US President Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to shield long-time ally Saudi Arabia from accountability after a Saudi Air Force officer opened fire at a naval base in Florida, killing three people.
The suspect — Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, whom the FBI has officially identified as a Saudi Royal Air Force second lieutenant – killed three people and injured several others at Naval Air Station Pensacola before he was killed by local law enforcement on Friday.
The deadly shooting has exposed anew the strange dynamic of relations between President Trump and the Saudi leadership. Trump and members of his administration have attempted to protect the alliance from further scrutiny.
The gunman who killed three people at a US naval base in Pensacola, Florida, is a Saudi air force officer, according to US officials.
Hours after the incident, Trump announced on Twitter that Saudi King Salman had personally called him to “express his sincere condolences and give his sympathies to the families and friends of the warriors who were killed.”
“The president’s first instinct was to tamp down any suggestion that the Saudi government needed to be held to account,” The New York Times said in an analysis published on Saturday.
On Saturday before leaving the White House for a trip to Florida, Trump alleged that the Saudi leadership was “devastated” by the attack, adding that King Salman would somehow be involved in “taking care of families and loved ones.”
Aaron Rupar
✔@atrupar
Trump on Pensacola shooting: “I spoke with the King of Saudi Arabia. They are devastated, Saudi Arabia. We’re finding out what took place, whether it’s 1 person or a number of people. The King will be involved in taking care of families & loved ones … they’re going to help out”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also stepped in to express the feelings of his Saudi counterpart, Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.
“I just spoke with Foreign Minister Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia who expressed his condolences and sadness at the loss of life in the horrific attack in Pensacola, Florida yesterday. The families and friends of those killed, and those wounded, will be in our thoughts and prayers,” Pompeo said in a tweet.
The comments drew rebukes from critics on Capitol Hill.
Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said that it was “unnerving how eager everyone in this administration is to be PR agents for the Saudis.”
Chris Murphy
✔@ChrisMurphyCT
It’s unnerving how eager everyone in this Administration is to be PR agents for the Saudis. I’m glad they are sad and cooperative, but ask yourself – would this Administration do this for any other country besides Saudi Arabia? Just so weird. https://twitter.com/secpompeo/status/1203366208214581248 …
Secretary Pompeo
✔@SecPompeo
I just spoke with Foreign Minister Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia who expressed his condolences and sadness at the loss of life in the horrific attack in Pensacola, Florida yesterday. The families and friends of those killed, and those wounded, will be in our thoughts and prayers.
Despite the Trump administration’s assurances, foreign policy experts and former officials said they believed the episode would further strain the US-Saudi relations.
“The attack is a disaster for an already deeply strained relationship,” Bruce Riedel, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and a former CIA officer, was quoted as saying by the Times.
“[It] focuses attention on Americans training Saudi Air Force officers who are engaged in numerous bombings of innocents in Yemen, which is the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world,” he said.
But even stranger, Riedel said, was “the president’s parroting of the Saudi line” before investigators could determine whether the suspect acted alone or the attack was terrorism-related.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Saturday he was not characterizing the shooting as terrorism “at this time.” The Pentagon chief further added that the attack would not affect his decision on US troop deployments to Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi Arabia is a longstanding partner of ours in the region,” Esper said.
Trump and other administration officials had similarly offered a weak and feckless response to the murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and its subsequent cover-up by the Saudi leadership.
The US president, as analysts imply, is trying to whitewash Saudi rulers in the case of Jamal Khashoggi.
Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was slain and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018.
There is still no objective accounting – by Saudi or American officials — of what happened in the consulate, let alone any real accountability.
President Trump has repeatedly brushed aside the grisly murder, saying a Saudi pledge to purchase billions of dollars worth of US arms “means something to me.”
Press TV is a 24-hour English language news and documentary network, affiliated with Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
IRIB is state-owned but independent of the Iranian government in its management and is the only legal TV and radio broadcaster inside Iran. IRIB’s head is appointed directly by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and is considered to be close to the country’s conservative political faction. Press TV is headquartered in Tehran with offices and bureaus around the world; including London, Beirut, Damascus, Kabul, and the Gaza Strip.
*All posts on behalf of PressTV are made by Jim W. Dean
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How often do we read an investigative article about the daily life of an average citizen in Saudi Arabia in one of the lying newspapers in the U.S.? Saudi Arabia is a partner in crime with the criminals running the U.S.A. today. Each government are nothing but giant whorehouses. I would bet even most members of Congress spend all day long thinking of which whorehouse they will get laid at tonight. Isn’t prostitution illegal in most of the U.S.? Why not arrest all members of Congress for prostituting themselves to Israel every day?
This is coming out of Iran. No way Saudi royals sanctioned these killings. It’s entirely possible this shooter from the Saudi Air Force is a dissident of his own government, who actually does see the US as the great satan.
AMERICA REDUX
Maybe, just maybe, the terror incident at Pensacola by putative “Saudi” officers is indicative of the underlying Saudi disaffection with America by the masses outside the milieu of royal palaces and not just with the Saudi regime in Riyadh itself who, it is well known, are ever aware of the push for a putsch should the ordinary Bedouine bourgeoisie or hardcore ḥāḍir achieve the necessary numbers in the armed forces to carry it out. Hence, the reliance of the rich on mercenary outside forces to fill the gaps with no-account goons only adept at causing mayhem in Yemen. In time, SA will fall like the proverbial row of dominoes when the cards in charge realize the game is up and they are drawing dead to a Royal flush! Shades of Bin Salman in western attire at Vegas being rushed to safety away from under heavy gunfire! That same disconnect in Saudi Arabia between rulers and subjects is being enforced here by the day in the United States with few, yet welcoming indicators to the contrary. Long may they continue especially in the fight against Bibi’s Bolshie oppressors in sheeps’ clothing with their barely concealed loathing … for all of us and indeed, the very US itself.
Three dictators and a hooker walk into a bar.
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