- 22 May 2017 17:50
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It seems like this is kind of a big deal. During the election a lot of his supporters imagined that Trump was going to be something different than he was. But this is a pretty firm pushback on everything his supporters imagined that he stood for.
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PBS wrote:WASHINGTON — As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump railed against President Barack Obama for failing to utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” He accused the foundation run by Bill and Hillary Clinton of corruption for accepting charitable contributions from Saudi Arabia and chastised first lady Michelle Obama for not covering her head during a visit to the Kingdom.
Now that he’s president, Trump has changed his tune.
Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, at the start of his first trip abroad as president, has produced a number of statements that run counter to the harsh, anti-Muslim rhetoric from his 2016 campaign. While many presidents adjust their commentary once they depart the campaign trail and travel abroad, Trump’s speech to Gulf Arab leaders featured a much softer tone than his large-scale rallies last year.
Here’s a look at the most glaring contradictions:
“RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM”
THEN: Trump routinely assailed Obama and Democratic campaign rival Hillary Clinton for failing to use the specific phrase, “radical Islamic terrorism.” In an August 2016 speech, for example, Trump said Obama’s 2009 speech to the Muslim World in Egypt lacked “moral courage” and was replete in naiveté. “Anyone who cannot name our enemy is not fit to lead this country. Anyone who cannot condemn the hatred, oppression and violence of radical Islam lacks the moral clarity to serve as our president,” he said. Obama had declined to use the term because he said he didn’t want to connect terrorist groups like the Islamic State to the religion of Islam. Clinton used terms like “radical jihadism” and “radical Islamism.”
NOW: In his speech in front of more than 50 leaders of Arab and Muslim-majority countries, Trump called on Muslim leaders to address “the crisis of Islamic extremists” and referenced “the Islamists and Islamic terror of all kinds.” But he failed to the use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Trump spoke about the devastation that violent extremists have unleashed across the Middle East, but made clear that he believes it’s up to leaders of those countries to act to contain the problem.
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BY KEN THOMAS AND JILL COLVIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS May 21, 2017 at 2:45 PM EDT
Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman attend the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh
U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (R) attend the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 21, 2017. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
WASHINGTON — As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump railed against President Barack Obama for failing to utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” He accused the foundation run by Bill and Hillary Clinton of corruption for accepting charitable contributions from Saudi Arabia and chastised first lady Michelle Obama for not covering her head during a visit to the Kingdom.
Now that he’s president, Trump has changed his tune.
Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, at the start of his first trip abroad as president, has produced a number of statements that run counter to the harsh, anti-Muslim rhetoric from his 2016 campaign. While many presidents adjust their commentary once they depart the campaign trail and travel abroad, Trump’s speech to Gulf Arab leaders featured a much softer tone than his large-scale rallies last year.
Here’s a look at the most glaring contradictions:
“RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM”
THEN: Trump routinely assailed Obama and Democratic campaign rival Hillary Clinton for failing to use the specific phrase, “radical Islamic terrorism.” In an August 2016 speech, for example, Trump said Obama’s 2009 speech to the Muslim World in Egypt lacked “moral courage” and was replete in naiveté. “Anyone who cannot name our enemy is not fit to lead this country. Anyone who cannot condemn the hatred, oppression and violence of radical Islam lacks the moral clarity to serve as our president,” he said. Obama had declined to use the term because he said he didn’t want to connect terrorist groups like the Islamic State to the religion of Islam. Clinton used terms like “radical jihadism” and “radical Islamism.”
NOW: In his speech in front of more than 50 leaders of Arab and Muslim-majority countries, Trump called on Muslim leaders to address “the crisis of Islamic extremists” and referenced “the Islamists and Islamic terror of all kinds.” But he failed to the use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” Trump spoke about the devastation that violent extremists have unleashed across the Middle East, but made clear that he believes it’s up to leaders of those countries to act to contain the problem.
ISLAM
THEN: Trump declared in a March 2016 interview with CNN that, “I think Islam hates us” adding that, “there’s a tremendous hatred there.” It was just one of a series of inflammatory statements about one of the world’s major religions that included a call to surveille mosques and ban all foreign Muslims from entering the U.S. “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” In an interview with Fox Business Network last March following a series of attacks in Brussels, Trump said, “we’re having problems with the Muslims,” adding, “You need surveillance, you have to deal with the mosques whether we like it or not.”
NOW: Trump struck a far less caustic tone in Sunday’s speech, noting that he chose to make his first foreign visit to the heart of the Muslim world and wished to “deliver a message of friendship and hope and love.” He estimated that more than 95 percent of the victims of terrorism are themselves Muslim. And he described the fight against terrorism as “not a battle between different faiths” or “different civilizations” but a “battle against good and evil.” Trump said young Muslim children “should be able to grow up free from fear, safe from violence, and innocent of hatred.”
CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS
THEN: During his 2016 campaign, Trump frequently ripped into Hillary Clinton’s ties to the Clinton Foundation, which received millions in donations from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and several other Mideast nations. In a June 2016 posting on Facebook, Trump said, “Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money from such countries!” During an October debate in Las Vegas, Trump called the Clinton Foundation “a criminal enterprise.” ”Saudi Arabia giving $25 million, Qatar, all of these countries. You talk about women and women’s rights? So these are people that push gays off business — off buildings. These are people that kill women and treat women horribly. And yet you take their money.”
