(06-19-2019, 11:08 AM)B2hibry Wrote:

(06-19-2019, 08:29 AM)mikesez Wrote: None of those countries has what we would call civil rights or a free exchange of ideas.  Iraq is the only one in the group attempting free elections, but Iran calls a lot of the shots there these days.
The repression one would face in Kuwait or Qatar is subtle, while Bahrain and Saudi openly execute protestors.

No country on earth has the same civil rights or free exchange of ideas that the United States currently has. Anyways, it is a factor of zero in the discussion of the United States being invited and paid to have a presence in certain regions and countries.

It is a factor.
It's one thing to defensively prop up a government that rules with the consent of the governed (Latvia, for instance, or South Korea).
It's another to give weapons and refueling sorties to support a government that represses its own people, and does not have their consent (Saudi Arabia), in its efforts to extend it hegemony and the repression that goes along with it to a neighboring country (Yemen).

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