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In Bed With The Despotic House Of Saud
Submitted by Paul Pillar via ConsortiumNews.com,
The U.S.-Saudi alliance is no longer just an anachronism. It has become a dangerous anachronism with the Saudis implicating the United States in their brutal sectarian conflicts, such as the wars in Yemen and Syria, and in their reactionary human rights policies, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.
Saudi King Salman visits Washington amid disagreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia on a broad range of issues. Moreover, the disagreements are rooted in fundamental characteristics of the anachronistic Saudi regime.
Many regimes around the world, and the political and social systems of which they are a part, are markedly different from what is found in the United States, but the Saudi polity is one of the most different. The anachronism that is Saudi Arabia represents a major problem for U.S. foreign policy, both because of the impact Saudi-related matters have on the Middle East and beyond and because of the close association between Saudi Arabia and the United States that has come to be taken for granted.
King Salman the President and First Lady to a reception room at Erga Palace during a state visit to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 27, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Little of this has anything to do with the just-completed agreement to restrict Iran’s nuclear program, despite the attention that subject has been receiving. Riyadh is more likely to accept the agreement as a done deal — and already has publicly indicated its formal acceptance — than the accord’s opponents in the United States and Israel.
The Saudis will continue to look for ways to discourage others, including the United States, from developing warm relations with their rival across the Persian Gulf, but this will not preclude the Saudis themselves, along with the other Gulf Arabs, from undertaking their own rapprochement with Tehran, just as they have done in the past.
In hot spot after hot spot in the Middle East, U.S. and Saudi objectives and priorities diverge, even if in some loose sense they are considered to be on the same side. In war-torn Syria, the United States and Saudi Arabia have never agreed on whether the ouster of the Assad regime or the containment of ISIS should be the main objective.
Saudi priorities are based on a variety of considerations that are specific to it and not to the United States, including hatred of the Assads for whatever role they may have played in the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri, a special friend of the Saudis. Reflecting the different priorities and objectives is disagreement over selection and vetting of Syrian rebels to be deemed worthy of support.
In Iraq, Saudi priorities are influenced by some of the same sectarian motives that shape Saudi policy toward Syria. And again, such motives are quite different from U.S. interests. Desired overthrow of the regime is not the factor that it is in Syria, but distrust of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad is a major part of the Saudi approach toward Iraq.
In Yemen, the United States has allowed itself to become associated with a destructive and misguided Saudi military expedition, and thus also with the humanitarian tragedy that the operation has entailed. The main Saudi objective is to show who’s boss on the Arabian Peninsula, another objective not shared with the United States. Saudi Arabia’s operation has shown itself, more so than Iran, to be a destabilizing force intent on throwing its weight around in the neighborhood.
In his most recent column Tom Friedman identifies what may be the most worrisome thing about Saudi Arabia for U.S. interests: “the billions and billions of dollars the Saudis have invested since the 1970s into wiping out the pluralism of Islam — the Sufi, moderate Sunni and Shiite versions — and imposing in its place the puritanical, anti-modern, anti-women, anti-Western, anti-pluralistic Wahhabi Salafist brand of Islam promoted by the Saudi religious establishment.”
Friedman notes that Islamist extremist groups that the United States has come to consider preeminent security concerns, including Al Qaeda and now ISIS, “are the ideological offspring of the Wahhabism injected by Saudi Arabia into mosques and madrasas from Morocco to Pakistan to Indonesia.”
The specific terrorist consequences of what the Saudis have done is justifiably an immediate concern for U.S. policy-makers. But the underlying bargain that Ibn Saud, the founder of the current Saudi kingdom, reached years ago with the Wahhabis also underlies much else that makes Saudi Arabia what it is today, and makes it the problem that it is. The kingdom’s troublesome characteristics are inextricably linked to how Ibn Saud’s offspring are trying to claim legitimacy and thus to cling to power.
Consider some of the chief characteristics of the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is a family-run enterprise in which the distribution and exercise of political power are every bit as medieval as they ever were in any country ruled by the Plantagenets. There is no religious freedom. Human rights in many other respects are sorely lacking. Women are still subordinated. It was considered a big deal when they recently were told they could vote and run as candidates — in elections to local councils with scant power and in which the king will still appoint half the members — but women still cannot function as independent persons in many aspects of daily life. They still are not allowed to drive.
