classic whatabout-ism that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and more importantly doesn't matter.

"America is also bad!" would not be a defense to selling chemical weapons to Hussein. It's not a defense to helping build the Great Firewall. Your actions' consequences are your fault.

It's not whatabout-ism. The question was why is Saudi money accepted. Human-rights violations is totally irrelevant. If it were a leading concern then companies couldn't accept American money either. SpaceX basically couldn't exist. Humans rights is about political power nothing else. Saudis are already dancing to the USA's tune so the US doesn't roll out the human rights and democracy trope. Instead they trade.

Yes it's whataboutism. Human rights violations aren't binary and the Saudi variety is in a different class entirely from the US.

>different class entirely from the US

Could you elaborate how you came to this conclusion?

> "America is also bad!" would not be a defense to selling chemical weapons to Hussein.

Ah, but America has also done this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegle_Report

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iraq_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_rel...