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Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

theatlantic.com

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Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#161

Post by dang »

eklavya wrote: post #61
guftagu wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't watch so much Fox News. A vast majority of people in Pakistan are very moderate. Much of the bad shit you see about extremists and all is from a particular area of Pakistan in the north west near Afghanistan. Pakistan army has cleared out most of the extremists from there and many operations are being conducted as National Action Plan to curb terrorism and extremism.

Really, you believe all that? You should google "Hafiz Saeed" sometime. That is just one example of course and doesn't even start to sum it all up.

> Really, you believe all that?

Please don't be uncivil.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#162

Post by prostoalex »

tootie wrote: post #92
mirimir wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CIA and/or NSA very likely knew that the 9/11 terrorists were in the US, learning to fly airliners. Not long after 9/11, there were reports that Mossad agents (the "art students", as I recall) had been tailing the 9/11 terrorists. Almost all of whom were Saudis. But I've seen no credible reports that any of them knew what was planned. And yes, those pages might be very interesting.

The CIA most definitely knew and refused to share that information with the FBI. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/07/10/the-agent

There's a good reason for lack of sharing as both Aldrich Ames (CIA) and Robert Hanssen (FBI) ended up providing much more sensitive information to the adversary than their rank qualified them for.

The agencies seem to be on the cycle of high compartmentalization -> criticism for lack of sharing -> low compartmentalization -> major spy scandal -> high compartmentalization.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#163

Post by testerooooooo »

tptacek wrote: post #125
nickbauman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we generally know what's in those pages. Seymour Hersh (multi Pulitzer winning journalist who, among other things, uncovered the Mi Lai Atrocities) broke the story that the assassination of Osama Bin Ladin was mainly an attempt by the US to cover up the deep ties between OBL and the Saudi government. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-...

To say that Hersh's story about the OBL Killing is controversial, especially among journalists, would be understating it quite a bit. The London Review Of Books is not a conventional outlet for Hersh's investigative journalism (he's a regular at The New Yorker, which has one of the more notoriously elaborate fact checking apparatuses in the industry) and not Hersh's first choice for publishing that story.

Or maybe the NewYorker refused to publish it as a favour to their TLA friends. Maybe...

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#164

Post by prostoalex »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #28

And Russia. In the harsh world of realpolitik no one cares if Venezuela falls apart, except for the Venezuelans. If Russia falls apart it's a serious problem for everyone, because it won't fall apart quietly or peacefully.

Russia doesn't [by now] have any strong separatist movements to cause such disintegration. A few that were ethnicity-based are economic recipients, not donors - having Dagestan or Chechnya as separate entities makes little economic sense as they currently. In theory oil-rich producing regions would want nothing to do with oil-poor regions, but those are sparsely populated and staffed with migrant workers with little regional identity.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#165

Post by hartpuff »

salafi wrote: post #67
s_q_b wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salafism is a very complicated word to unpack. So yes, there are less radical elements who identify as Salafis, including the Muslim brotherhood. But although the meaning of Salafism as a historical word would take quite a bit to unpack, it's clearly referring to a particularly fast-growing form of fundamentalist Islam today. Now, as for the sermons... It is my experience that the Saudi's pray with one hand and dole…

> It is my experience that the Saudi's pray with one hand and dole out cash to terrorist groups with the other. That makes zero sense. Why would they fund the people calling for their destruction? What exactly is your "experience?" It's just more unfounded conjecture.

> Why would they fund the people calling for their destruction?

Because if they're off destroying Syria or Iraq or Libya or the USSR, they're not causing mischief within Saudi Arabia.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#166

Post by AmVess »

bbatsell wrote: post #144
mseebach wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you only have a small explosive, you want to detonate it as close to the wing as possible, as this is the weakest spot on the plane - you're basically hoping for the wing to fall off, or at least sever the connections to the control surfaces. Even with a decent hole in the fuselage, there is a very good chance of landing the plane safely as long as the wings stay on. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airline…

To be clear, the wingbox is, by far, the strongest part of a plane, but it's the most devastating if you can compromise it. (And its primary design goal isn't to account for explosive loads coming from the fuse.)

You aren't going to compromise the wingbox with an explosive that fits in the heel of a shoe.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#167

Post by prostoalex »

crdoconnor wrote: post #155
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #28

And Russia. In the harsh world of realpolitik no one cares if Venezuela falls apart, except for the Venezuelans. If Russia falls apart it's a serious problem for everyone, because it won't fall apart quietly or peacefully.

The damage done by low oil prices to Russia has been way overstated in the west. The lower value of their currency has actually caused them to engage in import substitution (something Saudi can't do because they basically don't have any local industries) and started to make Russian industry more competitive in export markets. This is basically what China did to itself deliberately in order to turn itself into an expo…

> started to make Russian industry more competitive in export markets

Outside of oil, gas, timber and weaponry what products are they known for exporting?

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#168

Post by selimthegrim »

scarmig wrote: post #148
tptacek wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really have no idea what it means to be a Salafist, but there's something unsettling about an HN debate about whether a particular religion is or isn't fundamentally terroristic. That's especially true if you are yourself somehow affiliated with the religion, in which case: I'm sorry you find yourself litigating this here. Whether or not you are, and whether or not these are good faith comments, I think this is a p…

Is Aum Shinrikyo fundamentally terroristic? A lot of this gets into questions of what defines a religion, if a religion even has a definition, or if it's just a contentless cultural virus that people use to interpret their own preconceived notions and practices in a predefined rubric. Salafism is an easy target because many of its famous adherents are the unsavory sort, and it's "obscure" enough that people can bash…

I've met very many peaceful Salafists. Saying that Salafism or Tablighi Jamaat is a gateway to terrorism is like calling marijuana a gateway drug - the overly literalist and gullible types might gather there but if they're trying harder stuff, that's on them.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#169

Post by el_benhameen »

jseliger wrote: post #94
_0nac wrote: post #22

I've worked a fair amount in Saudi Arabia, and yeah, even by (low) Gulf standards it's a deeply fucked-up place and definitely a ticking time bomb. A few things people don't realize until they've actually been there: - Not all Saudis are rich. Quite the opposite, there are destitute beggars on the streets of Riyadh. The women were the saddest side, kneeling by the roadside begging for alms in their all-enveloping pit…

All companies in Saudi are operated almost entirely by imported labor Is this still true? I ask because when I was in grad school at the University of Arizona I taught technical writing to a fair number of Saudi (and Kuwaiti) engineering students. I don't know what happened to them after graduation, but I presume most went back to work in the oil companies. Maybe they ended up fulfilling the "Saudification" quota. (T…

I think the younger generation is realizing that the gravy train can't last and that they'll need legitimate skills in the future. An interesting article on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/world/middleeast/young-sau...

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#170

Post by selimthegrim »

guftagu wrote: post #49
sremani wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlightened Elite in Pakistan? Pakistan is an Islamist garrison state that needs funds from outside to prop it up. Saudis and Americans (40 Billion US alone) are the only reason Pakistan is not economically bankrupt.

don't watch so much Fox News. A vast majority of people in Pakistan are very moderate. Much of the bad shit you see about extremists and all is from a particular area of Pakistan in the north west near Afghanistan. Pakistan army has cleared out most of the extremists from there and many operations are being conducted as National Action Plan to curb terrorism and extremism.

Wake me up when Aamir Liaquat loses his show for calling people wajib-ul-qatl on air, or when people stop felicitating and distributing sweets for what Qadri did to Salman Taseer. None of those things happened in KP.
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