I find this obsession with 1 or 4 people obscene while millions are ignored. We invaded Libya and left behind a failed state where millions live amid violent gangs, but we spent more ink about 4 Americans in Benghazi than the millions who were affected by our policies. It's almost like we don't care.
Why do people write far more about Khashoggi, rather than the millions in Yemen?
That should be more than enough reason to not deal with Saudi government. We have sanctioned Russia and its government so much, but not a single one on Saudis. We have called Putin a dictator who falsifies elections and kills people. And yet MBS is not even elected. We don't say "unelected dictator" who "oppresses his own people" or "bombs his enemies".
The situation in Saudi-Yemen is similar in many respects to Russia-Ukraine. In response to a foreign government (USA in Ukraine, Iran in Yemen) encouraging a revolution that overthrew friendlier rulers in the country, they carried on a war with them for years, with no end in sight.
The difference is Saudi Arabia has blockaded Yemen for years, leading to the world's largest preventable humanitarian crisis. Russia did nothing of the sort with Ukraine, they didn't blockade it, in fact they let NATO weapons keep pouring over the border from Poland.
This year, the UN warned of an "outright catastrophe" in Yemen, as millions are facing hunger. Ukraine has lots arable land while Yemen did not.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113852
But far from sanctioning them, or even spending 1% of the outrage that it does on Russia, the USA instead sends them the very weapons they use to bomb civilians!
This year, investigators showed that the USA supported the majority of airstrikes on Yemenite civilians!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...
To quote:
While Russia’s bombings of a maternity hospital and other civilian targets in Ukraine have drawn widespread public indignation as war crimes, thousands of similar strikes have taken place against Yemeni civilians. The indiscriminate bombings have become a hallmark of the Yemen war, drawing international scrutiny of the countries participating in the air campaign, and those arming them, including the United States. U.S. support for the Saudi war effort, which has been criticized by human rights groups and some in Congress, began during the Obama administration and has continued in fits and starts for seven years.