Saudi Arabia - paying others to do their dirty work

[YoUDeeMan]

"In a statement made in December 2015 but which gained attention last week, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Sheikh, declared that chess was forbidden for Muslims. This was only one among many ignorant, bigotry-laced and extremist statements that constantly flow from the kingdom."

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Iran-was-t ... bia-442626" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pretty good article:

"In June 2015 the Saudis also told Israelis at the Council on Foreign Relations in the US that Iran was a common enemy.

The courting of Israel comes against the backdrop of the rise and fall of IS in the region and the frustration of Sunni regimes with their inability to topple Bashar Assad in Syria. At the base of the Saudi worldview is an interest in using other actors to achieve the kingdom’s goals in the region. In the 1980s that meant bankrolling Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. In 1990 it meant asking the Americans to “save” it from Saddam when he got too big for his britches and invaded Kuwait. Every time the Saudis find themselves in trouble they sell their role in the region as guaranteeing stability. Bret Stephens bought into this in a column on January 19, noting that the US must “stand by” its historic Saudi ally “lest they be tempted to continue freelancing their foreign policy in ways we might not like.” This is the Saudi blackmail tactic; support us or the “real” extremists might emerge, not “us moderate Wahhabis” that only ban chess and such.

The Sunni Arab states that want Israel to help them confront Iran have proved incapable of doing so themselves. In Yemen the “grand alliance” of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and others, has relied on Columbian mercenaries, and King Salman of Saudi Arabia even asked Pakistan to send troops.

The same weird idea that outsiders could topple Syria’s Assad led Turkey to allow thousands of IS volunteers to transit its borders. Initially Turkey thought that the Syrian rebels would defeat Assad, but for unknown reasons the country also didn’t notice the cancerous growth of IS. The Saudi-Turkey- Qatar alliance against Assad could have toppled him in 2013 and 2014 if they had not allowed IS to grow but instead backed the moderate rebel factions.

Instead they played “wait and see.” Not until 2015 did Turkey begin to detain large numbers of IS volunteers, by which time it was too late and IS had conquered parts of Iraq and Syria and emboldened Iran, eventually leading Russia to intervene.

Assad, whom everyone hated in 2013, was suddenly the “bulwark against extremism.”'



Keep fracking...let the Turbanites kill themselves.

[ASUG8]

I'm not sure I agree. They provided 15/19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

[YoUDeeMan]

I'm not sure I agree. They provided 15/19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

Good point.

BTW, as of 4 months ago, they've managed to lose an Apache helicopter and three M1 Abram's tanks in their intervention against Yemen. Seems as though those anti-tank missiles are getting better and better every day.

How come the mainstream media isn't covering the Saudi war against Yemen? The link below gives a nice synopsis of what has been going on...but you hear crickets from the US media. Saudi Arabia decided to get involved in the Yemen civil war, and now they are getting what they deserve.

Nlo wonder they now want Israeli (and US, and Europe's) help.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/poli ... t-in-yemen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"HOUTHI COUNTERMOVES
Houthi units and former Yemeni Army forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh have responded to the coalition buildup in Marib by scaling up their cross-border raids into the Saudi provinces of Asir, Jizan, and Najran. Since mid-August, platoon-strength Houthi light infantry teams have overrun border forts and conducted deadly ambushes. The heavy Saudi losses have included one Apache gunship, three M1 Abrams tanks, three other tanks, one M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four tracked armored personnel carriers, plus over two dozen MRAPs, Humvees, and light vehicles. And on August 23, the commander of the Royal Saudi Land Forces 18th Brigade, Maj. Gen. Abdul Rahman al-Shahrani, was killed during a border fight in Jizan. Since then, the raids have escalated into more sustained engagements that have forced the Saudis to call in airstrikes inside their own territory.

