

"A cynic would argue that the institution of the British state visit has been hopelessly devalued. Past invitations to such appalling characters as President Mobutu of Congo and President Ceausescu of Romania reduced its value. I had hoped that Gordon Brown's government would have higher standards. It seems not."

This morning the Saudi monarch spoke to the BBC and accused the British Government of failing to do enough on terrorism.  This from a nation which is a leading funder of Wahhabism.  He repeated a claim that Saudi Arabia had passed intelligence to Britain before 7/7 that might have averted the London bombings.  A parliamentary investigation has already repudiated that claim.

A leader in The Independent concludes with these words:

"Domestic discontent is rife. And history teaches us that dissent cannot be suppressed forever. The apparent inability of the Saudi regime to tolerate even minimal reform indicates that the final reckoning, when it comes, could be bloody. Britain is not only honouring a corrupt and oppressive regime this week. It could be honouring a doomed one."

Coming on top of yesterday's news that up to sixty Iranian students are attending courses at UK universities on nuclear physics and other "proliferation sensitive" subjects, one has to wonder at Britain's seriousness about combating future threats to its security.

"Arming our false friends"

One of the last and least attractive acts of the Blair government was a decision to end a corruption probe into the sale of British arms to Saudi Arabia.  Team Blair did not want to risk losing future opportunities to sell more UK-made weaponry  to the oil-rich desert kingdom.  In the last couple of weeks the USA has announced plans to sell $20bn of arms to the Saudis.  An article in today's Wall Street Journal raises serious doubts about the wisdom of such sales.  Here are some key quotes from Bret Stephens' must-read piece about Saudi Arabia:

• "In 2003, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that al Qaeda had "tried to recruit Saudi Arabian Air Force pilots to carry out a suicide attack in Israel... using either F-15 jets or civilian aircraft." Israel also has serious concerns about the extent of al Qaeda's penetration of Saudi Arabia's National Guard."
• "A year ago, the Treasury Department named the director and two branches of the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization "for facilitating fundraising for al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups." The chairman of the IIRO is Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti and a member of the cabinet; Prince Sultan has also been a major donor."
• "According to a recent report in the Los Angeles Times, 45% of all suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudis; collectively, they account for some 2,000 deaths in the past six months. Would it be too much for the U.S. to ask the Saudis to screen young men leaving the country with one-way tickets to Damascus? So far, the Saudi government has refused."
• "Back in 2002, a Rand Corporation analyst named Laurent Murawiec gave a briefing to the Pentagon's advisory Defense Policy Board, in which he described Saudi Arabia as the "kernel of evil... active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader." Every word of that is true. Yet the administration walked a mile to distance itself from his remarks and Mr. Murawiec lost his job."

Melanie Phillips is equally unimpressed with Washington's plan to equip "the religious fount of al Qaeda".  She notes: "'My enemy’s enemy is my friend’ is a principle that has always underpinned realpolitik. It is extremely stupid. My enemy’s enemy may also be… my enemy."