Pearls and Irritations

This is the criminal theocratic state which has been using  American-supplied weapons to bomb and starve innocent Yemeni children for years  We have all seen those terrible photos of starving Yemeni babies and children on the point of death.

It is the Saudi state which has provided the lion’s share of funding and US weapons to ISIS which has beheaded hundreds of opponents in Syria and devastated the country, and still fights on at Idlib and in the east.

When the Turkish President formally produces the audio tapes of the murder, expected within 48 hours, which Turkish top police officials have been selectively leaking to media for many days,  Australia should be ready at once to withdraw its ambassador and declare the Saudi Ambassador in Canberra unwelcome (persona non grata). We do not need to ingratiate ourselves with this awful Saudi regime. We can afford to see them off.

And can our MSM please stop inserting hostile references to alleged human rights violations in Russia and China when they write about this? There is absolutely no comparison or proportionality between these Saudi horrors, and contested narratives about what Russian and Chinese Govts allegedly have or have not done. You devalue your own unassailable human rights case against Saudi Arabia with these unconvincing comparisons.

By the way, President Erdogan – who will have the final call on whether Turkey officially at state level denounces these Saudi Govt crimes, as I hope he  will – is working constructively with Russia and Iran to complete the peace process in Syria – a peace process which US and Saudi Arabia  continue to try to derail, even now as Syria returns to normality.