Houthi/Saleh forces have also increased their missile and rocket attacks into the kingdom. On August 26, a Scud fired toward the Jizan power plant was intercepted by a Saudi Patriot missile, and Najran Airport was attacked with BM-27 Uragan rocket fire on September 2. Airports in Asir, Jizan, and Najran provinces have been closed since July due to the rocket threat. The deadliest incident was the aforementioned September 4 missile strike, in which an SS-21 Scarab (a.k.a. OTR-21 Tochka) fired by pro-Saleh forces struck a vehicle park at the Safir FOB, killing forty-five Emiratis, ten Saudis, and five Bahrainis. Pro-Houthi media sources claimed four Apaches were destroyed, along with forty other vehicles."


Eff the Saudis.

[kalm]

I'm not sure I agree. They provided 15/19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

Good point.

BTW, as of 4 months ago, they've managed to lose an Apache helicopter and three M1 Abram's tanks in their intervention against Yemen. Seems as though those anti-tank missiles are getting better and better every day.

How come the mainstream media isn't covering the Saudi war against Yemen? The link below gives a nice synopsis of what has been going on...but you hear crickets from the US media. Saudi Arabia decided to get involved in the Yemen civil war, and now they are getting what they deserve.

Nlo wonder they now want Israeli (and US, and Europe's) help.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/poli ... t-in-yemen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"HOUTHI COUNTERMOVES
Houthi units and former Yemeni Army forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh have responded to the coalition buildup in Marib by scaling up their cross-border raids into the Saudi provinces of Asir, Jizan, and Najran. Since mid-August, platoon-strength Houthi light infantry teams have overrun border forts and conducted deadly ambushes. The heavy Saudi losses have included one Apache gunship, three M1 Abrams tanks, three other tanks, one M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four tracked armored personnel carriers, plus over two dozen MRAPs, Humvees, and light vehicles. And on August 23, the commander of the Royal Saudi Land Forces 18th Brigade, Maj. Gen. Abdul Rahman al-Shahrani, was killed during a border fight in Jizan. Since then, the raids have escalated into more sustained engagements that have forced the Saudis to call in airstrikes inside their own territory.

Houthi/Saleh forces have also increased their missile and rocket attacks into the kingdom. On August 26, a Scud fired toward the Jizan power plant was intercepted by a Saudi Patriot missile, and Najran Airport was attacked with BM-27 Uragan rocket fire on September 2. Airports in Asir, Jizan, and Najran provinces have been closed since July due to the rocket threat. The deadliest incident was the aforementioned September 4 missile strike, in which an SS-21 Scarab (a.k.a. OTR-21 Tochka) fired by pro-Saleh forces struck a vehicle park at the Safir FOB, killing forty-five Emiratis, ten Saudis, and five Bahrainis. Pro-Houthi media sources claimed four Apaches were destroyed, along with forty other vehicles."

Fuck the Saudis.

Because the Houthi's need to up their lobbying game.

And...

FTFY, Ganny.

Saudi Arabia Continues Hiring Spree of American Lobbyists, Public Relations Experts

Lee Fang
Oct. 5 2015, 8:53 a.m.
Saudi Arabia is in the market for a better reputation in Washington, D.C.

In September alone, foreign lobbying disclosure documents show the Saudi government signing deals with PR powerhouse Edelman and lobbying leviathan the Podesta Group, according to recent disclosures.

Edelman, the largest privately owned public relations agency in the world, is known for helping clients win favorable media coverage on mainstream outlets. The Podesta Group is a lobbying firm founded by Tony Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The new signings are the latest in a year-long hiring spree by the Persian Gulf state as it further builds up its already formidable political arsenal inside the Beltway. The Saudi Arabian Royal Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.....

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/sau ... ion-firms/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BTW, good thread Clucky!

[ASUG8]

I'd like for us to unbalance the scales with the Saudis. Drill most of our oil domestically and have them totally reliant on us for military equipment and training while they fight their own wars.

[Ivytalk]

I'm not sure I agree. They provided 15/19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

Good point.

