House bans aid to Saudi Arabia
Wow:
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Friday to prohibit any aid to Saudi Arabia as lawmakers accused the close ally of religious intolerance and bankrolling terrorist organizations.
The prohibition, reflecting persistent tensions with the kingdom after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, was attached to a foreign aid funding bill for next year that has not yet been debated by the Senate.
It also faces a veto threat from the White House because of an unrelated provision.
A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington declined to comment on the legislation.
In the past three years, Congress has passed bills to stop the relatively small amount of U.S. aid to Saudi Arabia, only to see the Bush administration circumvent the prohibitions.
Now, lawmakers are trying to close loopholes so that no more U.S. aid can be sent to the world’s leading petroleum exporter.
“By cutting off aid and closing the loophole we send a clear message to the Saudi Arabian government that they must be a true ally in advancing peace in the Middle East,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat.
According to supporters of the legislation, the United States provided $2.5 million to Riyadh in 2005 and 2006.
I applaud this legislation. They could have gone even further and done something about the appalling agreement between President Bush and the Saudi kingdom to open America’s classrooms to Saudi students–including Saudis studying aviation.
Not kidding.
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- House Votes to Ban Aid to Saudi Arabia : The American Pundit
- LGF Has The Right Take « Tai-Chi Policy
- Tel-Chai Nation
- Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian House bans aid to Saudi Arabia «
- Maverick News Media MNM
- NoisyRoom.net » Blog Archive » Noisy News Around the Web - 6/23/07…
- Amazing but true: House bans aid to Saudi Arabia « Foehammer’s Anvil
- Five Years Later: Americans Trapped in Saudi Arabia | Rhetorical Outbursts
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Wayyyyyyyyyyyyy overdue.
If they keep talking reasonably about immigration (of course compared to the Senate any bill sounds resonable), and voting to cut off aid to “our friends” I may have to consider voting D.
(It’s been a long time since I’ve thought like that – Republicans had better get their act together.)
Way overdue, but I wonder if the Saudis will cut oil production in retaliation, and if they do, where do we go from there?
The Alvengelicals aren’t gonna let us pump our own, plus it’ll take time to open fields.
Gas prices could skyrocket during peak season, and I wonder if people will accept the reason for it, given how sour people have been made to aggressive measures against terror states by the media, and how irrationally angry people get about gas prices.
don’t celebrate yet, the stupid thing has to get past the Amnesty crowd in the senate. Good luck
About time! This should have kicked in on 9/12/01. We seem to be in some kind of denial about the Saudis.
They are nothing but a dictatorial cult obsessed with Death and recreating the “Caliphate” by ANY means necessary.
We should do anything and everything we can to create distance from them INCLUDING DRILLING FOR OIL OFF FLORIDA AND IN ANWAR!
I dont remember any Canadian retirees or any wayward carabou flying planes into our buildings lately!
Any smack at the Kingdom is worth applauding. It will not survive the Seante or the President though.
I also agree with Bad Candy that the Goreites will not allow us to open our own oil production.
We could end all oil purchases from Saudi by opening less than 20% of our own available known untapped oil
It’s great that this type of legislation has made it through the House, but making it through the Senate and through Bush is another story. I’ll be very disappointed if this ends up being vetoed; the ceasing of American aid won’t damage the Saudis all that much, but it’s a message that needs to be sent, and Eurabia and the UN sure aren’t going to send it.
I think it silly that we give any financial aid to Saudi Arabia or any oil producing country, they are beyond able to care for themselves. This attempt at buying friends is bad policy I taught my children from their earliest years that you cannot buy friends you have to earn them and they must earn your friendship as well.
Shout outs to my Congressman Weiner. And where is the Prez?
2.5 mil a year? Would change my life but I dont think the saudis will miss it
Jaded
I could not agree with you more. I hope Bush doesn’t veto it. This should have been done about 20 years ago
How much do we give to Israel in foreign aid? And why?
Losing that 2.5 million will really sting. I hear one of the various Saudi Princes was going to have his entire Bugatti silver-plated by hand, and now he might actually have to pay for it out of pocket.
Was this money intended as reimbursement for use of Saudi airbases or other military facilities? Beyond that, I can’t fathom the purpose. Sending them $2.5 million a year seems about as significant as sending me an annual 5 bucks (not that congress would ever allow money to flow in that particular direction).
