the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jul 18, 2022
When he was campaigning for president way back in 2019, Joe Biden promised to make Saudi Arabia "a pariah" over the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Now as president, he has kept his promise by visiting the Saudi dictator responsible for the murder, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and giving him a grinning fist bump.
Biden insisted that even though he felt he had to visit Saudi Arabia, "for an American president to be silent on an issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am." He even claimed that he brought up Khashoggi’s murder "at the top of the meeting," whatever that might be worth!
Who American presidents “really are" was made clear from the actual content of the meeting: deal after deal to reinforce the business ties between U.S. corporations and Saudi Arabia. In addition to pumping more oil, the Saudis will invest in pipelines with U.S. companies, buy weapons from U.S. military producers like Boeing and Raytheon, buy medical supplies from U.S. companies like Medtronic, buy telecom equipment from the U.S.—the list goes on and on.
Biden may frame these business deals as helping U.S. consumers faced by the high price of oil or helping to wean Europe from “Russian oil.” But anyone who really believes the Saudis will “save us” from high gas prices—when U.S. oil companies are enjoying record profits—has another think coming.
The reality is clear: Biden works hand in glove with the Saudi government, like Trump, Obama, and every president before them stretching back 100 years, because U.S. corporations make huge profits from that country. Protecting those profits is the number one job of the president, from whichever party. All the talk of “human rights” is just so much hot desert air.