There are so many ironies in Key visiting Saudi Arabia.
1.
The first is that it was of course the Saudi’s who funnelled cash to ISIS as a radical response to the Iraqi backed death squads who were creating massacres amongst the Sunni population. If Key was serious about stopping ISIS he would be openly questioning why Saudi’s funded them.
2.
The second irony of Key visiting Saudi Arabia is that after decrying the public beheadings of ISIS, of course the Saudi’s are the biggest beheaders in the world. If Key’s justification for going to war with ISIS is because they commit terrible acts of violence against people, when is Key announcing our invasion of Saudi Arabia?
3.
The third irony of course is that after his sexual harassment of a waitress over many months, Key is visiting a country that barely treats women as human beings. Key should fit right at home.
4.
The fourth irony is despite Key being the leader of the first country that awarded women the vote, his wife is having to dress according to the sexist code of the Saudi’s.
5.
The final irony of Key visiting Saudi Arabia is that he is there trying to get a free trade deal!!! Why would we trade with a country that funds the enemy we are going to war with? That deprives women of basic human rights and actually beheads people for crimes?
This entire farce is sickening to the values that make us NZers.
Saudi Arabia is a client state of the US.
John Key is servant of the US making NZ a client state of the US.
There is no irony.
(There may be some discrepancy between Key’s utterings and his actions but there is no irony.)
don’t kill Martyn’s hyperbole bubble. it’s more fun to read lol
I think he is committing treason. On the one hand, he is sending OUR troops to face death at the hands of an extremist group of terrorists, while on the other he is trying to make financial deals with the country that, not only beheads it’s own citizens, but actually finances this group! While screaming ‘get some guts’ to the opposition, lamenting the gross human rights atrocities that they carry out – he is now saying that the beheadings that the Saudi’s carry out, are nothing more than human rights ‘discrepancies’ and it’s OK anyway, because they are only doing it their own citizens! Sounds very much to me like he is behaving like his american masters.
How do the anti-terror funding laws go again? Coz trading with an organisation that funds terror seems only a step away from funding them ourselves…
The U.S. are the biggest funders of terrorism in the world.
They do not bother with beheadings, they just devastate and murder with their drones and sell arms to the terrorists.
John Key is in Saudi Arabia for likely trade matters and shuts his eyes and heart to the ugly truths about the Saudis and their cozy relationship with the US. The biggest terrorists in the world are the U.S. ; the Saudi’s and Israel.
Does anyone think of the words —
======>>>>> HYPOCRITE AND OPPORTUNIST ?
Does anyone think of the words spineless unethical backbone ?
What a joke of a PM we have and how embarrassing his sham of an apology to that waitress is. Glad to hear he has been reported and that the law may get involved and hope he gets justice and is not protected by the pro-Key team of DENIERS and ENABLERS.
His case will probably come up in 2016 just like the prominent NZs,!!!
I have completely run out of swear words for this guy.
He might go through some withdrawal symptoms – no pony tails on display there – sorry just horsing around.
I don’t think he would keep his head on his shoulder if he went around pulling pony tails in Saudi Arabia…
But that’s ok…he s cozying up to them anyhow so he’d have to agree with the punishment metered out…..at the end of the day I’m sure he’d be ‘ comfortable ‘ with that….
Well they have come out and said he would be prosecuted
A bit of comedy from John Oliver about Jonkeys hair fetish.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/68080709/pm-john-key-lampooned-on-us-comedy-show
GO Martyn!!
Totally agree – but I’m not sure if 3 actually fits under the definition of irony except maybe the Alanis Morissette kind.
To be ironical he would have to be someone who spoke out “against” harassment and then go to Saudi Arabia. As you point out, he should actually fit in there quite comfortably.
The thing about John Key is that he takes for granted to the point of abuse everything that New Zealanders have had to fight hard to achieve over more than 100 years from the welfare his mum received to the fact that his wife gets to vote. He will sell any ideal, as well as asset, that isn’t tied down with a chain that no tool on this planet can break.
Funny how beheading done by Saudi Arabia is no reason to forego a Free trade deal but beheading by Islamc State merits a military response from us. It seems that some beheadings are better than others?
Why do I get the feeling that Key would’ve wanted a FTA with Nazi Germany had he been around in the 1930s?
Because like Saudi Arabia now, it had close ties to US big business?
