More than a year after Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered at the Saudi Arabia consulate in Turkey, the Kingdom has sentenced five people to die for the crime.

Note that the well-connected former royal court advisor Saud Al Qahtani and former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Al Assiri are not among those charged and have been released. This tells me that the sentencing for Khashoggi’s gruesome death was nothing more than a circus meant to show the world just how “just” and “honorable” the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is.

In fact, Saudi Arabia is neither.

Saudi Arabia is not our friend.

Saudi Arabia is a shit ally that takes advantage of our friendship and generosity.

Saudi Arabia sends its terrorists to the United States, including the recent Saudi military scumbag who shot up the Pensacola Naval Air Station earlier this month and the majority of the al-Qa`ida scum who conducted the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands.

Saudi Arabia has sent more terrorists to the United States to launch attacks than any other nation.

The country of origin for the largest number of foreign-born terrorists is Saudi Arabia, which accounts for 18 out of the 192 foreign-born terrorists from 1975 through 2017… Saudis were also the deadliest; they murdered 2,351.8 people and injured 11,717.4, entirely because 15 out of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Each terrorist from Saudi Arabia has murdered about 131 people in attacks on U.S. soil.

And no amount of money the Kingdom offers us, or how “devastated” the king is by the incident, will change the fact that Saudi Arabia is a vicious, backwards country that is not and should not be a friend of ours.

The Khashoggi verdict is nothing but superfluous lip service to the concept of justice, according to Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director.

The trial, which sentenced five people to die for the crime, was closed to the public, the details of the “investigation” were never made available to the public, and international monitors did not have access to the trial. Moreover, Khashoggi’s family still has no insight into the location of his remains.

“Saudi Arabia’s courts routinely deny defendants access to lawyers and condemn people to death following grossly unfair trials. Given the lack of transparency from the Saudi authorities, and in the absence of an independent judiciary, only an international, independent and impartial investigation can serve justice for Jamal Khashoggi.”

The Khashoggi murder – regardless of what you think of the man himself (and there are a lot of opinions on him floating around out there) – is only one indication of the human rights violations in which Saudi Arabia is engaged. They only this year gave women the right to drive, fer petessake! Last year Saudi Arabia also engaged in arbitrary arrests, trials, and convictions of peaceful dissidents and activists.

In other words, Saudi Arabia sucks.

Meanwhile, the United States is providing Saudi Arabia support in its war in Yemen’s civil conflict. We are also sending troops over there to help secure Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.

I realize the Huthis are Iran-supported and funded, and Iran is using them and other proxies in the region to support its regional objectives. I realize Iran launching attacks on the Saudi energy assets is its way of ensuring that prices increase so it gets the most it possibly can from its few remaining customers, given the crippling sanctions that are wreaking havoc with its economy.

But Saudi Arabia doesn’t need our support, and despite this, the President vetoed attempts to end US aid to Saudi Arabia this year.

To be sure, my criticism isn’t only about the Khashoggi verdict, although this particular case is the avatar for much that is wrong with Saudi Arabia vis-a-vis civil rights. My criticism is about America’s support for this crappy ally that takes advantage of our generosity while breeding terrorists who enjoy attacking our country, continuously oppressing women and those who disagree with the regime, and using our aid (which it hardly needs, since it holds about 16 percent of the world’s petroleum reserves and ranks as the largest exporter of petroleum, and whose economy will still grow, albeit nominally, after Iran attacked ARAMCO assets this year) to fight its regional wars. To say nothing of US weapons systems ending up in the wrong hands – hands belonging to al-Qa`ida and Iran – after they were sold to the Saudis.

There is no doubt that Iran is our enemy – one that funds and directs acts of terrorism all over the world, including against US interests. But being an enemy of Iran does not magically transform the fundamentalist Saudi fucks into our friends or allies. They’re nothing more than parasites living off US largess, and it’s high time we cut them loose. And we certainly shouldn’t help them fight their wars!

Suspending military training for Saudi students is a pretty good start, but it’s not nearly enough.

Featured photo: President Donald Trump speaks with Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, on March 14, 2017, in the Oval Office; As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain.