{"id":12033,"date":"2012-08-23T09:01:04","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T16:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12033"},"modified":"2012-08-23T09:01:04","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T16:01:04","slug":"canadas-government-abandons-morality-to-amass-wealth-from-middle-eastern-despots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12033","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s Government abandons morality to amass wealth from Middle Eastern Despots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Principles set aside in federal government\u2019s dealings with Saudia Arabia iPolitics Insight<\/strong>
\nBy Yves Engler – 23 August, 2012 -iPolitics<\/p>\n

Yves Engler is the author of a number of books on Canadian foreign policy. His forthcoming book, The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper\u2019s foreign policy, will be published in October. Dubbed \u201cCanada\u2019s version of Noam Chomsky\u201d (Georgia Straight), \u201cone of the most important voices on the Canadian Left today\u201d (Briarpatch), \u201cin the mould of I. F. Stone\u201d (Globe and Mail), \u201cever-insightful\u201d (rabble.ca) and a \u201cLeftist gadfly\u201d (Ottawa Citizen), Yves Engler\u2019s six books have been praised by Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, William Blum, Rick Salutin and many others.<\/p>\n

Stephen Harper\u2019s Conservatives have strengthened military, business and diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, one of the most misogynistic and repressive countries in the world. The country is ruled by a monarchy that\u2019s been in power for more than seven decades. The House of Saud has outlawed labour unions and stifled independent media. With the Qur\u2019an ostensibly acting as Saudi Arabia\u2019s constitution, over a million Christians (mostly foreign workers) in the country are banned from owning bibles or attending church.<\/p>\n

Outside its borders, the Saudi royal family uses its immense wealth to promote and fund many of the most reactionary, anti-women social forces in the world. They aggressively opposed the \u201cArab Spring\u201d democracy movement through their significant control of Arab media, funding of establishment political movements and by deploying 1500 troops to support the 200-year monarchy in neighbouring Bahrain. The Saudi monarchy may be the worst regime in the world. (The U.S., of course, is responsible for far more violence but it is relatively free domestically. North Korea is as repressive, but its foreign policy is benign compared to Saudi Arabia\u2019s.)<\/p>\n

The Conservatives have been extremely deferential towards the Saudi leadership. When Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud died in June foreign minister John Baird gushed with praise. \u201cSaudi Arabia has lost an honourable man of great achievement who has dedicated his life to the security and prosperity of the people of Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, interior minister for three and a half decades, was considered a fairly conservative member of the Al Saud family who resisted the weakening of Wahhabi religious doctrine as a threat to the monarchy\u2019s grip on power.<\/p>\n

When defence minister and deputy premier Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud died in October 2011 Baird issued a similar assessment. \u201cThe Kingdom has lost a man of great achievement who dedicated his life to the well-being of its people.\u201d Appointed defence and aviation minister in 1962, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was a leading figure in the country for five decades. He pushed a stridently anti-communist position and was implicated in a number of major corruption scandals.<\/p>\n

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Principles set aside in federal government\u2019s dealings with Saudia Arabia iPolitics Insight By Yves Engler – 23 August, 2012 -iPolitics Yves Engler is the author of a number of books on Canadian foreign policy. His forthcoming book, The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper\u2019s foreign policy, will be published in October. Dubbed \u201cCanada\u2019s version of Noam Chomsky\u201d more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3406],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12034,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12033\/revisions\/12034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}