Wilkinson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, says MBS' social liberalizations were "designed to shift attention from this disastrous war."
If so, it's going well. While his opponents were undergoing incarceration and torture without warrant last November, albeit in a luxury hotel, Friedman wrote gushingly: "Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style."
MBS may be a dictator, but in some people's hearts he's Number One -- with a bullet.
Resistance WantedAs MBS was dazzling Friedman, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna was working both sides of the aisle to end our involvement in Yemen. The Republican-led House "overwhelmingly" passed a resolution calling US involvement in that country "unauthorized."
This year, 44 senators voted against continued this country's support for Saudi attacks on Yemen. Two antiwar groups, Win Without War and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, celebrated them who voted against it. Those groups are right: the tide is turning.
But in the meantime, the war goes on, 10 minutes at a time.
And as we listen to the debates in the UN, while we wait for more information out of Douma, as the generals appear on television to discuss military options, these Yemeni children are deliberately being starved by the Saudi military -- every day, all day long.
Look at them. The morality of empathy demands that we care about these children as much as we care about children anywhere -- including our own, here at home.
Where are the marchers, the silent vigils, the mass actions for them?
Syria is a terrible tragedy, too -- a tragedy caused by American intervention. Now we're being told that more intervention is the cure.
Liberal interventionism is seductive. It's hard to resist the messianic voices that tell us we're the indispensable heroes of our time, the saviors of the world and its children.
But it's time to ask: In countries like Yemen, who will save the world from us?
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