Key said it this morning with words similar to “there are a lot of very wealthy people living there………. and we want a free trade deal”.
Given we don’t live in the dark ages it’s very easy to Google this place and see how barbaric and horrific Saudi Arabia’s ‘justice system” is and just in case the National Party caucus missed it heres some of the daily routine of Saudi justice;
Stoning to death, a regular for Adultery where there must be credible male witnesses and where the condemned man or most likely woman is will be buried up to their chest or knees in a ditch. Next, a group of people will repeatedly throw stones at the buried person until they are confirmed deceased.
Beheadings is an absolute favourite, mostly in public and using a sword just for slow motion effect, for a range of offences including homosexuality, abandoning your religion, converting to Christianity, worshipping an object and on and on it goes. And even then the butchered persons head is eventually sewn back on and sometimes they are then affixed to a crucifix or even in one recent case dangled from a helicopter, all for public display.
And of course women are not even vaguely equal at the nice end of the scale or simply sub human at the other. So this represents what New Zealand is, not only wanting to do deals with but by our very presence condone. Its makes the Apartheid system seem inclusive, caring and warm and yet we did no deals there! But back then no one had heard of John Key.
He really can’t see it but Key is only ever ever motivated by money! Who gives a fuck how you get it, just get more of it. Who cares who you do the deal with, who cares full stop, just as long as the money changes hands as agreed, on time and someone gets riich, namely me.
Is he going to look at doing arms deals in Somalia next with some of the local war lords, I mean that seems quite acceptable! Maybe some illicit drug deals, I mean if there is a demand and there’s a supply, what can possibly go wrong?
This crass loathsome individual and his equally rotten government is now scraping the bottom of a very rotten barrel with our country. And who would ever trust this guy or his government with any “free trade deal” because God knows what we will have signed up for as it certainly won’t be what Key says it is!
From now on ANYTHING goes with National, absolutely anything!
You are wrong.
Seems like the person who wrote this doesn’t understand the conflict.
Saudi HATE ISIS.
Apparently it isn’t “official” Saudi Government policy, but from rather rich Saudis (naturally the Saudi Govt turns a blind eye). Many of the ISIS fighters are also reportedly Saudi.
http://www.dw.de/who-finances-isis/a-17720149
It’s actually a bit more complicated than that. The Saudi government is trying to modernise and moderate – but there is a strong conservative block that they cannot ignore. Initially they did support Daesh – against Assad – and Assad, like Key, is a poster child for brutality and incompetence who richly deserves to be overthrown. Saudi no longer supports ISIS.
He he he. X-ray, your comment about the arms deal with Somalia made me laugh. 100% agree with your comments.
So… Whoever wrote this article doesn’t know what they are talking about. Saudi didn’t knowingly fund ISIS, they thought they were funding the Free Syrian Army, who are the good guys. Lots of people funded the Free Syrian Army, including USA. ISIS put out their hand claiming to be these people. So, yes, they got Saudi money, but that was a mistake.
Saudi are now bending over backwards to stop ISIS getting a foothold in Yemen, hence the war there. They have the most to lose, cause Saudi is where ISIS is headed. It’s the holy land of Islam and Mecca after all, that’s where ISIS want to be.
So Saudi royals hate ISIS, and ISIS want to kill Saudi royals and take over the country.
Ironically, it is Saudi who has created the ISIS monster. They are the country where the ideals come from. It’s pretty mixed up.
How much do you get paid to spout this stuff ALICE is Gossman and Nehemia on leave,you sound so like them.
Jeez Alice. You clearly understand the Daesh situation better than the Saudi’s themselves do! ” Saudi didn’t knowingly fund ISIS, they thought they were funding the Free Syrian Army, who are the good guys.”
Quick, apply for a job there as the Saudi foreign minister . . . they’ll be falling all over themselves to offer you the position.
Speaking of which, Aljazeera didn’t mention once the visit of FJK to the Arabian Peninsula as far as i could see on a brief perousal of their full one-hour bulletins this week.
Some cows being kept inside in Africa to deter cattle-rustlers, and some ants crawling up the wall in South America did get a mention though . . .
One is left with the impression that the entire tour, (whatever its price tag for NZ has been) came across as a bit of a nuisance for the Saudi’s and a total waste of time and money for the NZ taxpayer.
FFS – where do you get your information from? The present war in Yemen has NOTHING to do with ISIS!
