Introducing Saudi Arabia, our new ally in the War on Terror. Last month Saudi Arabia publicly beheaded 23 people for crimes including possession of hashish, adultery, sedition, blasphemy, apostasy, sorcery and witchcraft. About half of all people executed in Saudi Arabia are foreigners. Saudi courts, which are held in closed session, found a number of people sentenced to death were mentally unfit, but executed them anyway. Not that those courts are usually required. According to Amnesty International, in most cases a full confession is extracted through torture, completely legal in Saudi Arabia. After execution the bodies are sometimes crucified and left on public display for a week as a deterrent. Floggings, amputations and stonings are also common in Saudi Arabia.
Yes the Saudis know all about ISIS’s brand of justice, and so they should. In the Syrian town of Raqqa, ISIS’s de facto capital, the court responsible for administering this justice consists of 12 judges, all of them are Saudis.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are banned from driving. It is ranked 130th out of 135 countries for gender equality and was the only country to score zero for political empowerment of women. Although there are the same number of women in Cabinet in Saudi Arabia as in Australia, one, she needs to obtain permission before appearing on television or talking to the media. Women are also banned from participating in sporting events at all levels and associating in public with any male who is not an immediate relative.
Australia could not hope for more experienced ally on international terrorism. According to the US State Department “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide”. It is the largest source of funds for Salafi Jihadist organisations including Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS. The country that gave us Osama Bin Laden, fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers and the alleged masterminds of the USS Cole and Kenyan embassy bombings has been sold over $86 billion in military equipment by the US since 2010, more than any other US ally and nearly twice what it’s sold to Israel to fight Hamas (one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest aid recipients).
Not that they’ll need it for this conflict. Saudi Arabia won’t be putting any of its people in the firing line, that’s our job. Instead they will be spending our money recruiting, arming, training and indoctrinating Islamic militants to fight ISIS. So in a few years we’ll have another group of extremist militants to fight in Iraq. No doubt we’ll be paying the Saudi’s to help out with them too, so we’d better start saving now.