NOW: The World Bank announced Sunday at an event with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and White House adviser, that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had pledged a combined $100 million for the bank’s proposed Women Entrepreneurs Fund, which was first proposed by Ivanka Trump. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said the pledges, along with ones by the U.S. and other countries, would allow the World Bank to announce the creation of a $1 billion fund for women’s economic empowerment at the G20 summit in July. In his speech, Trump called Saudi Arabia’s vision for 2030 “an important and encouraging statement of tolerance, respect, empowering women, and economic development.”
SAUDI ARABIA
THEN: Trump had plenty of harsh words for Saudi Arabia before his election. He accused the kingdom of curtailing the rights of women and gays and lesbians and suggested the country was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “Who blew up the World Trade Center?” he asked during one Fox News appearance. “It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi — take at look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents,” he demanded.
NOW: In an ornate hall, Trump heaped praised on the Saudis, describing the country as a “magnificent kingdom.” ”I am honored to be received by such gracious hosts,” he said at the start of his address. “I have always heard about the splendor of your country and the kindness of your citizens, but words do not do justice to the grandeur of this remarkable place.”
HEADSCARF
THEN: Trump lashed out at Michelle Obama on Twitter in 2015 when she opted not to wear a headscarf on her visit to Saudi Arabia. “Many people are saying it was wonderful that Mrs. Obama refused to wear a scarf in Saudi Arabia, but they were insulted. We have enuf enemies,” Trump tweeted at the time, including a short-hand spelling for “enough.” Under the kingdom’s strict dress code for women, Saudi women and most female visitors are required to cover their heads and wear a loose, black robe known as an abaya, in public. But the decision was consistent with the customs for female foreign dignitaries visiting Saudi Arabia.
NOW:
First lady Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump declined to wear a headscarft, showing off their locks. During their visit to Saudi Arabia, they followed in the footsteps not only of Michelle Obama but also female leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May.
More detail:
PBS wrote:RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — As President Donald Trump opened his keynote address in Saudi Arabia, he lavished praise on the “magnificent” kingdom and “the grandeur of this remarkable place.”
Then he made clear there would be no public lecture from America on Saudi Arabia’s abysmal human rights record.
“We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship,” Trump declared Sunday.
Trump’s willingness to set aside human rights as a principal foreign policy has been one constant in his chaotic administration. Yet the absence of any public reference to the the kingdom’s treatment of women and political opponents during his two-day visit was still jarring, particularly when contrasted with his affectionate embrace of the royal family.
he closest Trump came to acknowledging the human rights situation was a call for the region’s leaders to stand together against “the oppression of women.” A White House official later said the president did raise women’s rights in his private meetings with Saudi officials, and noted that administration officials broached the topic in their talks in the lead-up to the trip. The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the private meetings.
To be sure, Trump’s predecessors have also forged close ties with Saudi Arabia, an important U.S. partner in the Middle East, and other nations with questionable human rights records. But in their own ways, former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush each vouched for American values in their dealings with those nations, including the kingdom.
During a 2014 trip to Riyadh, Obama met with a Saudi woman who spread awareness of domestic violence in her country and presented her with the State Department’s International Women of Courage award. His opening address to the Muslim world in 2009 also made numerous references to democracy and human rights.
Human rights were a regular part of the dialogue with the Saudis under the Bush administration. In 2004, the State Department listed the kingdom as “a country of particular concern” in its annual report on International Religious Freedom.
Saudi Arabia adheres to an ultraconservative interpretation of Islamic Shariah law where unrelated men and women are segregated in most public places. Women are banned from driving, although rights advocates have campaigned to lift that ban. Guardianship laws also require a male relative’s consent before a woman can obtain a passport, travel or marry. Often that relative is a father or husband, but in the absence of both can be the woman’s own son.
Saudi Arabia also routinely carries out executions by beheading, including some in public.
Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, was more direct during an entrepreneurship roundtable with Saudi women Sunday morning, telling the participants that in every country, “women and girls continue to face unique systematic, institutional, cultural barriers, which hinder us from fully engaging in and achieving true parody of opportunity within our communities.”
“Each of you know this to be true,” she said.
Kristine Beckerle, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said the first daughter was missing the bigger picture.
“It’s not that entrepreneurship isn’t important, but you need serious political changes so that that the laws that restrict women from functioning in the work place are reversed,” Beckerle said. “Without that, any amount of money or investment won’t go very far.”
Some lawmakers in both parties raised concerns with Trump’s reluctance to publicly vouch for U.S. values in places where people are persecuted.
“I think that would be a terrible abdication of our global leadership when it comes to advocating for people who are the subject of persecution, or imprisoned, or journalists that are thrown in jail, or people not allowed to practice their faith,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on CNN. “I think it would be a historic mistake for us to walk away from that.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination last year, said he wouldn’t have promised to avoid the topic of human rights with the Saudis.
“That would not have been a part of a speech that I would have delivered,” Rubio said in his own appearance on CNN. “I think it’s in our national security interest to advocate for democracy and freedom and human rights, now, with a recognition that you may not get it overnight.”
Human rights didn’t go completely unnoticed on Trump’s trip. During a press briefing Saturday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hammered Iran’s newly re-elected president for his government’s oppressive policies.
However, when reporters shouted out questions regarding Saudi Arabia’s human rights record — namely, one question about when the kingdom intends to allow women to drive — Tillerson ignored it.
It seems like this is kind of a big deal. During the election a lot of his supporters imagined that Trump was going to be something different than he was. But this is a pretty firm pushback on everything his supporters imagined that he stood for.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!
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