{"id":178594,"date":"2018-11-04T08:05:41","date_gmt":"2018-11-04T08:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=178594"},"modified":"2018-11-06T07:05:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T07:05:35","slug":"trudeau-wont-stop-12bn-of-arms-sales-to-saudi-after-khashoggis-death-because-money-always-wins-over-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=178594","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau won\u2019t stop $12bn of arms sales to Saudi after Khashoggi\u2019s death because money always wins over murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Fisk — The Independent Nov 1, 2018<\/h1>\n
\"Prime<\/a>

Prime Minister Castro and wife at Toronto Gay Pride Parade 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

Almost 5,000 miles from the city in which his corpse was secretly buried \u2013 in one piece or in bits \u2013 by his Saudi killers, Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s murder now rattles the scruples and the purse-strings of yet another country. For Canada, land of the free and liberal conscience \u2013 especially under Justin Trudeau<\/a> \u2013 is suddenly confronted by the fruits of the bright young prime minister\u2019s Conservative predecessors and a simple question of conscience for cash: should Trudeau tear up a 2014 military deal with Saudi Arabia worth $12bn?<\/span><\/p>\n

When Ottawa decided to sell its spanking new light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to the Saudi kingdom<\/a><\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0the Saudis already had a well-earned reputation for chopping off heads and supporting raving and well-armed Islamists. But Mohammed bin Salman had not yet ascended the crown princedom of this pious state. The Saudis had not yet invaded Yemen, chopped off the heads of its Shia leaders, imprisoned its own princes, kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister and dismembered Khashoggi.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the Conservative Canadian government of Stephen Harper had no scruples about flogging off its LAVs \u2013 as these little armoured monsters are called \u2013 to Riyadh, specifically for the \u201ctransport and protection\u201d of government officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now you can hardly accuse Trudeau of being a supporter of the Saudi regime. Back in August, Mohammed bin Salman\u2019s lads\u00a0ordered the expulsion of the Canadian ambassador to Riyadh and closed down trade agreements with Canada after Trudeau\u2019s foreign minister had complained about the arrest of women\u2019s rights campaigners in the kingdom. The Canadians had made \u201cfalse statements<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/a>, claimed the Saudis \u2013 whose own reputation for false statements would soon achieve proportions worthy of a Hollywood horror epic. Trudeau was in the Saudi doghouse as well as Washington\u2019s because, only two months earlier, Trump had called him\u00a0\u201cdishonest and weak\u201d<\/strong><\/span>.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

So, of course, no sooner had Khashoggi been dispatched in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul than Canada\u2019s liberal conscience bestirred itself. Surely now\u00a0Trudeau must tear up the 2014 agreement for all those shiny light armoured vehicles which Harper flogged to the Saudis in 2014. Alas, it turned out a few days ago, the deal included what Trudeau\u2019s government has described as a prohibitive cancellation agreement which would \u2013 if the armoured vehicle transaction was completed \u2013 cost the Canadians billions of dollars. It made economic sense, up to a point, but as with all things involving the Saudis these days, there was a \u201cwhoops!\u201d factor.<\/span><\/p>\n

For it turned out \u2013 alas, oh alas \u2013 that those harmless Canadian LAVs had been videotaped in the Saudi eastern province in 2017, putting down a Shia civilian rebellion. The Canadian foreign ministry \u2013 now, in a masterpiece of satire, renamed \u201cGlobal Affairs Canada\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/span> \u2013 suspended arms exports and opened a \u201cfull and thorough investigation\u201d. Nowadays, we are all familiar with \u201cfull and thorough investigations\u201d \u2013 like the one the Saudis are enthusiastically conducting into the demise of the secretly buried Khashoggi \u2013 and the Canadian version of an enquiry subsequently concluded that the vehicles from Canada had undergone post-export \u201cmodifications\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mohammed bin Salman was by this time running the show in Riyadh, and Trudeau was running the show in Ottawa. But now arrived, yet again, the Saudi \u201cwhoops!\u201d factor.<\/span><\/p>\n

