"Slamming Syrian reform but backing Saudi Arabian regime US unmasks own hypocrisy"

http://rt.com/op-edge/us-hypocrisy-gulf-kerry-815/

Close ties with “autocratic” Gulf States reveal the “hypocrisy” of US foreign policy, Guardian paper contributor, Neil Clark, told RT, adding that Washington raises the democracy banner only when it wants to topple an unwanted government.

After his two-day trip to Egypt where opposition leaders refused to sit to the negotiation table with him, John Kerry, received a much more hospitable reception as he met up with the foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The US Secretary of the State held talks with the region’s leaders in Saudi Arabia, before flying to the UAE and Qatar.

Journalist Neil Clark, who’s written extensively on the Middle East, believes the protest movement in Bahrain or Qatar will never receive backing from the US, like it did in Syria. Clark says true American interests lie in the field of oil and arms trade, but not promoting democracy and human rights.

RT: Some of the Gulf monarchies on Kerry’s talks list have come under severe criticism for repression on their turf – most notably Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – and yet these are some of America’s closest allies. How does this friendship sit with the US commitment to spreading democracy across the globe?

NC: It doesn’t sit at all, does it? I think it highlights a sort of glaring hypocrisy, which underlines the whole of US policy. And it’s very interesting to compare US policy towards Syria with that of Saudi Arabia. Because last February, the Syrian government announced a new democratic constitution that was going to allow a multi-party system,  free elections and etc. And what was the US response? It denounced it as a sham: “President [Bashar] Assad is playing games.” It was dismissed entirely. And the Saudi’s haven’t gone anywhere near as much as that in terms of democratic reforms and yet the US has praised the Saudi Arabia. So, I think it shows – if you compare Syria and Saudi Arabia – the glaring hypocrisy of the US.

RT: While the US has been a vocal critic of human rights violations in Syria, Libya and many other states, it hasn’t raised the same level of alarm when it comes to crackdowns in Gulf nations. Why such a difference in approach?

NC: Oil contracts, arms deals…. The fact of the game is that when the US talks about spreading democracy what it really does is uses human rights violations as a pretext for an intervention and for trying to destabilize and topple regimes, which aren’t amenable enough to US interests. And we’ve seen classic examples of that down the ages. We saw that in 1999 in Kosovo where we were told there was genocide taking place against the Kosovar Albanians by the Yugoslavian authorities. That wasn’t true, but that was a pretext for the bombardment of the country, with the aim of bringing regime change, which happened in 2000. So we see that human rights democracy banner being held out by the Americans to kind of topple governments, which aren’t following the US line. When there are countries with, actually, a far worse record on democracy and human rights, like Saudi Arabia, given arms, have economic relationships with the US. So, it’s a completely different ball game with them.

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its something i mention a lot..the double standards.. bahrain and the house of saud can do whatever they want..but i think its even easier to spot..the sunnis seem to be able to do whatever they want..the shia are the persecuted..or am i wrong?

john “322″ kerry giving some love to morsi..

401

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~ by seeker401 on March 7, 2013.