I will never understand why we continue to support these people. The Saudi’s sure don’t need the money. None of the gulf states do.
Even though the Saudi’s “seem” (emphasis mine) to be cracking down on terrorism in their own backyard, they turn the other way about the Wahabbist mullahs who seek to destroy everything that is good and which they find doesn’t support their dogma. This goes for Pakistan too.
I’m sure in a couple of years our base there will finally be closed. It wasn’t as if they helped prevent the attacks on the Khobar towers so what do we really owe these people?
Saudi Arabia will always be part of the problem until they take a stand and stop giving money (private and public) to these terrorist thugs. Knowingly doing it is the same as laundering the money or turning a blind eye to the practice.
Liberals (or progressives or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) need to get a clue. Alternative fuels/energy is still a long way off and if we want to wrench our country off of foreign oil, it’s time to drill…the caribbou will be fine and so will our country. Hell, the caribbou will get more attention than they’ve ever received…
Saudis should be paying us. We have saved them one to many times while they try to destroy America with their loony death cult.
I agree with Teljax. I don’t think we should be paying them anything either, but 2.5 million seems like it could be made up by pumping more oil.
I wish we would stop a lot of the foreign aid money we give to countries. Why do we give money to Egypt, Jordan, or Israel for that matter? They are modern societies that don’t need our assistance.
We also need to stop funding the UN and make them find a new headquarters as my former and fantastic Senator Jesse Helms first pointed out years ago.
CONGRATS to the U.S. House of Representatives on the Saudi Arabian legislation. Similar action should be taken against two entities: the government of Pakistan and the United Nations. The ISI (Pakistani intelligence service) is allowed to operate with impunity with its aiding of both Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives. Furthermore, the United Nations has become a safe haven for several anti-American blocs, specifically: the Non-Aligned Movement, the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Organization of Islamic Countries, and of course, the mutually expedient (when undermining the U.S.)partnership of Russia and China in the Security Council. All of the aforementined parties are free to conduct themselves as they feel is beneficial to their interests; however, just like in the case of Saudi Arabia, U.S TAX-PAYERS SHOULD NOT BE THE ONE’S SUBSIDIZING THEIR EFFORTS.
Meanwhile we’re giving confirmed terrorist Abbas and his PA $86 million in aid, supposedly to enable them to fight their terrorist bretheren over in Hamasistan.
If the politicians of Washington D.C. really care about America and want to punish terror-sponsored states like Saudi Arabia, they would have stopped caving to the special interest groups and would have allowed the oil companies to drill wherever oil is found in America, and by easing restrictions -through legislation- on building new refineries.
How can America stop depending on foreign oil when no new refineries have been built in the U.S. in the past 25 years?
How can America stop depending on foreign oil when it refuses to dig for its own oil?
Until these two questions are answered, expect the Saudis and the other sheikhs to spend our money on the terrorists who will attack us again.
You got no one to blame America but yourself.
We were sending $2.5 million a year in aid to Saudi Arabia?
$86 million in aid to the PA?
I read the words and I am astounded.
Each day, I receive a breifing of Federal and State bid requests … plans to spend our taxpater money. And each day I am amazed at what the governments think are valid uses for my dollars.
The acts of appropriating and spending other peoples’ money must have an intoxicating effect on its practitioners.
Talk about pouring money down a giant hole in Saudi Arabia already filled with a giant pile of money.
I think we should cut aid to all nations period…..
This question may have already been asked but, what the heck are we doing giving money to Saudi Arabia. They already have so much the use it for toilet paper. At least the “leaders” do. The average abdul on the street would never see any of our aid.
Yep, a symbolic tuppence a barrel that was surely going right into someone’s already full robe. This’ll hurt ‘em.
How many more countries out there support terrorist and recieve U.S. Aid? Drop them all from the freebe rolls. We need to clean up our own back yard before we can save the world.
$2.5M in aid? I hate to see anything going to them, but $2.5M is probably for when we had to pick up the tab for lunch. This is a drop of water in the ocean.
More symbolism and politics without any real action from Congress. And it’s all Bush’s fault.
We are so entangled. Were we not warned
about this by a guy named Jefferson long ago.
