Janine Jackson interviewed Medea Benjamin about Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia for the May 19, 2017, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Republican operative Ed Rogers’ comment in the Chicago Tribune (5/16/17) on Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia.
Janine Jackson: It’s some indication of US corporate media’s understanding of Saudi Arabia that outlets like the Chicago Tribune would run an op-ed referring to Trump’s visit to the country as an escape from controversy. Trump’s staff must welcome the round of “photo ops, pleasantries and handshakes to dilute the stories plaguing the administration at home,” wrote Ed Rogers. And while Rogers is a GOP strategist, that angle was echoed in, for instance, a New York Times piece about how the latest Comey development will cast a pall on a trip meant to be invested with “historic grandeur.”
As we record this show May 18, there’s a new headline up at the Times, “Saudi Arabia to Give Trump a Royal Welcome, Ignoring his Slights.” Is that all that’s being ignored right now? Medea Benjamin is co-founder of the peace group Code Pink. Her latest book is Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US/Saudi Connection. She joins us now by phone from Miami. Welcome to CounterSpin, Medea Benjamin.
Medea Benjamin: Thanks for having me on, Janine.
JJ: Last year around this time, Barack Obama was visiting Saudi Arabia, and media were talking about the “special relationship” between the countries, but never explaining why the US needed to maintain a special relationship with a country that beheads people for witchcraft, for example. There’s a new president, but looking at the headlines around Trump’s visit, it doesn’t seem as though the reasons for that friendship are going to be interrogated this time, either.
MB: Well, that’s right, and unfortunately there will be little talk about what Saudi Arabia is, in terms of how it treats its own people, what its role is in the world. And what is most astounding to me, Janine, is that the regime is fueling the very extremism and intolerance and violence that Trump says he’s out to eradicate.
This is a regime that exports its intolerant interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism, around the globe, that has been funding terrorism worldwide, and that represses its own people in all kinds of ways, from forbidding free speech, free association, no political parties, no trade unions, repressing religious minorities. It’s the most misogynist, gender-segregated country in the world, and I can go on and on. So it would be nice if the press would focus a little bit more on why in the world we have such a close relationship with the regime that is most responsible for spreading extremism internally and abroad.
JJ: The feeling you get, to the extent that corporate media get into it, or even talk about the repression and the problems with the regime, it’s like we have to hold our nose and have this relationship. There’s some reason that means we have to be partnered with this country which seems to represent all these things that people at least don’t stand up and say that they care about. And it used to be that the truism was “it’s all about oil,” but now I think weapons—I mean, between oil and weapons, that seems to be a lot of what’s going on.
MB: That’s right, it is the toxic relationship based on oil, originally, that dates back to the finding of the vast reserves of oil in the 1930s, and has become also dependent on Saudi weapons purchases from the United States. They are the No. 1 purchaser of US weapons. And just like under President Obama, the White House bragged about $115 billion worth of weapon sales during his tenure, now it seems like President Trump wants to outdo him, being even more of a weapons salesman, as he travels to the Saudi kingdom to clinch a deal for $100 billion, and this is just five months into Trump’s time in the presidency.
JJ: I think it’s very interesting the way media talk about that. Because, you know, the Times had a story on May 16, “Trump About to Visit Saudi Arabia, Is Urged to Help Yemen,” and I was struck because it sort of suggests that what the US is being asked, gently, is to apply some pressure on Saudi Arabia, and then several paragraphs down it says, oh, and by the way, there’s $100 billion of weapon sales going on. And then the coalition is always described as “Saudi-led” but “US-backed.” If the US decided not to support Saudi’s efforts in Yemen, obviously that would have a huge impact there. But it’s sort of as though the US is the tail being wagged?
Medea Benjamin: “The Saudis could not do their devastating bombing campaign in Yemen were it not for the US.”