It ought to be astounding that a place this far removed from the liberal democratic values with which the United States likes to be associated, even without considering the aforementioned divergence of objectives elsewhere in the region, still is considered a close partner of the United States. The usual, and to a large degree valid, explanation is that, as Friedman puts it, “we’re addicted to their oil and addicts never tell the truth to their pushers.”
But there is another American attitude involved, which persists even in the shale-fracking era. Once a nation is considered a partner or ally in a region that is perceptually divided into allies and adversaries, the perceived line-up tends to stay fixed until and unless there is a political alteration sufficiently great to be labeled regime change.
And regime change would be the most troubling chapter of all in the Saudi story. Some Saudi leaders, including the late King Abdullah, seem to have recognized the need to move in the direction of modernization and liberalization, even if only at the glacial pace that is possible in a Wahhabi-committed family enterprise.
It is an open question whether the regime will be able to keep this kind of change ahead of demands for change of a more drastic and radical sort. If it fails to do so, and the revolution comes, then the association of the United States with the ancien régime will an even greater problem for U.S. policy-makers than what they face now.
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don't hate the player....hate the empire
http://www.philiacband.com/propaganda.html
I give the House of Saud 5 years max. A million pissed off raging lunatic well fed and U.S. armed moooslims will be their undoing. Then the U.S. swoops in (spreadin democrazy) take the oil and leave a cleveland steamer in the gold plated crapper. It's what we do best.
"a cleveland steamer"
Brahahahahahahahahah. Too funny.
The U.S. is not in bed with Saudi Arabia like a pair of chosen loves. The relationship is incestuous, where the leaders of both nations are the illegitimate offspring of the mechinations of Mother London.
Rule Britannia: let the colonies bleed.
The OP is a tad bit off in his thinking. The Saudis are just one step above Bedouin beggars now...
Is Saudi Arabia Begging US Banksters for an Economic Bailout?"astounding that a place this far removed from the liberal democratic values with which the United States likes to be associated, even without considering the aforementioned divergence of objectives elsewhere in the region, still is considered a close partner of the United States."
Only astounding if you are so stupid and media moulded as to think American foreign policy has anything to do with rights and freedoms. Surely nobody is that naive/ridiculous?
With the author making almost 50% of the article bold, it doesn't emphasise anything at all it just makes the test dificult to read.
Liberal Islam??
Moderate Islam?
Koran-less Islam?
Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi "Islam" has more to do with the brutal Arabian tribal customs that Mohammed tried to eliminate (but had to accomodate to a large extent) than the religion itself. In places like India, Indonesia, Egypt, etc. the religion had been practiced rather peacefully for centuries before the rise of Wahhabi cultism. Syncretism flourished until US oil money was given to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, which was subsequently spent by state and private donors on promoting Wahhabi ideas and terrorism around the world.
Islam does have its flaws (as does every faith) but the violent aspect of it was only brought to bear in recent times with the House of Saud and the other Gulf emirates.
The violent aspect was brought to bear by Mohammed, as its directly quoteable from the Koran
"Islam has its flaws."
That is just so fucking naive as to be funny.
Violence born from intolerance and bigotry has been the defining feature of each of the Abrahamic religions since their inception.
Jesus violent?
I.know he upturned a money changers table, but that's a good thing.
Meanwhile, most people I hear use the world "intolerant", blithely tolerate the maas slaughter of the unborn.
Shit, dup, my bad.
In 1840 the British launched the first real foray into the middle east, landing troops in Palestine. If you consult a timeline on the history of Zionism, you'll find that first flurry of activity comes not from Jewish people but rather from the leaders of the British government. In particular, Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Minister, writes: " It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return and settle in Palestine because the wealth which they would bring with them would increase the resources of the Sultan's dominions; and the Jewish people, if returning under the sanction and protection, and at the invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any future evil designs of Mehemet Ali (of Egypt) or his successor... "
Three years after Palmerston's declaration of British foreign office support for a previously unheard-of movement - Zionism - the freemasonic order of B'nai B'rith was established in New York in 1843. What were the initial fruits of this order? Although supposedly a Jewish masonic order, they strangely show little interest in Jews.