The one thing Rudy did that placed him in my list of “BIG PEOPLE” was when he refused the 10 mill from the saudi prince.
Though I still do not support him for POTUS.
Note:
The small case letters in “saudi prince” are not a typo.
test
Along with some others here, I have to ask: since when does Saudi Arabia need foreign aid from us??
This is the real issue right here. I couldn’t believe that congress was going to finally do this (not that is hasn’t been needed for years) but as usual they have added the poison pill. So that when Bush vetos it because of that pill then they can all claim it him supporting terrorism. Standard tactic.
Pathetic. But it’s a start…
I’ve only got one thing to say:
Get the U.S. out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the U.S.
We should have done this when they were thwarting our efforts to investigate the Khobar Tower bombings.
In budgetary terms, this amounts to a spit in the ocean. Far more meaningful would be a ban on importing religious material from the Magic Kingdom that contains hate messages and the Saudi funding of Wahhabi missionary activity here.
Being of average intelligence(i hope)…can anyone tell me why the world supposedly hates the greatest country in the history of mankind? America the largest giver of aid to the world and no one (governments) likes us. A few examples:
The U.N: largest financial supporter but it seems we stand alone…U.N. can’t make peace between 2 love birds.
Foreign aid to countries that out right talk and act against us…example the middle east(most countries there and we support hamas and fatah…huh?).
We saved Europe 3 times in the last century and how do they treat us? Like shi! We’ve saved Russia’s bacon with tons of wheat when they were starving and what did, do we get in return, more threats? I forgot our born again pres. saw into Putin’s soul and saw what exactly?
My last and newest complaint, why in the he!! did and do we support China, economically …seems like most everything one buys anymore is made in China. Now, besides contributing to building their country as we have, our jobs out sourced they are building a huge military industry at our expense…what’s with that…hmmm…maybe the very liberal State Dept.(Condi Rice.). China’s military and Taiwan hmmmm…
I have figured it out why Bush didn’t remove all the lib’s in his administration as any dem would have…like bubba…Bush is a lib. The old RINO thingy.
Just a few question a simple guy has.
$2.5 million? Right. I’m sure that’s all the aid we give to Saudi Arabia…
(rolls eyes)
We need to cut off aid and any direct or indirect (Iran for example) trade with countries that hate us. We should immediately squash all trade with Venezuela. If China is arming our enemies we should kill trade with them as well. We should make it a point to only trade with Democracies and should only be involved in UN type programs with Democracies. Funding those that hate us, makes no sense at all.
When the US dollars quit supplying the hateful nations, then we will finally see a turn around in there behavior. We are the worlds cash cow, we need to start acting like it.
I understand how satisfying this is to a lot of people but I would urge a little caution.
Saudi Arabia is in almost as much danger from Iran as Israel. The holy sites of Islam are on Supreme Leader Khamenei’s target list and this makes the royal family mighty uncomfortable.
The paltry amount of aid that is at stake here is not the point. There may come a time in the near future where the Saudis will feel threatened by the Iranians and want substantially more aid – mostly military I would think. So it comes down to a question of picking your poison; the Saudis or the mullahs?
You can’t sit on the sidelines if those two are going to go at it. And since we’ll never support the Iranians, we better be prepared to back Abdullah.
We have to stop pretending that the Saudis are our friends. They are profoundly evil, and we should not pretend otherwise. The proof of their evil is there in a myriad of ways, particularly in their sharia laws. Their treatment of women, apostates, and their cruel and barbaric punishments for minor transgressions of Islamic religious laws are an hideous abomination and an affront to anyone with a shred of decency.
Their funding of evil madrases and CAIR and indirect bribes to congressmen in the United States is also an attack upon our sovereignty.
Go ahead make my day.
I can hardly wait.
I just hope the grocery stores don’t run out of beer and popcorn.
It’s about time. this should have been done on 9-12-01.
Jim C
How about not supporting either of them? Both countries are nothing but trouble as far as I’m concerned.
Jim C
The 2.5 million was probably necessary for purchasing all the black marking pens they require to obliterate the name of the tiny little state of Israel on their maps. In this fashion we promote amity and understanding amongst our many friends in the Middle East.