The Houthis are Shiite Muslims and are fighting for a different cause. The Saudis are concerned about the Houthis in Yemen to get more control, as the Houthis are supported by Iran.
So this is more about the old rivalries between Iran and Saudi Arabia that comes to play in that war.
With your ignorant comment in that regard you have discredited yourself.
Do a bit of study, even if it may just be via Wikipedia, I suggest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthis
There is of course an older conflict in Yemen, where Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula play a role, but they are NOT ISIS.
Y’know…it wasn’t that long ago that we DID have satire like this in our country….do you remember the humor abounding pre neo liberalism?….
Remember …?….and immediately McPhail and Gadsby springs to mind….Billy T James..
Back in the days when Minhinnick did the cartoons for the Herald…
I posted recently that 35 years ago the media would have torn this joke impostor PM in shreds..well ,- there’s a reason they don’t now and that’s directly attributable to this neo liberalist ideology.
Sorry but we should never go near the Middle East.
Ask any remaining Veteran of the last was who served there while chasing Rommel around the dessert, they will tell you not to trust them as they era the masters of deception.
So we are going to suffer big time wit this stupid Key plan to drag us all into yet another conflict there.
IRONIES aside, they (the Saudis) have MONEY, and that is ALL that counts for Key and his business entourage!
“Morals”, what is that? “Morsels” is more fitting, that is what they will hand out to the average New Zealand worker, and the pittance for those suffering on meagre benefit “support”.
He gets his wife to dress in a head to toe covering Muslim gown, to charm the King of Saudi Arabia and his princes, but cannot bother visiting the Muslim community in his own country, while he does his bit to stigmatise Muslims in general, by constantly going on about the threat of ISIS.
If only Key would care putting the same effort into consulting with Muslims and other minorities in New Zealand, we may have better relations at home.
But that may also be counter productive, may it not, to the neoliberal, divisive agenda, of “divide and rule”, so hence the focus is elsewhere, it is TRADE and talks with the elite in Riad now.
Wait, give it some more time, and Saudi Arabia will be the next domino to fall. The US have done a “good” job so far with their support and interventions there in the region, have they not?
Reading this blog, it sounds like Key will have to arrest himself.
Methinks Key went to Saudi Arabia to avoid the fallout from ponytail pulling.
Key is always missing when problems arise,he just dosnt want to face the derision in parliament. Key is a cowardly bully.
John Key in this morning’s DomPost (B2 “Live sheep trade…”) story:
“There were concerns about a Saudi investor and the way he was treated in new Zealand…. It was a guy who invested decades and decades ago and wasn’t sure he’d been properly treated….”
That’s another lie Prime Minister! Not decades and decades ago but in your time as PM!
Listen to no less then self-confessed right-winger Matthew Hooten on National Radio’s Nine to Noon yesterday (Tuesday) at 14′ 15″ in, for the facts – http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/20150428
The ‘improper treatment’ Key refers to was meted out by Key himself and his globe-trotting Speaker (then Minister of Agriculture) David Carter.
Yet another in the PM’s continuing litany of lies. One day NZers may wake up to the Nat Leader’s deceptions….
This is a horror show, doing deals in a country that treats woman like shit. Key’s daughter degrading herself and calling it high art in the Herald (pink pigtails and all). His wife wearing religious clothes to please the men. The revolting live sheep trade these snivelling creeps probably want to resume. This is making ponytail gate look like nothing, if he can do deals with places with laws against woman like this. I feel really really angry, like a sick joke is being played just to remind me as a female my level in our sick society. Woman in this country need to fucken gang up against this shit, or what are your daughters going to be treated like if our society treats woman worse than it already does? Eg, roast busters…. Xray is right we didn’t do deals with Apartheid South Africa, how can this be happening unless Key and his cronies are sending us females a message!? Maybe I am taking this to personally but it feels like a really hard slap in the face.
Kate I don’t think Key is just against women he is against all NZs who
don’t like him, plus he is not interested in NZs full stop ,we are just an inconvenience to his elevation to sainthood in US.
Maybe someone independent could do a poll of his popularity, damn sure it would be entirely different to National back polled which is a manufactured con.Do a poll in Northland,Key lost the seat by 4,440 votes, his popularity has gone down the tubes big time and the ponytail
“fun”didnt help. 700 polled where? Epsom.??
By the way, welcome back TDB,missed you yesterday
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