Among B'nai B'riths early members is Edwin deLeon. He is a prominent leader of "Young America" in the model of ethnic nationalist movements that had sprung up everywhere in the world under the direction of Mazzini -- everywhere, that is, except in Britain. What can we say about Edwin's dispositions? He was educated by Thomas Cooper, arguably the most vocal proponent of southern secession. Perhaps you are seeing the bigger picture: we have a zionist canard adopted as the foreign policy of the British, rapid development of a masonic order nominally interested in Jews, but instead turning their attention to national subversion in America for the purposes of serving British interests. This is exactly as the Young Turks, Young Italy, and so on do throughout the world in the 19th century - movements which toppled virtually all monarchs while leaving the British crown unscathed.
To exemplify how deep the treason runs within this circle, consider that you can see an encryption / decryption device at Ford's theater owned by John Wilkes Booth. An identical one was found in the office of Judah Benjamin. Hours before the assassination of Lincoln, Booth met with Simon Wolf - leader of B'nai B'rith chapter in Washington. Booth was further a friend of Benjamin Peixotto, a major leader of B'nai B'rith. Judah Benjamin escapes to England after the Civil War, never to return. The details go on and on, but you can see how agents of the British foreign office were behind the assassination of Lincoln by now.
It is through the Scottish Rite / B'nai B'rith axis that the turmoil in the Middle East that lasts to this day is established. Emmanuel Carasso, member of B'nai B'rith, is the founder of the Young Turks. This organization plays a leading role in the insurrection and dissolution of the Ottoman empire, with Carasso personally informing the Sultan that he had been deposed. The US ambassadors to Turkey during this time, Oscar Straus, Abraham Elkin, and Henry Morgenthau, were all members of B'nai B'rith.
One of the most important British families in this time is the Herbert family. Aubery Herbert is the British intelligence chief in the Middle East during this era. His father was a patron of the Mazzini networks (Young Turks, etc) and leader of British freemasonry for a while. Herbert was a friend of Lawrence of Arabia, the man who helped to establish the Saudi monarchy and eventual client state of the west to this day. Lawrence is of course more famous for his "heroic" leadership in battle in WW1.
Not a whole lot of Jewish advocacy coming out of B'nai B'rith so far. Moving forward to the period between WW1 and WW2, we have a joint official statement from the New York Times (owned by the Sulzbergers of B'nai B'rith) with the American-Jewish Committee saying "no American boycott against Germany be encouraged" in 1933 as Hitler's anti-semitism is on the rise. The beginning of the Israeli state is even recorded in the official foreign policy of Britain, not born out of Jewish desire: Britain made the Balfour declaration in 1917 establishing it's intent to create the state of Israel.
Lawrence spent no time establishing Wahhabistan which was a primitive backwater in his day. Oil changed all that but if Ghawar ever gets bombed and digital balances around the world deleted all that is left is a few thousand ultra-clannish well hated tribespeople and they won't last long. 'Fucking morons', as Lavrov said.
The established Sephardic Jews of Britain were vehemently opposed to Balfour as they knew to what it would lead.
Palmerston was Zion's mouthpiece. Zion prefers to operate hidden away in dark corners.
I get to fuck my sisters?
Oh, and holy shit, one lives in Alabama. That's been legal since forever.
/oh, definitely sarc
Increasingly all the USA has to sell is military services. That's it.
Let's hope the USA can provide good service, or the USA is cooked.
NO, it was a protection racket all along. It began on Valentine's Day 1945 aboard the battleship Quincy in Suez Egypt, when we swapped guns & recognition for the House of Saud for a monopoly on exploring-producing and PRICING their oil.
It was one of the GREATEST BUSINESS DEALS IN HISTORY, right up there with the Doge of Venice buying off the 4th Crusaders to sack Constantinople. The WHOLE FUCKING WORLD had to use our paper to buy the MOST PRECIOUS COMMODITY on Earth.
I meant in a more general sense, but you are correct on the USA - Saud history.
