Persimmon Alley Press
Persimmon Alley Press
  • About Persimmon Alley Press
  • Books
    • Close Encounters with the Cold War
    • Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times
    • Encounters: Ten Appointments with History
    • Killer Protocols
    • Clean Coal Killers
    • The Killer Trees
    • A Feast of Famine
    • Molly Malice in Alterland
    • Alligator In My Basement
    • Sudden Addiction
    • The Flesh of the Cedarwood
  • Smoke the Dottle
  • Richard's Rants
  • Contact

Rant 697: Say It Ain't So, Joe!

7/16/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
​As this is being written, President Biden is in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage to genuflect before Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), a murderous dictator. This marks a low point in his presidency and in American diplomatic practice. Figuratively kissing the Saudi autocrat’s ring and literally fist-bumping his blood-drenched hand is cynical and beneath contempt. When he ran for president in 2020, Biden quite accurately called Saudi Arabia a “pariah.” Now he rushes to Jeddah in a desperate, disgraceful and dishonorable attempt to keep the oil flowing in hopes of lowering gas prices and thus gaining a few votes in the upcoming mid-term elections.
 
By crawling through the sand to pay deferential tribute to MBS, Biden is essentially saying to the crown prince: “All is forgiven–your ordering the murder and dismemberment of U.S. citizen and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi; your subjugation of women; your imprisoning women whose offense was demonstrating for the right to drive cars; your hundreds of beheadings of political dissidents, and your brutal war in Yemen in which your armies have slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians in what the UN calls the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world”–that’s all water over the dam. We just want to be friends.”
 
Here are a few excerpts from Saudi high school textbooks approved by MBS’s government:
  • “Jihad for the sake of God is the pinnacle of Islam,”
  • “The Hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims will kill them until the Jews will hide behind the rocks and the trees. The rocks and the trees will say:’O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’.”
  • “Hitting [your wife] is only permitted when necessary.”
These passages only scratch the surface. Saudi school textbooks are full of this kind of incendiary language. Are these really the kinds of people with whom an American president should break bread?
 
It is hard to accept that Joe Biden may be just another craven politician.
 
I expected more of Biden, much more. Especially once he soundly routed Donald Trump (his most important accomplishment). He came into office as the anti-Trump, presumably determined to right the innumerable wrongs his predecessor perpetrated during his dreadful term. Moreover, I anticipated that, in stark contrast to Trump, Biden would preside over a presidency imbued with integrity and a strong commitment to human rights. Groveling before a fiend like MBS belies that. That is Trumpian behavior.
 
MBS is jumping for joy at the message the photo ops associated with the president’s visit convey now that Biden has elevated him to respected status. Consorting with people like this is the wrong message for the United States to broadcast to the world. Crawling on one’s knees before a homicidal tyrant is not a good look.
 
Dick Hermann
July 16, 2022


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Richard Hermann is the author of thirteen books, including Encounters: Ten Appointments with History and, most recently, Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times. Soon to be released is his upcoming Close Encounters with the Cold War, a personal reflection on growing up in the nuclear age. He is a former law professor and entrepreneur, and the founder and president of Federal Reports, Inc., a legal information and consulting firm that was sold in 2007. He has degrees from Yale University, the New School University, Cornell Law School and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. He lives with his wife, Anne, and extraordinary dog, Barkley, in Arlington, Virginia and Canandaigua, New York.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed