Buttigieg: US should consider 'putting the brakes' on Saudi relationship

[DonViejo]

BY ZACK BUDRYK - 06/16/19 09:13 AM EDT

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (D) said Sunday that the U.S. should reconsider its relationship with Saudi Arabia and “consider putting the brakes” on it.

Citing issues such as the execution of dissidents and the killing of U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the South Bend, Ind., Mayor said such activity is “wrong on either side of the gulf” on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

“We have a close relationship in many regards,” Buttigieg said. “We should consider putting the brakes on that relationship at a moment when, again, our values are being called into question because the president seems to think that a pending arms deal is more important than speaking up about the fact that an American resident, a journalist, was killed and dismembered.”

Buttigieg added that while “no two countries are the same,” the U.S. must “especially when we're talking about an ally where we might have some leverage … stand up for human rights and the things we believe in as a country.”

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/448769-buttigieg-us-should-consider-putting-the-brakes-on-saudi

[nycbos]

1. Our unsavory partnership with the Saudis goes back decades.

Mayor Pete is right.

[BigOleDummy]

2. Don't forget that

15 of the 19 people responsible for 9/11 were Saudi Nationals. Also that Wahhabism (a particularly fundamentalist branch of Islam) is the state sponsored religion of Saudi Arabia. The "Islamic State" religious extremists were steeped in and inspired by Wahhabism.

I don't think that's the kind of people/State we need to be associated with PERIOD myself. They've shown over and over that they prefer to live in medieval times and I say …..let them. We as a Nation and as a people do not need "friends" of this sort I don't care how many weapons they buy from us. They will just be used to intimidate and kill their own people and anybody who threatens the rule of the house of Saud.