Don't count out Venezuela Russia And Venezuela Must Work Together On Oil Prices: Putin
http://hedgeaccordingly.com/2015/09/russia-and-venezuela-must-work-toget...
Under present management, Venezuela couldn't get out of a shower of shit. That's gonna change because we're gonna buy off their military to have a coup d'etat ...and then DOLLARIZE the whole fucking economy, including ALL THAT OIL.
Glorious!
We've been talking about the FRN being "just toilet paper."
In a related story, Venezuela will dollarize the entire fucking economy and have plenty of FRNs to cure the local and acute toilet paper shortage.
Ya got a problem, ya got a problem. But two problems?
- Ned
Iran deal and lifting sanctions on them means nothing with Saudi crashing oil prices. I think Iran's break even is over $100 barrel so they have made zero this year.
Update: Russia and Saudi Arabia's break-even prices are both around $105/barrel, and Iran's is neary $130.
zerohedge plese fix your ugly image stretching code, just specify width and let it automatically find height or so
That's Sacrilege to you, son.
The corrupt, cruel, crony monarchy would not survive a day without US support.
The Saudi government cannot really survive and operate and extend its power in the region or act as a regional power without strong United States support.
Let us remember that about 40 percent of the American taxpayers’ budget for the US defense is spent protecting the [Persian] Gulf monarchies. So the American citizenry is paying over 255 billion dollars a year to protect the Saudi and other [Persian] Gulf monarchies.
And the Saudis have been dependent on the United States for their internal and external security if you take back the issue from the 1980s when the Carter Doctrine was established to defend these absolute monarchies from mostly internal threats more so than the external threats. So yes, the Saudis depend on United States for security and their survival.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/07/22/421411/Saudi-Arabia-US-Ashton-C...
Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, extended the Carter Doctrine in October 1981 with what is sometimes called the "Reagan Corollary to the Carter Doctrine", which proclaimed that the United States would intervene to protect Saudi Arabia, whose security was threatened after the Iran–Iraq War's outbreak. Thus, while the Carter Doctrine warned away outsideforces from the region, the Reagan Corollary pledged to secure internal stability
(Wiki)
<< So the American citizenry is paying over 255 billion dollars a year to protect the Saudi and other [Persian] Gulf monarchies. >>
But in return, POTUS and Mrs POTUS get free lifetime camel rides. That counts for something, right.
Obama riding the wookie's camel toe.
Such imagery.
If Trump is elected it will be so soft on the eyes to see his First Lady.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9v7diwjGz5gMLOha4...
"Are those real?!"
Next conspiracy theory that even the MSN will persue.
The Trumpster's hair is real. Everything else is PR imagery.
"Let us remember that about 40 percent of the American taxpayers’ budget for the US defense is spent protecting the [Persian] Gulf monarchies. So the American citizenry is paying over 255 billion dollars a year to protect the Saudi and other [Persian] Gulf monarchies."
And there is the subsidy paid for oil. My solar panels and electric car do not need an army to protect it.
Got that oil soaked punks?
looks like the wookie is cupping himself for comfort...i thought the despotic house of spud required headgear for women...oh wait..
It was Man Tuesday, so no need.
Jumpin Jehosiphat the totus of the US got captured by Muslims. Somebody call the police.
I'm sure Barry criticized the Saudis for their human rights brutal violations which are 1000 times worse then China's.
No they aren't. China has 1.4 billion people to work on and does most of its work in the shadows rather than in the harsh light of day in the desert. Not saying that the fanbelts are nice people, just that they aren't 1000 x worse than China.
Psychopathic criminal puppets of Zion hosting other psychopathic criminal puppets of Zion.
Zion is a scheme, not an ethnicity..
"No! I don't think so! I killed more people for Zion this year than you."
Zion is a small town in Illinois.
Kissinger was the archititect of the petrodollar, used to recycle Saudi dollars into US debt instruments, so that the value of the US dollar would maintain purchasing power even when the US went off the gold standard. In effect, the Saudi's have been functioning as an inexhaustable 'Fort Knox of oil ', and rather than converting eurodollars into US gold as France did in the 1960's, France and other countries have been converting their US dollars into Saudi oil, and then the Saudi's convert these dollars into US treasuries.
