Fist bumping climate denial

President Biden’s fist bump with Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) gave the US media goosebumps because it has been an unofficially acknowledged fact that MBS was directly responsible for the slaughtering of The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Had I been MBS, the fist bump would have given me goosebumps for a different reason though; a ghostly looking white old male emerging from that limousine.

The US Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California said, “If we ever needed a visual reminder of the continuing grip oil-rich autocrats have on US foreign policy in the Middle East, we got it today. One fist bump is worth a thousand words.” Sure, one fist bump is worth a thousand words, but those words are not about the US foreign policy but rather a crass denial of climate change by President Biden. Climate denialists deny climate change with their words and President Biden denies it with his actions — I am sure you know what they say about words and actions.

The US media has criticised President Biden for his double standards as he called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state and claimed that he would make the Saudis “pay the price” for the Khashoggi murder during his campaign trail for the elections. He also said that he would end the sale of “more weapons to them [Saudi Arabia]”. Honestly, it doesn’t come as any surprise that today he is mollycoddling the very man that the US intelligence had concluded to be the murderer of Khashoggi. One, that is what politics always has been. Two, when it comes to hypocrisy in US politics, the Democrats beat the Republicans by a mile. Here are the mindsets of both, in a nutshell, the Republicans say that they are going to kill you and then they kill you. The Democrats smile and say they are not murderers and then turn around and murder you.

For me, the biggest hypocrisy is not about showing friendship with MBS after bashing him publicly during election season. The more important and graver hypocrisy is about Biden promising to tackle climate change and then turning around and trying to buy more fossil fuel. Fist bumping MBS would be justified for the sake of keeping the US economy healthy, but it also means that Biden is going to make a mockery of any serious efforts needed to move away from fossil fuel and toward clean sources of energy. Had Khashoggi’s murder not happened, it would still be wrong for a US president to meet with an oil-rich country for the sake of oil and weapons — both take lives.

Biden’s presence inside the Saudi palace is viewed as a slap in the face of Khashoggi’s family members and the global journalistic community. However, it is a much stronger slap in the face of those scientists, activists, and general citizens who worry about the health of this planet and our survival here.

I mean what else could Biden be doing this for? For the continued sale of weapons about which Biden-the candidate had said that he would “end the sale of material to the Saudis where they’re going in and murdering children,” or for the continued purchase of oil about which Biden had said publicly to a concerned young girl, “Kiddo... I want you to look into my eyes.. I guarantee.. I guarantee we are gonna end fossil fuel.” When asked by CNN’s Dana Bash what his intentions were for fossil fuel, Biden said, “We would make sure it’s eliminated”.

President Obama, Biden’s former boss, had regarded climate change as a national security threat to the US because of fossil fuel’s role in causing wildfires, super floods, droughts, sea level rise, economic losses, mass migration, pandemics, housing crisis, healthcare problems, and so forth. By meeting MBS, President Biden has gone one step or rather several steps ahead toward weakening the security of the US.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 17^th, 2022.

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