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Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

nytimes.com

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Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#201

Post by DrScump »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #71
jonesb6 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a school in the North West with a large international program. A ton of students were Saudi Arabian. The new king actually raised their living stipend. Students are payed something like $1000 for every time they are published, regardless of the journal's reputation. I think at high levels they realize their reliance on oil will be their downfall. And they are making huge investments in education (in my expe…

Saudi Arabia has enormous potential for solar energy. Consider all the land they have, pretty close to the equator, that is otherwise unproductive.

Is there a sufficient grid infrastructure to support mass export of electricity, and given such, how do you keep it safe from vandals or saboteurs?

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#202

Post by [deleted] »

she_moves_on wrote: post #40

One frustrating thing that the author gets wrong is labelling Iran the "Gray Daesh." Iran has geopolitical conflict with the West, but it's a false equivalent of Saudi Arabia. Iran is a theocracy trying to control a population that growingly wants to be secular. Women in Iran go to university at higher rates than men, can drive, hold office, and vote. Life in Iran for a women is not perfect but is heaven compared to…

[deleted]

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#203

Post by dang »

0xFFC wrote: post #167
myth_buster wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this is an emotional response and somewhere 3/4th in, it turns into drivel with Texas women and such. I do believe violence begets more violence. Further I believe the complexity is something akin to the butterfly effect where doing something can cascade into something big in half a century. Take for example the drone strikes. The kids who manage to live through it would have have pent-up animosity towards the…

Maybe you don't know Islam as much as I do , but at the very end , it is only about sex . When you look at it in that perspective you can understand ruining their culture to show them their whole religion was a lie is the best approach. about bad foreign policy I completely agree.And that was my whole point . stop killing people and overthrowing regime in Islamic areas and change your policy to show them new way of l…

I appreciate that you have an experienced perspective to offer that is rare here, but your comments are also breaking the site guidelines. We need you to try harder to follow those when posting. If you want help with that you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#204

Post by dang »

kawera wrote: post #188
tptacek wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even a little bit. I flagged the article, as did many others.

I deeply regret posting this article. Somehow I thought it was interesting and in tune with many other articles we've discussed this week but seeing what happened here, oh my... I'm really sorry, won't happen again.

FWIW, the story has fallen off the front page because (a) users flagged it and (b) moderators have downweighted it, as we typically do when a story is either a piler-on or a riler-upper or both.

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#205

Post by tptacek »

dang wrote: post #204
kawera wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deeply regret posting this article. Somehow I thought it was interesting and in tune with many other articles we've discussed this week but seeing what happened here, oh my... I'm really sorry, won't happen again.

FWIW, the story has fallen off the front page because (a) users flagged it and (b) moderators have downweighted it, as we typically do when a story is either a piler-on or a riler-upper or both.

Unfortunately, by the time the admins notice that there's a riler- upper - piler- onner, a lot of the damage is done. Look at how many points and comments this story has.

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#206

Post by jalammar »

DrScump wrote: post #200
jalammar wrote: post #199

As a Saudi HNer who has spent his life between Saudi and the US, I hope I can point out a few things here. I understand the point the author is trying to make. It does, however, come off to me as unnecessarily hostile and overreaching. - Saudi Arabia has 18 million nationals. The vast majority of which are sunni salafis (the nomenclature preferred to "Wahhabism"). If Wahhabism was driving motivation for ISIS, then IS…

Care to speculate on why Saudi Arabia itself isn't accepting Syrian refugees?

What I understand is that Saudi is already home to ~1 million Syrians and the government says they have granted residency visas to 500K more since 2011 -- not as refugees, but as residents. I can't say for certain if they are refusing more refugees or why. But I would guess that the political consequences for such a shift in demographics would be too complicated for the (rather rigid) system of government in Saudi to deal with. Especially with instability in the north and South of Saudi and the complications of the low price of oil. Just a guess, though.

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#207

Post by kawera »

tptacek wrote: post #205
dang wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the story has fallen off the front page because (a) users flagged it and (b) moderators have downweighted it, as we typically do when a story is either a piler-on or a riler-upper or both.

Unfortunately, by the time the admins notice that there's a riler- upper - piler- onner, a lot of the damage is done. Look at how many points and comments this story has.

By the time I noticed what happened it was too late and the "delete" menu had disappeared. I didn't post it to accumulate points and certainly wouldn't mind if they were subtracted from my account.

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#208

Post by throwaway_user »

There are a few important differences. People from different countries can get a visa and visit Saudi Arabia, stay and come back safely as long as one obeys their laws. (Whether we agree with these laws is a different matter).

Muslims from different all sects can go for Hajj and are not executed for heresy because of their sectarian background.

Saudi Arabia has diplomatic relations and is a signatory to various international agreements.

One of the problems with Daesh is that they seem to be incapable of doing any of these things not because they haven't "made it", but because they are ideologically opposed to it.

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#209

Post by 0xFFC »

dang wrote: post #203
0xFFC wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you don't know Islam as much as I do , but at the very end , it is only about sex . When you look at it in that perspective you can understand ruining their culture to show them their whole religion was a lie is the best approach. about bad foreign policy I completely agree.And that was my whole point . stop killing people and overthrowing regime in Islamic areas and change your policy to show them new way of l…

I appreciate that you have an experienced perspective to offer that is rare here, but your comments are also breaking the site guidelines. We need you to try harder to follow those when posting. If you want help with that you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Sorry , time for editing comment was passed, I will be careful next time. Thank you

Re: Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

#210

Post by calbear81 »

justboxing wrote: post #193
sharanAntenna wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With polygamy being legal, they take underage Muslim girls from cities like Hyderabad on their return journey to Middle East after "buying" them from their parents.

Unbelievable. I didn't think this was true, but you are right. There are 100s of stories of how Women in Hyderabad are being sold to Arab Sheiks. Very disturbing. Found a news item of a Gang busted too => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0eNGDcBoGM

Seems like the scene from taken with the Sheiks buying young drug addicted women from underground auctions was not that far off from the truth.
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