Mr. Baird, how are Saudi Arabia’s beheadings different from Islamic State’s? [View all]

[arikara]

It’s something the Canadian Foreign Minister still fails to grasp.

On Wednesday, the same day that John Baird was greeted warmly by his Saudi Arabian counterpart to discuss coordinated efforts to combat Islamic State militants (also known as ISIS or ISIL), a Saudi court judge decided to pass a death sentence against a leading opposition figure on charges of sedition and “breaking allegiance to the king.”

“We consider the Kingdom and Kuwait important allies in combating violent extremism and terrorism,” Mr. Baird said before leaving for his trip to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on Tuesday.

Does Canada really see an ally in a country that has carried out twice as many beheadings over one month than the militia it now claims it wants to destroy? According to Amnesty International, 59 people have been decapitated in Saudi Arabia since January this year, and eight in the past month alone. That’s twice the number of Western hostages who have been featured in IS’s execution videos (though there have also been non-Western hostages beheaded by IS). Saudi Arabia’s track record actually makes IS look scant in comparison.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/mr-baird-how-are-saudi-arabias-beheadings-different-from-islamic-states/article21146919/

contrasted with Sun News puff piece for Harper:

From a crisis emerges a leader

....
Other examples are legion. A politician is reviled and headed to certain defeat, and then something happens - a war, a terrorist attack, a public health crisis - and everything changes. What once seemed impossible becomes possible.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper stands at the precipice of such a moment, with twin challenges facing him and his government. On the one hand, there is his (appropriate) decision to lend modest military support to the international coalition against the serial murderers who make up ISIS. On the other, his government's (as yet unseen) response to the metastasizing Ebola crisis.
....

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2014/10/20141017-065640.html