It is the international bankers (IB's), all connected to Israel and the Rothschilds, whose power over all of us consists entirely of the morally fraudulent ownership of each nation's currency, who need the need the Saudis to accept US dollars (or euros or pounds but never ever gold) for oil. And the Saudis are willing to set a low price for oil if they are told to by the IB's if that is their wish. To refuse to do so, would mean their imminent overthrow by the CIA.
The US governement is clearly run by the international banks and ONLY for their benefit, since 1913 at least. The US population is clearly too dummed down at this point to do anything about it. The Germans perhaps had the highest education or historical awareness of events (in the 1920's), and were the first Western country to be destroyed by these same international bankers. Einstein stated that the isolation of Germany in the early 1930's for failure to pay the Versaille debts, was unfair to the Germans and would lead to a breakdown in international relations. The same isolation now is being applied to Russia.
The main Sunni state in terms of population is Egypt and Egypt will NOT come to the aid of the Saudis in any showdown in Yemen with Iran, the main Shia state. There is something called 'hubris and nemesis' or 'pride goeth before the fall' and the Saudis are going to go down hard and will end up in massive debt to the IB's; then the plan is for the takeover of the Saudi oil fields by Israell connected banks.
Shia Iran is more than a match for the corrupt decadent Saudi monarchy. And Israel is waiting to pick up ownership or majority control of the Saudi fields the longer the price of oil stays below $80 per barrel, the breakeven price the Saudi' need to stay outo debt to the IBs.
+100
Thank you for stating it so clearly.
What Really Happened in the “Yom Kippur” War?http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/22/what-really-happened-in-the-yom-k...
henry and the petro-dollar......
and then this........from wiki...
In his 1992 biography of Henry Kissinger, Walter Isaacson records that on 6 October 1973, during the 1973 Arab Israeli War, Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff General Alexander Haig to keep Nixon in Florida in order to avoid "any hysterical moves" and to "keep any Walter Mitty tendencies under control".[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mitty
Really?
"It is the international bankers (IB's), all connected to Israel and the Rothschilds, whose power over all of us consists entirely of the morally fraudulent ownership of each nation's currency, who need the need the Saudis to accept US dollars (or euros or pounds but never ever gold) for oil."
Which explains why the Iran deal will clear the Congress.
Helps Barry Boy...maybe until the whole deal craters and he becomes the new Neville Chamberlain
Heighten s threat to Israel directly and indirectly by releasing billions to the Irana Guard to stir up trouble.
Hurts European allies as more syrians flee the Assad regime back by Iran and Iranian funded Hezbollah.
A brilliant Zionist plot, surely not.
Syrians don't flee the "Assad regime", but western backed jihadi terrorists.
80% of displaced Syrians have found shelter in government controlled areas btw.
I don't approve of burkas, but I'll make an exception when it comes to the first Wookie.
"The concept of Hijrah- Immigration- as a means of supplanting the native population and reaching the position of power became a well-developed doctrine in Islam. Immigration in Islam is not a Western liberal romance about how the newcomers gratefully search for opportunities for a better life in liberty and offer their talents and loyalty to the benefit of their new homeland. Immigration as Islam sees it is an instrument of Islamic expansionism that employs religious and ethnic separatism in order to gain special status and privilege, then subvert, subdue, and subjugate non-Muslim societies and pave the way for their total Islamization and implementation of Shari’ah law.
The main principle for a Muslim community in a non-Muslim country is that it must be separate and distinct. Already in the Charter of Medina, Muhammad outlined the basic rule for Muslims who emigrate to non-Muslim land, i.e., they must form a separate body, keeping their own laws and making the host country comply with them:
(3) The Quraysh emigrants according to their present custom shall pay the bloodwit within their number and shall redeem their prisoners with the kindness and justice common among believers.
Muslims from the beginning made it clear that they were going to live by their own laws.
Source: http://www.nationalturk.com/en/woolwhich-murderbritain-under-danger-unde...
Source: http://www.nationalturk.com/en/woolwhich-murderbritain-under-danger-unde...
