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One of Donald Trump’s big draws for his voters is that he’s supposedly different— in ways they think are good. Like being willing to shake the status quo and upend old ideas. Yet he’s spent the last week proving what a sham that is by expanding on America’s worst presidential tradition.
A tradition that, like the annual White House Easter Egg roll, has long transcended party. It’s become as American as apple pie, fall football, and the Fourth of July. No matter what they say before getting elected, no President since Jimmy Carter has been willing to choose American morals, national security, independence, or freedom, over this one exasperating policy.
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In fact, I can’t think of a single US foreign policy that has been more consistent year in and year out than this: the President of the US bending the knee to the House of Saud.
An autocratic regime that undeniably funds [ [link removed] ], arms [ [link removed] ], and exports [ [link removed] ] terrorism.
That has ties [ [link removed] ] to the 9/11 attacks and encouraged [ [link removed] ] the pointless wars that followed.
That oppresses women [ [link removed] ], arrests dissidents [ [link removed] ], and executes journalists [ [link removed] ].
That colludes with our elites [ [link removed] ] and our adversaries [ [link removed] ] to steal from American families.
That uses their huge oil revenues to infiltrate our politics [ [link removed] ], our economy [ [link removed] ], and our farmland [ [link removed] ].
That admits [ [link removed] ] to fostering an era of conflict that has claimed [ [link removed] ] the lives of more than 7,000 American service members, cost [ [link removed] ] American taxpayers trillions of dollars, and contributed to worldwide instability [ [link removed] ].
That has nuclear ambitions [ [link removed] ] that threaten our national security and the stability of the region and the world.
And here is Mr. Tough Guy himself, Mr. Different, bending down before the Saudis for the whole world to see. Just like, or possibly worse, than everyone who came before him.
His only innovation? Expanding the sycophancy to the whole neighborhood to get himself a new jumbo jet.
Instead of making the Saudis a much-deserved addition [ [link removed] ] to our state sponsors of terrorism list, Trump is luncheoning in Riyadh alongside the CEO’s of America’s big tech and investment banks Blackstone and BlackRock, parroting Saudi-prepared talking points, and celebrating a so-called $600 billion Saudi investment in America as some great achievement [ [link removed] ].
News flash: the Saudis were going to invest that money here and buy our arms anyway, because it’s profitable for them. The most insulting part of it all is that this $600 billion “investment” is essentially just a small fraction of our own money being lent back to us by the the people who stole it from us. It’s literally money the Saudis appropriated-- using their oil cartel’s monopoly power-- from hard working Americans at the pump over the years. A theft that ironically, they are only able to perpetrate because we spend billions of dollars [ [link removed] ] every year protecting their shipping lanes with our military.
As I wrote in the American Prospect [ [link removed] ], I’m a Marine veteran with multiple deployments [ [link removed] ] in the disastrous war on terror and years of experience [ [link removed] ] as an international negotiations and counter-WMD officer on the Joint Staff, and deals like this Saudi deal put American families in danger, dishonor American service members, and make our country a joke on the world stage.
It isn’t just because the Saudis have already proven we can’t trust them—like when they broke an agreement [ [link removed] ] a couple years ago to keep oil prices low, or when they were exposed [ [link removed] ] for doling out American anti-tank missiles and armored vehicles to al Qaeda–linked fighters.
It’s because while serving in Asia, Europe, and right here at home, I’ve seen firsthand how this supposed ally has done more harm to the American people than any other regime on the planet.
In Iraq, I led a team [ [link removed] ] of a dozen Marines training Iraqi police and running missions in the Sunni Triangle. Just a few years later, most of the Iraqi officers we trained were either killed by or fled from the Islamic State—a barbaric terrorist organization that relied on the Saudis for funding [ [link removed] ] and theological inspiration [ [link removed] ] as a part of Saudi Arabia’s growing list of proxy wars [ [link removed] ].
In Afghanistan, where two Marines in my battalion were lost, I spoke [ [link removed] ] with a Taliban prisoner in the Herat city penitentiary who was adamant that he’d kill me as soon as he had the chance. His organization was bankrolled [ [link removed] ] by our supposed Saudi friends; that didn’t appear to blunt his resolve.
On my first assignment with the Joint Staff, I worked [ [link removed] ] with the National Security Council, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and CIA to combat the proliferation of nuclear technology and weapons of mass destruction. And now we have two Presidents in row, Biden then Trump, working toward deals to put the Saudis on the path to a nuclear program. I know the danger of adding the world’s most effective exporter of extremism [ [link removed] ] to that marketplace of death.
As an international negotiations officer [ [link removed] ] at the Pentagon [ [link removed] ], I watched as the Saudi-led cartel, OPEC+, used its energy monopoly to suck us [ [link removed] ] and our allies [ [link removed] ] dry, and dragged us [ [link removed] ] into a new era of overseas conflicts that have brought us the closest we’ve been to nuclear confrontation [ [link removed] ] since the Cold War.
Over the decades, our politicians’ Saudi-centered foreign policy has left us trillions of dollars in the red while we protect them [ [link removed] ], fight wars [ [link removed] ] for them, and risk [ [link removed] ] our lives [ [link removed] ] for them. It’s left the Saudis fat and rich—so much so that they’re using the profits from our one-sided relationship to move ahead in AI development [ [link removed] ], launch huge mega-construction projects [ [link removed] ], help Elon Musk buy Twitter [ [link removed] ], and even transition to the next generation of energy [ [link removed] ].
Throwing a couple of our own nickels back at us, as investment that’s going to earn them a nice profit, is not a victory, Mr. President.
It’s just another example of cowardice regarding the Saudis. Like President Obama, after calling the Saudis “free riders [ [link removed] ]” for taking advantage of us, vetoing a bill passed by Congress that would allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis for their ties to the 2001 attacks. Like Trump 1.0 campaigning on banning Saudi oil in an attempt to secure independence from “our foes and the oil cartels [ [link removed] ],” only to then proactively offer to use our military to defend [ [link removed] ] Saudi oil supplies as president. Or Biden in 2019 promising [ [link removed] ] to make Saudi Arabia a pariah state, only to become one of their staunchest allies [ [link removed] ] ever in the Oval Office.
So much for being different. On the plus side, even his biggest MAGA supporters, like Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro, are calling him out for it [ [link removed] ].
There might never be a better time to remind people just how corrupt he is.
Lucas
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