Dakota Beacon

We have learned that training will be suspended for 852 Saudis on American military bases.  We don’t have a figure at hand as to how many Saudis are training in other schools in technically sensitive disciplines, nor how many are in commercial schools.  Let’s just work with the potential of the 852 we know about from our military spokesmen.  

On September 11, 2001, 2,977 Americans were killed in the attack by primarily Saudis.  There were a couple of UAE pilots involved, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon. So 15 of the 19 were Saudis.  These 19 individuals killed 156 - 157 Americans each. Do the math. The potential for killing here is terrible.  If 19 killed 2,977, then 852 could potentially kill 133,495 people. Now, of course, not all 852 of these Saudi “trainees” are going to do this.  Perhaps not even a majority of them. But how many is too many? One is too many. One can kill hundreds. His victim could be you, your son or daughter, your parent, your best friend, your surgeon, your boss, it could be anyone you know or anyone you don’t know.  We know who Alshamrani killed - Mohammed Sameh Haitham, Cameron Scott Walters and Joshua Caleb Watson. They were American servicemen. Eight others were wounded in this minor attack. It wasn’t minor to them, of course, but it was “only” three. I guess the scope of the attack is in the eye of the beholder.

So let’s assume only 10% of those here to “train” are bent on jihad.  Is there any reason to accept that amount of risk? In a normal “deal” such as the ones the president likes to brag about there is always a “win-win” of some kind.  It makes no sense to bring these dangerous people into America. We have no vested interest in training Saudis. It would appear from our experience that the best place for a Saudi pilot is on a camel.  In Saudi Arabia.  

Trump has been accused of something very near treason for a simple phone call to the new president of Ukraine and a question which was natural and proper and in our national interest about our meddling with an investigation into the operations of a gas company in Ukraine which happened to involve the former Vice President.  There is a better case to be made for “treason” that he took the friendly phone call from the Saudi king to smooth everything over and get him to help buy off the bereaved families.  I hope he got them a good price because those young men are gone forever now. Did they think to make everything contingent on a non-disclosure form?

There is supposed to be a 10-day investigation going on.  Either that is too little or too much. On the one hand, ten days won’t be enough to ferret out the people who have engineered these programs and their money connections and corruption involved.  A good place to start is with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all the officers under them who were involved. That is a better plan than shushing up the families and getting rid of the issue that way.  On the other hand, it is a matter of one second to find that this should never have happened because these people should not be here in the first place.  

If it were ever important to us that Saudi pilots get American training, wouldn’t it make better sense to find some foolish American people to volunteer for duty to go over to Saudi Arabia to teach them over there?  (And that is a big “if”.) There is no reason under any circumstance to bring a Saudi over to America in any capacity, especially a military one.

If Trump thinks it is a good idea to pursue these relations with military programs involving Saudis perhaps we should stand back and let the Democrats tear him apart.  Should we turn ourselves inside out for a man who has this kind of judgment? Who thinks that a Saudi king’s filthy lucre is sufficient to mollify families who have lost a beloved son, father, brother or husband?  Because there is a point beyond which “pragmatism” just won’t cut it. We have had too much pragmatism for the good of our national soul as it is. Enough is finally enough. We need to approach this life-and-death issue from a more morally sound perspective.

Anyone who cares about this incident should call Congress (202-224-3121) and let your senators and congressmen know that this is not acceptable, that we need to end this training of Saudis and while we’re at it, make foreign money funding schools in our country illegal as well.  

Congressman Matt Gaetz is right about this - only he isn’t going far enough.  We should not only suspend these programs, we should terminate them. If Saudi Arabia ever grows up or if it abandons its mission of conquest of the West we can consider it again.  But not now.

“Never again” and “we’ll never forget” have become timeworn, empty phrases.  How often have we said this? Our military people said it after they saw Auschwitz.  We said it after 9-11, we heard it again after San Bernardino and Fort Hood. We hear this over and over.  The fact that we say it over and over means that we don’t mean it. Will this incident, too, fade away? Very likely it will.  After ten days our attention span is spent. Ten days from now we will be on to the next story. Until the next time. Then we’ll promise never to forget.  Until we promise never to forgive we are lost. We can’t keep doing the same stupid things and expect any different result. If we need to provide support to the Saudis for stuff we sell them we need to quit selling them this kind of stuff.  We don’t need to. Let them do without or buy them from someone else. Let’s see how they fare when they slaughter some Russian students or teachers. Not all that well, I would guess. I imagine there would be someone shortly succumbing to radioactive poisoning after an event like that.  After all, no world-class leader can allow some tin pot “king” of Saudi Arabia, of all places, to kick him in the groin. And that is what happened. No Saudi is doing anything without the approval of the king. So - never again? Yeah. 

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