How is this different to the Saudi crown prince hiring MPRI, DynCorp, or any other US private military company that largely employs retired US army personnel?
Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
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Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#122This has been going on for years, but now it's news? Here's a blurb from some random 2009 blog post on how this works (more about Iraq, but Vinnell has been training Saudi forces for years, and probably is involved with Yemen as well): > "The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard. The Fair…
> The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard.
Were similar contracts in place for training Afghani Army? Maybe we should get a refund?
I found shocking how western media just declared Afghani army as incapable and closed the chapter. Someone was in charge of this program for 20 years. Someone had oversight of billions spend. Were western contractor facilitating corruption? Was this a shocking failure of western management?
The results are worse than Russian army procurement where millions of uniforms just go missing!
Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#123Working for the butcher prince. We don't need that kind of people near any NATO army. Let's hope they stay in Saudi Arabia. In other news, this is just another symptom of a shrinking US empire. Pax americana is starting to crumble.
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Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#124Working for the butcher prince. We don't need that kind of people near any NATO army. Let's hope they stay in Saudi Arabia. In other news, this is just another symptom of a shrinking US empire. Pax americana is starting to crumble.
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It’s probably because of the second paragraph. The first is a sentiment many people can agree with. The second paragraph, asserting not only that the U.S. is crumbling but that somehow retired generals working in SA is proof is utterly ridiculous.
Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> the RAF has gone the furthest, setting ambitious targets to more than double its recruitment of women to hit 40% by 2030, as well as to ensure ethnic minorities make up 20% of new recruits. “Stopped recruiting white men“ eh?
Yeah that’s literally how race quotas work. You hire some white men, go “woah too many” and stop hiring them.
To make things easier, you do this by avoiding hiring poor whites in particular, while continuing to hire privileged whites who will celebrate your efforts as brave and courageous.
Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's an awfully bold statement. It'd be nice if you showed some evidence that classified information leakage and military desertion rates are anywhere near the rate of speed limit violations, which at a first approximation I would guess is pretty near 100% of licensed drivers doing it at least once. As a person who served in the military and still holds a clearance, I don't know the true rates, but in 15 years I ha…
The former president routinely leaked classified information and took whole boxes worth or documents to his house after the presidency. Edwards Snowden and Julian Assange exist. There have been many "leaks" of classified information. Just because you and your associated coworkers didn't leak doesn't mean that leaks don't happen, unfortunately.
Sure, but can you generalize the behavior of Trump, Snowden, and Assange to that of a bunch of retired military officers?
Incidence matters. If intentional classified information leaks were commonplace and unsurprising, then sure, we could say we expect retired military officers to routinely follow the example of Trump, Snowden, and Assange when it comes to classified information. But I don't think any of us can make that claim.
Intentional classified information leakage is relatively uncommon, and, for the most part, is punished when it happens and a perpetrator can be identified and caught. Obviously in the case of Trump, that potential punishment is politically fraught, as was/is the case with Assange. The US government would love to punish Snowden if they could get their grubby hands on him. I guess look to Chelsea Manning if you want an example of when the government has successfully brought down the hammer on someone doing things with classified material that they didn't like.
To bring it back to the topic at hand, I expect that the retired military officers now taking employment with the Saudi Arabian military will most likely protect any secrets they're legally bound to protect. Why? Because that's what seems to happen most of the time, and punishments for failure to do so can get pretty severe. And someone who wanted to sell secrets might have a difficult time if their chosen country of exile is SA. If found out, they'd have to contend with the strong possibility that the SA government would extradite them to the US, depending on what kind of pressure the US might bring to bear.
Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#127Chances are good these US ex-military are not loyal to Saudi Arabia. They're only doing it for the money, not fanatical idealisms. We have the Logan Act and Espionage Act to protect us, and we benefit from these activities through income taxes.
Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case. I’m not saying that there’s going to be a bunch of treasoning or anything, just that the laws you’re citing wouldn’t be particularly useful if said treasoning did happen.
> Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case.
I wouldn't be so sure. SA depends on the US for a significant amount of military equipment and training. They might turn over a US traitor if they got even a whiff of that help being threatened.
Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#128This is not as bad as it reads. Understand that the top brass in the DoD are extremely loyal to the country, loyalty and trust is crucial in the officer corps (in the US at least). Once you get that star (or whatever the equivalent is for the navy) you are basically a US officer for life. Retired Generals and Admirals can and do get called upon by the government when they are needed. They are considered highly experi…
I see you and raise you one Flynn.
Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#129a lot of people in this comment section seem kind of confused about the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia? This isn't at all surprising, why wouldn't you hire American military to go with your American military hardware?
It's not confusion, it's disgust. Everybody understands that Saudi's are the leading exporters of terrorism and the US helps enable that terrorism with our money and intel. Then we condemn Putin and expect the entire world to take it seriously.
Re: Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
#130This is not as bad as it reads. Understand that the top brass in the DoD are extremely loyal to the country, loyalty and trust is crucial in the officer corps (in the US at least). Once you get that star (or whatever the equivalent is for the navy) you are basically a US officer for life. Retired Generals and Admirals can and do get called upon by the government when they are needed. They are considered highly experi…
They're so loyal that they're working for the guys who planned 9/11, and not just working for them, but giving them expertise.