Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse • Hacker News Board

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#111

Post by aback » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

salafi wrote: post #78

cygx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give an actual example, in Bosnia the leader of the Salafi movement has been arrested for recruiting for ISIS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Bosni%C4%87

He's far from being a Salafi. He's a Bin Laden sympathizer, for one. Ask any mainstream Muslim who the Salafi scholars are in recent times and undoubtedly one of the first names mentioned would be the late Ibn Baz. Ibn Baz was a harsh critic of Bin Laden and his ideology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Aziz_ibn_Baz#Osama_bin_... Here is confirmation from Al Fawzan (the most-respected Saudi scholar now) regardin…

No true scotsman, indeed.

Counterargument: "No true Christian" could ever kill an enemy - Jesus was clear in this: turn the other cheek, die on the cross if need be, forgive 70 times 7 times, etc. In my sect, Christianity is totally pacifist. All true Christians are pacifists.

So there's no reason for any Muslim to harbor any enmity against any Christians, because no Christians have ever once harmed a Muslim (by my definition of Christians).

...

And so we're back to square one, arguing over who's really a Scotsman....

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#112

Post by ceejayoz » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #101

jdimov9 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very much pro-Russia. You got a problem with that?

No, I have a problem with pro-Russia (pro-Putin) trolls. Still, I don't think they are "paid".

Some appear to be.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias...

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#113

Post by raverbashing » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

salafi wrote: post #78

cygx wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give an actual example, in Bosnia the leader of the Salafi movement has been arrested for recruiting for ISIS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilal_Bosni%C4%87

He's far from being a Salafi. He's a Bin Laden sympathizer, for one. Ask any mainstream Muslim who the Salafi scholars are in recent times and undoubtedly one of the first names mentioned would be the late Ibn Baz. Ibn Baz was a harsh critic of Bin Laden and his ideology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Aziz_ibn_Baz#Osama_bin_... Here is confirmation from Al Fawzan (the most-respected Saudi scholar now) regardin…

> He's far from being a Salafi.

It's very funny how this usually ends with apologetic excuses

Actions speak louder than words, and there's an awful amount of Salafists preaching for ISIS

Details of religious cults are not interesting to me and I don't care what some guy in the desert (any of them) wrote in a book thousands of years ago.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#114

Post by dorfsmay » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:24 PM UTC

When I read the title, I thought this was about the fact that the current monarch broke the unwritten rule that power must be shared between all the families that originally formed Saudi Arabia (wifes coming from 40 different tribes).

This is a bit long but worth a listen. I have not found as good as an explanation in the written form:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hh8isVX3H9w

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#115

Post by bedhead » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:32 PM UTC

hartpuff wrote: post #54

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 and/or NSA very likely knew that the 9/11 terrorists were in the US, learning to fly airliners. Has there ever been an explanation why the hijackers risked conspicuously attending flight schools under the noses of the US authorities, rather than, say, absolutely any other country in the world ?

Terrorists tend to be stupid. Honestly. Look at Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. The guy goes to the airplane bathroom to prepare his shoe bomb, then he returns to his seat, covers himself with a blanket, and tries to detonate the bomb by lighting the fuse with matches. People next to him notice this easily and maul him. Plot over. So, ummm, why not just detonate the thing while locked in the bathroom??? The guys in flight school just got lucky for the most part, but you're right that it was a strange decision.

It's hard to find good help.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#116

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:36 PM UTC

s_q_b wrote: post #74

salafi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Good questions. First, Saudi Arabia's government is in favor of the United States, but their wealthy citizens often fund non-state actors to attack Western targets. Second, my experience comes from studying International Relations at Princeton. For sources, there are too many sources to count for the assertion that Saudi citizens continue to give money to Salafist (for lack of a better word) non-state actors that tar…

[deleted]

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#117

Post by matwood » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #58

s_q_b wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA also had a tap on the Yemeni safe house where the attackers were calling to coordinate. The hijackers even stayed in Laurel, Maryland, from which you can literally see Alpha and Bravo. Yet the 9/11 commission only spent three visits and a paltry amount of time up at Fort Meade and NBP, anecdotally because the commute to the Fort is too long. Edit in reply: No, they never put the intelligence together. See her…

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 as a consequence. Maybe the NASA Challenger accident is a comparable organizational breakdown.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#118

Post by ptaipale » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:49 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #112

ptaipale wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I have a problem with pro-Russia (pro-Putin) trolls. Still, I don't think they are "paid".

Some appear to be. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the... http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias...

Quite, but I think that most who I meet are not.

Likewise, most of those who spread various 9/11 conspiracy theories are not paid by anyone, they are quite sincere.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#119

Post by et2o » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

Disappointing that people aren't thinking more critically about this article. Yes, no one likes the Saudis and they often act unethically. That doesn't mean they are on the brink of imminent collapse, and there is no real evidence given here to that thesis.

Re: Washington Should Prepare for Saudi Arabia's Collapse

#120

Post by matwood » Sun, Feb 21, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

dorfsmay wrote: post #107

toyg wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.