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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

#171

Post by avs733 »

matwood wrote: post #117
mirimir wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did the NSA know what the attackers were going to do? I find it very hard to imagine that the NSA and/or CIA would have let the attacks happen, even to protect key assets and methods. Maybe they had compromised some Mossad communication channel. Or maybe they had a double agent. But what would have been worth the risk to DC and NYC?

I agree that it is extremely unlikely they let it happen. I think if all the documents are ever declassified it will be a case study in the breakdown of communications in a large organization. There was office politics (FBI vs. NSA vs. CIA), no overall coordination, and plain incompetence to name a few things that were wrong. We see this all the time in large companies now, the difference is that rarely do people die…

>I think if all the documents are ever declassified it will be a case study in the breakdown of communications in a large organization.

I have always been curious about this as an organizational phenomenon. What percentage of documents are classified for actual security reasons as opposed to things like embarrassing the country or allies, covering up misconduct or outright illegal conduct, or just as the default reaction. Study would be impossible/impractical even with access, but it sure would be interesting.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#172

Post by yborg »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #156
d883kd8 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I learned, thanks. But I don't think any of those are named after the current leaders. What we have in Saudi Arabia is a group of people, (the Saud family) who managed to take personal power over everyone else in a particular region, and then wrapped that power in the mechanisms and trappings of a modern state. It's an interesting and unique situation.

Liechtenstein. And Saudi Arabia is named for a dead guy.

Liechtenstein barely qualifies as a town, much less a nation. It has less than 40k people, and it's economy mainly consists of international tax evasion.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#173

Post by joesmo »

baliansa wrote: post #6

This article comes from someone who clearly doesn't understand Saudi Arabia. It keeps on portraying Saudi Arabia as an extremism exporter while it is a very moderate country, just turn on their media ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Broadcasting_Cente... ) and you will see a very different nation from what is portrayed here. Saudis have suffered a lot in the War on Terrorism, the number of Saudis who died…

The Al-Qaeda connection isn't the only reason people perceive Saudi Arabia as exporting extremism. When Saudi Arabia starts treating all its people in a humane way, maybe we'll revisit this argument, but while women are enslaved and people are tortured and killed based on religious nonsense (amongst the many atrocities committed there), you cannot claim that Saudi Arabia is moderate. That's insane and frankly, it shows you have no idea what moderate even means in this context. If state condoned slavery, murder, rape, and torture are your idea of moderate, then it's time to crack open a dictionary and work on your language comprehension.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#175

Post by crdoconnor »

prostoalex wrote: post #167
crdoconnor wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Heavy machinery, aerospace & automotive.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#176

Post by adrianN »

matwood wrote: post #120
dorfsmay wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old style hijack had become rare because police forces around the world made sure that you couldn't come out a winner, you typically get killed. Hijacker are at a disadvantage: limited resources, stuck in a small space easy to surround. The fact that the 9/11 highjackers had planned to die as part of the hijack was a game changer.

Exactly. A 9/11 style attack is also a single time event. Now that passengers know the outcome, they simply will not let it happen again. The only possible method would be to turn an existing pilot into a suicide killer.

The reinforced doors they introduced after 9/11 make this strategy particularly good. The passengers can't do anything if the pilot decides that he has a death wish.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#177

Post by jsprogrammer »

toyg wrote: post #88
mirimir wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did the NSA know what the attackers were going to do? I find it very hard to imagine that the NSA and/or CIA would have let the attacks happen, even to protect key assets and methods. Maybe they had compromised some Mossad communication channel. Or maybe they had a double agent. But what would have been worth the risk to DC and NYC?

More likely, they had taps but did not know what they were talking about. It was widely reported that, pre-9/11, Arabic translators were scarce in most Western intelligence services including the US, since their traditional focus were Russian, Eastern-European languages, and Chinese. You just need basic informal codes for most logistic purposes (which would be mostly "I've done this, I've done that" to confirm timing…

Crashing highjacked planes was a known scenario. In fact, FOX broadcast a fictionalized scenario where a commercial airliner was highjacked and set on a crash course with the WTC about six months before 9/11/01.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#178

Post by dfc »

nickbauman wrote: post #122
s_q_b wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are nine pages redacted from the 9/11 report, because they were deemed too incendiary against an ally, Saudi Arabia. I want those pages.

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-...

Hersh did not "uncover" the My Lai massacres. Hersh ran with a tip fron Ridenhour that other reporters had turned down. Hugh Thompson or Ron Ridenhour "uncovered" My Lai.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#179

Post by aksquestions »

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.

Why is Hersh having to publish some stories at LRB not more of an indictment of the New Yorker (et al) than Hersh? Hasn't the Obama administration been subject to curiously little investigative journalism?

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#180

Post by nyolfen »

nickbauman wrote: post #132
tptacek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Normally I would be more skeptical. But the assertions Hersh is making about this is so far beyond the "official" narrative, you can't seriously think someone with Hersh's reputation would just make that up? http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

Also worth weighing is that another reporter, R J Hillhouse, reported many of the same facts about the bin Laden raid shortly after it happened, to almost no attention[0]. However, she does not believe Hersh plagiarized her[1] (as Politico dubiously claimed, and she refuted), nor does she think that Hersh even had the same sources as her. She even noted that one of the more lurid details (dumping parts of Bin Laden's corpse out of the helicopter over the Hindu Kush mountains) was one she had come across but did not report because she couldn't verify it.

This amounts to two serious, if heterodox, journalists coming to the same story about the Bin Laden raid independently. I'm convinced, personally, but I was already deeply jaded by the many retractions in the official story issued early on regarding the vital intelligence being arrived at by use of torture and mass surveillance, and what they cynically implied about State Department attitudes towards shaping public discourse.

[0] http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2015/...

[1] http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/the_spy_who_billed_me/2015/...

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