To the editor:
For as long as I can remember I’ve had a very special relationship with Canada. My grandfather on my mother’s side was raised in Ontario, and when I was a preteen my great uncle took me to see relatives there in the summer of 2001. In that summer I learned a lot and developed a love for Blue Jays baseball that I still have to this day. Shortly after I returned home and began school that year we were attacked. Shortly after that Canadian soldiers followed us into the still ongoing war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Tonight while eating dinner I made the mistake of looking at the news. Like many people I’ve become a little numb to seeing something ridiculous or offensive when I look at the news, but for the first time in a long time the news story that caught my eye tonight made me feel furious. The headline was “U.S. refuses to back Canada in Saudi Arabia dispute.”
Canada and Saudi Arabia are having a fairly significant disagreement right now. Canada’s foreign affairs minister tweeted a condemnation of the Saudi Arabian government’s decision to jail civil rights activists, and in response Saudi Arabia decided to expel the Canadian ambassador, freeze new trade and investment dealings with Canada, and withdraw 16,000 Saudi students from Canadian universities. Seems to me like an overreaction to a simple tweet of displeasure. Saudi Arabia asked Canada to apologize for their statements about their human rights abuses, and our neighbors to the north, who are stereotyped as apologizing in even the most minor of circumstances, refused.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department was asked about their stance on the dispute. This seems like a softball question, Canada is a very important ally who has shed blood in defense of our country, and 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudi Nationals. Not only that, but in 2016 we learned from former senators Bob Graham and Porter Goss that redacted pages from the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 showed evidence of Saudi Arabia’s substantial involvement in the attacks. You can also throw in the fact that Saudi Arabia bankrolls the Taliban. Do we back our loyal friend or our disloyal frenemy?
Our state department chose not to condemn Saudi Arabia for the very legitimate gripes on human rights abuses the Canadian Foreign Minister brought against the nation. They instead chose to condescendingly tell the two nations to figure it out themselves. This is a disgusting act of disloyalty from our government. For as much as President Donald Trump demands loyalty from the people that surround him, his administration seems to not value showing loyalty to our neighbors to the north.
America should stand against human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, especially when they’re bullying one of our closest friends. To not do so is a betrayal of everything I’ve been taught to value as an American and a Hoosier. I think time will show that after this administration is out of power in Washington, seemingly small things like this decision will have had the greatest impact. Our relationship with Canada may never be the same again, and that is a tremendous shame.
Matthew Smith
Greenwood