Muhammad’s teachings forbid Muslims to immigrate to a non-Muslim country if they pursue the goal of their own personal gain or pleasure. But if they immigrate with the ultimate goal of spreading Islam and making it victorious, or at least this is a part of the reason for their immigration, then they are allowed both pleasure and personal gain. A Muslim immigrant should not integrate with the host society, but if his stay depends on showing some kind of integration to the host non-Muslim society, then he is permitted to demonstrate a fake integration, only in appearance and only temporarily, until the goal of subduing and the Islamization of this host society is achieved.
That is why all those discussions so popular among Western liberals about which method is best for the integration of the religious Muslim immigrants into the host non-Muslim societies are not only futile; they are amusing, like disputes about the best way to make a tiger a vegetarian.
The next rule Muhammad made clear was that immigration for Muslims is a religious duty. The reason is simple and evident: the more Muslims come to a non-Muslim country, the more possibilities this will open for infiltration in all structures of this country with the final goal of securing victory for Islam, and more soldiers will stand up when the time of Jihad comes. Immigration is a preparatory stage to Jihad, and Muhammad made it very clear when he said:
“I charge you with five of what Allah has charged me with: to assemble, to listen, to obey, to immigrate and to wage Jihad for the sake of Allah.”[1]
The religious duty of immigration was stated in numerous Koranic Surahs: 2:218, 8:72,74,75; 9:30,; 16:41; 16:110…They all start with the same words: “Those who believed and emigrated, and strove hard and fought in Allah’s Cause…” Immigration goes as a step stone for Jihad; where you cannot establish Islam by force is where Immigration enters. And in practice, it looks like that: Islam in Egypt, Palestine and Persia was spread by the sword; but many other countries- Indonesia, Malaysia, Central Asia, some parts of India- were gained through “immigration.”
Immigration in Islam is merely a disguised conquest.
And if someone thinks that this disguised conquest ended, then they are fatally wrong: immigration ends only when Islam achieves its goal of conquering the world, and Muhammad, again, stated this very clearly:
“Migration cannot be ended as long as there is kufr (unbelief) or as long as there is an enemy that resists” [2]
Later Muhammad developed this idea, saying:
“Migration will continue until the sun rises from the West. Hijrah would not be stopped until repentance is cut off, and repentance will not be cut off until the sun rises from the West”[3]
So immigration can end only when a community or a country has been won over, and the conquest has been achieved. But Jihad does not end until all the world is Islamic, and Muslims should not stop until Islam dominates the world.
As Muhammad formulated it, “There can be no Hijrah (migration) after the conquest but Jihad and a desire or an intention, and if you settle then spread out.”
From the start, Muhammad brushed aside the Christian postulate about separation of Church and State: in the Islamic community, Church is State, and State is Church. The most important result of Hijrah was the expansion of Islam outside its initial borders not only as a religion, but as a socio-religious and socio-political system. Muslim immigration is a transitional period of preparation for transforming the host society from an open society into an Islamic society of the “slaves of Allah” and of establishing a political system, a State, based on Islamic principles."
By: Y.K. Cherson
Chop.chop...there goes some heads
What a sad image, poor little legacy commie kid playing at world leader, couldn't look more out of his depth than this right here with that sheepish grin. And did somebody get that walking carpet out of his way?
Just fucking invade them and export democracy there. At least the bastards there deserve it.
We only export war and inflation these days
Spend less time ridiculing a weak, false man in a place of power, and more time weeding out those who enable him.
I'm still pondering what was acceded to the Saudis for them to accept the Iran-deal
just to run the war in Yemen doesn't seem to be all that "it" to me
Cultural relativism (on crack).
The Saudis just have a "defferent political system" than we do.
They are in fact our equals.
/s
The Sudies use swords to separate heads from the bodies of their hated. The US uses drones. Bed mates for sure.
Once again we destabilize the Mideast.Europe gets a half billion muslim refugees.Worked out well for the Dutch.
Everyone wants a mosque next door screaming prayer calls in the morning." Be culturally sensitive!".Hmm....
The Dutch are dead.
Dutch speaking sheep remain.