MB: The Saudis could not do their devastating bombing campaign in Yemen were it not for the US. Whether it’s talking about the actual weapons that they’re using, or the continued refueling of their airplanes in the air by the US, or the logistical support the US has been giving, yes, it is a Saudi-led campaign but driven by US support. So if the US wanted to say, stop this devastating campaign that has turned Yemen into a catastrophic situation, as one of the humanitarian aid people says, of biblical proportions, it could simply pull out, stop the weapons sales, stop the logistical support, stop the refueling of the Saudi planes, and that would be a pretty strong statement.
Instead the US has continued to support, but with some reservations. And I want to point out one important reservation that Obama had made, which is he did not support the attack on the port of Hodeidah, where the majority of the humanitarian aid has been flowing through, and now it looks like Trump is going to give the OK for that. We and many groups have been pushing very hard against this, but I’m very concerned that part of the talks that they will have in Saudi Arabia will be to give a green light to this attack that will push Yemen over the brink into a full-blown famine.
JJ: So when as US citizens, we read about the horrific conditions in Yemen, and there’s sort of a missing connection in terms of what US responsibility is there, we could be drawing a real direct connection there. And I guess that’s what I mean: For activists, how can folks get involved in fighting and resisting this? It seems like this time, while Trump is traveling, might be a good time to call attention to these issues. What can folks do?
MB: There are some people in Congress who have made these connections, like Sen. Chris Murphy, who says the US has blood on its hands in terms of Yemen, and so we have to push them further. And there are efforts, both in the House and the Senate now, to reject the $100 billion Saudi weapon sales. The Congress has the right to reject any weapon sales. They did not do it under the Obama administration. It’s time they do it under the Trump administration. So I would say that people have to contact their congresspeople and their senators and tell them, say no to the $100 billion weapon sale to Saudi Arabia.
JJ: And then finally, in terms of media, the hypocrisy is hard to avoid. It’s not as though we can’t find editorials on Egypt’s el-Sisi and the Philippines’ Duterte. When Trump has reached out to them, we’ve seen kind of angry articles, you know, he’s “an enemy of human rights.” Meanwhile, our look-around found very few articles even mentioning the arms deal that we’re discussing here today. So obviously there’s a role for the press as well.
BM: Right, to talk about the hypocrisy of the arms deal, the need to do something to save the people of Yemen, and also to do something to support the real democrats inside Saudi Arabia that are in prison, executed and in other ways muffled by their own government.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin. They’re online at CodePink.org. Her book is called Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US/Saudi Connection. Thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin, Medea Benjamin.
MB: Thank you.
Thank you for this excellent piece. This will sound contradictory to some, but in particular I thank you for clearing the name of Islam and Muslims with this portion:
“This is a regime that exports its intolerant interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism, around the globe, that has been funding terrorism worldwide, and that represses its own people in all kinds of ways, from forbidding free speech, free association, no political parties, no trade unions, repressing religious minorities. It’s the most misogynist, gender-segregated country in the world, and I can go on and on.”
Why do I say that? Because it draws a clear distinction between Islam as a whole and the Wahhabi interpretative school in Saudi Arabia. It’s not Islamophobic to criticize Saudi society in this respect, because Islam in Saudi Arabia doesn’t represent Islam as a whole.
With recent events, I urge my fellow progressives to reject the identification of Muslims with the Islamic institutional clergy who claim the right to define Islam and “correct” Muslim belief for all Muslims. The free, independent Muslim conscience has the natural, God-given authority to interpret sacred texts without accepting official institutionally mandated interpretations.
Muslims are brilliant, wonderful people. Let’s support their rights.
It is good to know that Code Pink is standing up for better reporting, by our U.S. corporate press, on the Saudi Arabian/American collusion in the Yemen famine, war disaster. That definitely is a plus, having a leading American feminist organization taking up this issue, with American women, predominantly. After all, American women are now the majority voting population in our country. Perhaps our elected representatives, on both sides of the aisle, will take heed, when they see the pink hue in the distance, approaching with new political demands. Women, together, are a political force which the GOP will find difficult to gerrymander against, only if women can separate their voting from that of their domestic partners. Wake-up, America. Even ERA, “equal pay for equal work”, should be a walk-in-the-park, now.