The LAVs, it transpired, had been secretly kitted up with turrets and machine guns, and these vehicles were used in the 2017 operation in which 20 civilians had been killed. But \u2013 and here was a deus ex machina<\/em> to beat them all \u2013 the Global Affairs report added (with even further unconscious satire)\u00a0that no human rights violations had occurred;\u00a0that Saudi forces had made \u201cefforts to minimise civilian casualties\u201d; and that the use of force \u2013 readers, you guessed it \u2013 was \u201cproportionate and appropriate\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank heavens the Saudis were firing machine guns from those Canadian vehicles and not attacking their enemies with knives and bonesaws.<\/span><\/p>\n

But now \u2013 and here the tired metaphor is oddly appropriate \u2013 the knife was twisted in Trudeau\u2019s back. Step forth one Ed Fast, an opposition Canadian Conservative MP who, as the former international trade minister in Ottawa, helped to shepherd through the original lucrative arms deal with the Saudis. The contractual arrangements had nothing to do with him. The penalties were inserted by General Dynamics Land Systems, which assembled these wretched machines in Ontario.<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides, Fast added last weekend, the deal should be upheld; Canada should instead censure the Saudis by targeting the property of Saudi human rights offenders and end imports of Saudi oil. And increase the transshipment of Canadian oil from Alberta, which neighbours British Columbia where \u2013 whoops!\u00a0\u2013 Fast happens to be an MP.<\/span><\/p>\n

No one could have been enjoying this as much as the Saudis. For Ed Fast also relapsed into the mind-boggling diminution of Khashoggi\u2019s murder. He described the chopping-up of the Saudi journalist in Istanbul and his secret burial by the Saudis as an \u201cissue\u201d and a \u201csituation\u201d. \u201cIssue\u201d as in \u201cproblem\u201d, I suppose. As for the Fast view of arms cancellation, it wouldn\u2019t really \u201cpunish\u201d the Saudis, and anyway \u2013 here we go again \u2013 Riyadh would only buy its armoured vehicles from other countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dennis Horak, a former Canadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia \u2013 it\u2019s odd how former western ambassadors to Riyadh have a habit of beating the drum for the Saudis \u2013 announced that cancellation would now<\/a><\/strong><\/span> \u201conly serve to punish the 3,000-plus Canadian workers… who will see their high-skilled, middle class\u00a0jobs disappear for a gesture with no consequences in Saudi Arabia\u201d. Such a message would be \u201clost on the Saudi leadership\u201d. Selling armoured vehicles was not a favour but \u201ca commercial transaction\u201d. What we should do, announced Horak in the Toronto Star<\/em>, is to \u201cspeak directly\u201d to them: \u201cEngage, rather than disengage\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who would believe that this was the same ambassador Horak whom the Saudis booted out of Riyadh only last August after the Canadian foreign affairs minister complained about the arrest of women activists in the kingdom? Does he want to go back, for heaven\u2019s sakes?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not difficult to spot the moral \u2013 or the immorality \u2013 of this tale. Arms will almost always win over murder. Our \u201cmiddle class\u201d chaps and their families \u2013 for I mercifully haven\u2019t noticed a lot of women among the CEOs of arms companies \u2013 must have their jobs secured, whatever the cost in dead Yemeni wedding parties, blitzed hospitals or chopped-up journalists. And already, scarcely two weeks since we all learned for certain that Saudi consulates could perform more ambitious deeds than issue divorce papers, the cloth is being cut to fit the scruples of even the most liberal of western states. So that \u201cissues\u201d and \u201csituations\u201d don\u2019t interfere in the \u201ccommercial transactions\u201d of the global economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living up to Trump’s description of him as “dishonest” and “weak”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178595,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178594\/revisions\/178595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}