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This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama described beheadings by the extremist group ISIS as “an assault on all humanity,” but when US ally Saudi Arabia executed 47 people on January 2, many by beheading, the administration expressed “concern” and urged “restraint.” Media don’t make it easy to make sense of US policy in the Gulf region. We’ll get some context from Toby Craig Jones, associate professor of history at Rutgers University and author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia.
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Also on the show: For US media, Haiti is just, as CBS News put it, “a shamble, made worse by a corrupt government.” You’d hardly guess what role the international community, and in particular the US, has had in creating the country’s current situation, including the confusion and mistrust about the presidential election. We’ll hear from Jake Johnston on that; he’s a research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and lead author for the Center’s Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch project.
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Plus a quick look back at recent press, including the Oregon standoff and a tale of two columnists at the Washington Post.
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SOURCE LINKS:
- “Saudi Arabia’s Dangerous Sectarian Game,” by Toby Craig Jones (New York Times, 1/5/16)
- Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch, Center for Economic and Policy Research
- Other Worlds: Another Haiti Is Possible
The questioner did seem a bit confused about how closely Saudi Wahabbi ideology meshes with Wahabbi theology.
This may help.
The Financial Times of London reports here that the Islamic State uses Saudi textbooks in their secondary schools in Mosul.
Does that shine any light on how similar their world views might be?
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/14739cc2-8e03-11e5-8be4-3506bf20cc2b.html?siteedition=intl
Should read: The questioner did seem a bit confused about how closely Saudi Wahabbi ideology meshes with Islamic State Wahabbi theology.”