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When politics ignores reality

All too true!....especially when it's all craven.

"It's always a tricky moment for the corporate media when a foreign leader dies. The content and tone need to be appropriate, moulded to whether that leader fell into line with Western policies or not".

So begins a piece on MediaLens relating to the death of the Saudi prince recently.

"Coverage of the death of Saudi Arabian dictator King Abdullah on January 23 fits the usual pattern. Given the Saudi kingdom's longstanding role as a key US client state in the Middle East, in particular the West's dependence on the country for oil and as a market for arms sales, coverage was pitched to reflect a suitably skewed version of reality. Thus, news articles and broadcasts dutifully relayed the standard rhetoric of US Secretary of State John Kerry who declared:

'This is a sad day. The United States has lost a friend ... and the world has lost a revered leader. King Abdullah was a man of wisdom and vision.'

As Keane Bhatt of the US media watchdog FAIR pointed out, Kerry's distasteful words were cover for a brutal tyrant 'whose regime routinely flogs dissenters and beheads those guilty of "sorcery"'. Amnesty reports that more than 2,000 people were executed in Saudi Arabia between 1985 and 2013:

'It is absolutely shocking to witness the Kingdom's authorities' callous disregard to fundamental human rights. The use of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia is so far removed from any kind of legal parameters that it is almost hard to believe.'

Writer Anas Abbas observed that when it comes to the barbarity of crime and punishment, there is little to choose between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State.

Human Rights Watch notes that despite modest Saudi reforms, women and ethnic minorities still suffer from an 'enforced subservient status' and discrimination against women remains entrenched. Human rights violations continue to take place against Saudi Arabia's nine million domestic migrant workers.

According to Campaign Against Arms Trade, Saudi Arabia is the UK's largest customer for weaponry, with over £5.5 billion worth of arms in the five and a half years from January 2008 to June 2012. In 2012, the New York Times reported:

'Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists...'

Veteran Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn points to Saudi Arabia's critical role in the rise of Isis, 'stoking an escalating Sunni-Shia conflict across the Islamic world.' He adds:

'15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as was Bin Laden and most of the private donors who funded the operation."

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