15 of the 19 "hijackers" on September 11, 2001 demolition derby were Saudi.
Nothing more has to be said....
The fact that it was "said" does not make it true.
https://youtu.be/dWUzfJGmt5U
The authors of the Declaration of Independence wrote "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," - when clearly that is not true either.
Tell me again how this won't fuel right-wing extremist youth groups across Europe? Young,mostly male refugees will call home,sponsoring the other twenty members of their family in tents on the Turkey border? All this to kick Assads ass? Seems like the country was fairly peaceful ten years ago.What happened?
"Consider some of the chief characteristics of the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is a family-run enterprise in which the distribution and exercise of political power are every bit as medieval as they ever were in any country ruled by the Plantagenets. "
Not a good comparison. I think you will find that the Plantagenets , both earlier and later, rough though they could be, were both morally and constitutionally,as well as culturally, planetarily more advanced than America's modern Wahhabist allies.
Saint Louis more fits the bill than Richard lionheart; who like Saint Louis lost his crusade.
Saint Louis was a christian "wahhabist".
All the others, before and after, were just colonial conquerors looking for Oriental booty, (spice/silk/precious stones), as avid replacements to Byzantium's pivotal role as SOLE east/west interlocutary; by their own frankish expansion.
The Orient and Byzantium were much richer than West and more cultured as well. They could understand Arsitotle and they could count, could recite poetry, charter the geography and fuck their women without shame of penitence. Something that all christians had forgotten under the papal gun of "god wills it" nonsense.
Until poetry and good fucking (the troubadour and courtly love tradition) were rediscovered by rubbing shoulders first with the Moors of Spain (during Charlemagne's age) and then the infidel of Levant (from 1090 onwards).
All good education for the white trash crusaders of that age, who couldn't tell a vagina from a turnip. Consult the current queen's vagina artefact in Versailles on that issue.
KHOBAR TOWERS EXPLOSION INVESTIGATION OBSTRUCTED. 9/11 INVESTIGATION OBSTRUCTED.
BIN LADEN INVESTIGATION OBSTRUCTED.
Thank God nobody interferes with our due process.....
The USA should ban travel to the USA from approximately 15 Mid-east, North African and South Asian countries. The first on that list should be Saudi Arabia
The Saudis Wahabist philosopy is the most retrograde, and dangerous, in the world.
...is it just me?
Tom Friedman gives me a 5-star headache. The kind that percosets and hydocodone cannot touch.
The guy is in love too much with his shadow.
Without mentioning the role Israel plays in this and their relationship in this power structure, this article is pointless
The assassination of Hariri was a false-flag. Please don't repeat this nonsense here.
"The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has rehashed his political accusation, wrapped with technical explanations of the unique staging of this case: the alleged circumstantial evidence of the telephone lines, assumed to be the result of nine-year investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which cost so far, a quarter billion dollars.
The Attorney General rejected the version of the suicide bomber Ahmad Abu Adas, saying it was made to cover the tracks of the real assassins. But the prosecutor has no evidence justifying his rejection, although he acknowledged that the attack has been committed by a suicide bomber whose identity could not be determined, despite years of effort and colossal resources available to investigators, including all institutions of the Lebanese state. That investigators have access to all Lebanese archives, records of civil status, land registers, telephone data ... Briefly, the past, present and future of Lebanon is in the hands of these investigators, many working for foreign intelligence services, often enemies of Lebanon. "
http://www.voltairenet.org/article181929.html
The Israelis had access to the mobile phone network. Need I say more?
The assassination of Hariri was not a false flag. It was tactical road block. Alliances are as fleeting as the shifting sands of the Levant. Despite a cast of dogma thumping religious fundamentalists peddling hatred, the actors in the Bekaa valley more promiscuous in their unions than than the cast of a porn flick in the San Fernando valley - how many times did Ariel Sharon suck Hafez Assad cock to get what he wanted?. Hariri was killed by the same forces that killed Elie Hobeika. The linearity of western thinking, and predilection for overly simplistic categorization of each cast member as "friend or foe" when in fact each cast member is both a friend and a foe, will prevent that episode from ever being fully understood without the sands shifting such that a participant is inclined to divulge evidence against a former co-conspirator. The notion that some public tribunal would ever be allowed to delve into and publicly disseminate the intimate details of the relations among the local elite is laughable, airing all that dirty laundry would destroy everyone who is anyone- it was setup to achieve nothing, and in that process placate the sheeple and foreign observers.