Actually, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this wasn’t literally a token payment simply to ease the humiliating burden of watching their tiny Jewish neighbor receiving US funds. Two-point-five may not affect their financial position, but it may well be a psychic balm of sorts.
Still, it is outrageous.
It’s beyond absurd to give any foreign aid to our Saudi enemies. They hardly need a couple million bucks from the Great Satan when Saudi princes casually lose that much in a night of gambling in Monaco. It’s even more absurd when you realize that much of that money goes directly into the pocket of corrupt Saudi royalty in bribes. It was the Saudi princes, among other in the UAE, who provided the $500,000 that funded the Sep 11 attack. It is insane to buy the boxcutters for these murdering Wahhabi scum to cut our throats.
The Saudis will push us as far as we let them. We discovered their oil, pumped it out, transported it, and let them have the profits. When the millions began rolling in, the Saudi king asked for a “loan” from President Kennedy for even more money. We built their country, built their roads, electrified the countryside, built skyscrapers for them to live in instead of goatskin tents and mud-brick palaces. We carefully respected their repugnant culture and religion.
In return, the Saudis institutionalized hatred for America in their mosques, schools, and media. They exported their hatred to the four corners of the world, pouring billions of petrodollars into the Wahhabi missionary effort that laid the foundation for the current bloody campaign of Islamic terror. For Pete’s sake, even the brochures to Muslim tourists handed out by the Saudi embassy in Washington remind Muslims that they must hate America.
As long as the Saudi oil wells supply petrodollars to the Wahhabi death cult they will continue to wage jihad against the civilized world and America will never be safe. That link is the Saudi princes, who fund the Wahhabis and must be extirpated. Every bloody outrage from New York to Bali is linked back to the evil Wahhabi death lovers. Saudi Arabia must be destroyed to remove its cancerous influence on the world.
Not one American life should be spent to defend Saudi Arabia. We should withdraw our forces from Saudi Arabia and leave it to the predators of the Gulf. It would be splendid if Iran invaded Saudi Arabia and set its cities on fire, just like the Saudis set fire to the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Let the Shia Persians rampage across Sunni Arabia, suicide bomber against suicide bomber. Let them hunt downt the Wahhabi clergy and exterminate them. I’ll sit home and watch their cities burn on Fox News.
And when the Saudis have been beaten to a pulp and the Iranians are exhausted by their victory, America should invade the eastern oil fields, push the Iranians out, and create a Wahhabi-free state. Maybe the Hashemites of Jordan would like to run it.
How about ending support to Egypt, Saudi, Hamas, and Kosovo? If we are going to take a stand, we need to define the stand and apply it across the board.
Tantor:
Pretty hateful rant. Exaggerated, historically twisted (and false), and ridiculous on its face (“And when the Saudis have been beaten to a pulp and the Iranians are exhausted by their victory…)???
The thought of the Iranians getting hold of Saudi oil reserves should chill the marrow of your bones. The reason it doesn’t is because you are consumed with hatred.
Try a little rational thought – you’ll feel much better.
When Christians can walk this hellhole without harassment……(Bush is another weak President, Carter and Clinton. Maybe the alphabet?)
Rick Moran: “The thought of the Iranians getting hold of Saudi oil reserves should chill the marrow of your bones.”
The reality of Saudis holding Saudi oil reserves has already chilled my bones. If you don’t hate the Saudis, then you don’t know enough about them. They are an evil people who profess an evil religion and perpetrate evil terror around the world. Only the the amoral can be indifferent to their evil. Saudi Arabia must be destroyed.
This is long overdue.
The Saudi’s are NOT our friends. They only want us around when they feel threatened by a stronger neighbor (read: Iraq under Sadam or Iran now). They think that they can export terrorism by supporting Hamas and Al Queda with there dollars while at the same time supposedly “condemning” terrorism. Actions speak louder than words.
The US already did that when they closed Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) and moved all our forces out of Saudi Arabia in August 2003. Other than a few military stationed at the American Embassy there is no US military presence in Saudi.
Recall the Freedom House report from last year, Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance? It might be a good time to contact our congressmen and remind them of it.
While this is welcome news, its also symbolic only.
2.5 Mil isn’t even enough aid to pay the student loans for the Saudi students coming here. I doubt that the Saudi royals will even notice.