From Arthur,
I believe this is a wrong analysis:
"It is the international bankers (IB's), all connected to Israel and the Rothschilds, whose power over all of us consists entirely of the morally fraudulent ownership of each nation's currency, who need the need the Saudis to accept US dollars (or euros or pounds but never ever gold) for oil."
Which explains why the Iran deal will clear the Congress.
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Aipac and Zionists are squawking against Iran deal. Persians are a middle eastern counterweight that can stop Isreal's plans for greater Zion.
Persians are Caucasoids who changed their name to Iran (Aryan) to signal they were part of the West.
The "deal" is an attempt to stop "Eurasia" from forming. There are two main thrusts from West to stop Eurasia, one was to China and says, hey please join us and you can have a seat at the IMF/World Bank table. That deal cratered with IMF SDR deal, where China was rejected "for now" on August 5'th. It is possible China scuttled the deal themselves.
The other thrust is against Russia and prevent pipelines/networks/integration.
Iran, Iraq, and Syria are key players to any pipeline or railroad strategy to move goods across Eurasia. Caspian Oil also has to transit this land route to make its way West to Mediterranean, and then to markets in Europe and elsewhere.
Shia Islam is a less virulent strain of Islam than is Wahabbi Sunni branch, as that which emanates from bedouin Arabs.
Germans, Italians, French are already making deals with Iran in advance of U.S. Congress. At this point, it may not even matter what Congress does or says.
Isreal may soon find themselves quarantined as they have not signed onto nuclear non proliferation treaty. Isreael may be forced to give up their nukes, because Iran has...even though Iran never had any. (Not likely that Israel will give them up, but Isreal loses even more moral cover.)
The 1973 Kissinger Saudi agreement is actually the most important aspect of America's relationship. It codifies house of Saud as being legitimate, it allows "cartel's", it gives Saudi's military protection - especially via 5'th fleet. Saudi's get front line military gear and training. Deal gives Saudi's guaranteed markets, so Princelings can be bribed into submission.
What so America and Zionists get?: All oil is to be priced in dollars, hence petrodollar standard. All dollars are to recycle into western markets and western banks. Note that Saudi does NOT step on the toes of Illuminist Zionist Bankers of the West, but instead partners with West in dollar recycling.
As I've pointed out on ZH before, creation of Eurasia makes Naval power projection much less important, and by association Saudi Arabia. Eurasia will form a connected network of pipelines; this will happen as sure as the Sun rises in the East.
Saudi's get their oil to markets primarily by sea and they may be shut out of pipeline markets.
Russia and Caspian basin has plenty of oil, and that oil will find its way to markets. Industry in Europe needs oil as energy, and middle eastern nations need finished goods. Many middle eastern countrys' cannot make "things" either by inability or lack of having natural resources.
BRICS system is alternate money system, already creating long term "credit" needed to build pipelines.
It is just a matter of time before petrodollar standard falls, and BRIC "credit" as money is used to coordinate labor, materials and goods production. In turn, Eurasia will rise, and Iran - the great chess player - will be part of Eurasia.
Baghdad Berlin railway 100 years ago threatened to unite Eurasia, and money powers Wall Street/City of London/International Jew were against it. The "railroad" ultimately led to WW1 and then WW2.
Fracking could upset that whole apple cart. Which is why Qatar supports propaganda against it.
When it all collapses there will only be one victor.
Addicted to oil? In that sense:
We are addicted to EATING.
Were Saudi feodals so palatable, why not to enxtend this friendship to the North Korean dynasty too.
Both of them stand equally firm behind our moral values, that serve as pretexes in other contxes.
it always creeped me out seeing GW hold hands with those criminal dictators, I get trade & defense sales, and allowing Saudis to buy US vacations and US college degrees...... but US citzenship and holding hands?
Bush didn't even know he was a fucking waiter, at least Obama knew his place and bowed.