BTW, as of 4 months ago, they've managed to lose an Apache helicopter and three M1 Abram's tanks in their intervention against Yemen. Seems as though those anti-tank missiles are getting better and better every day.

How come the mainstream media isn't covering the Saudi war against Yemen? The link below gives a nice synopsis of what has been going on...but you hear crickets from the US media. Saudi Arabia decided to get involved in the Yemen civil war, and now they are getting what they deserve.

Nlo wonder they now want Israeli (and US, and Europe's) help.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/poli ... t-in-yemen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"HOUTHI COUNTERMOVES
Houthi units and former Yemeni Army forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh have responded to the coalition buildup in Marib by scaling up their cross-border raids into the Saudi provinces of Asir, Jizan, and Najran. Since mid-August, platoon-strength Houthi light infantry teams have overrun border forts and conducted deadly ambushes. The heavy Saudi losses have included one Apache gunship, three M1 Abrams tanks, three other tanks, one M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four tracked armored personnel carriers, plus over two dozen MRAPs, Humvees, and light vehicles. And on August 23, the commander of the Royal Saudi Land Forces 18th Brigade, Maj. Gen. Abdul Rahman al-Shahrani, was killed during a border fight in Jizan. Since then, the raids have escalated into more sustained engagements that have forced the Saudis to call in airstrikes inside their own territory.

Houthi/Saleh forces have also increased their missile and rocket attacks into the kingdom. On August 26, a Scud fired toward the Jizan power plant was intercepted by a Saudi Patriot missile, and Najran Airport was attacked with BM-27 Uragan rocket fire on September 2. Airports in Asir, Jizan, and Najran provinces have been closed since July due to the rocket threat. The deadliest incident was the aforementioned September 4 missile strike, in which an SS-21 Scarab (a.k.a. OTR-21 Tochka) fired by pro-Saleh forces struck a vehicle park at the Safir FOB, killing forty-five Emiratis, ten Saudis, and five Bahrainis. Pro-Houthi media sources claimed four Apaches were destroyed, along with forty other vehicles."


Eff the Saudis.

Jizan = Jizzang = Chizzang

Chizzy is on the Saudi payroll!

[YoUDeeMan]

You know what is funny? We have been supplying arms to Syria even as Obama was saying publicly that we were only supplying non-military aid.

So how does that stuff fly below the radar? Who supplies the arms? The CIA won't name or admit their contacts, but the Pentagon sometimes has to be more transparent.

Well, here's one story about those lovely arms dealers that work in the shadows:

"In early 2007, three stoner twentysomethings won a Defense Department contract to supply the Afghan military with $300 million worth of ammunition. "The dudes," as they came to be known—a ninth-grade dropout, a masseur, and a low-level pot dealer, all with little or no experience but plenty of nerve—had begun bidding on Pentagon arms contracts and winning out over massive international conglomerates. The Afghan contract wasn't their first, but it was by far their largest. They would have to source thousands of tons of mortar rounds, grenades, rockets, and 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and deliver all of it to Kabul at a particularly fraught time for the Afghan war effort.

To fill the order, though, the dudes secretly repackaged millions of rounds of decades-old, surplus Chinese ammo—illegal under the contract terms—before shipping them to Afghanistan. It was all going fine until they got caught by Pentagon investigators and wound up with their mugshots spread across the front page of the New York Times.

Their story is detailed in Guy Lawson's new book, Arms and the Dudes, a wildly entertaining saga with dual narratives. The first involves blackmail, criminals, hustlers, corrupt government officials, and three kids in way over their heads. The other, and for Lawson more important, side of the story, concerns how the Pentagon came to use private contractors like the dudes as proxies—and eventual fall guys—to secure weapons from gray market arms dealers, the only people who could supply what it needed.

...GL: Here's something for you: None of this has changed! The risks are apparent in the headlines every day in Syria, Iraq. Proliferation is proliferation—the idea that you can pour a hundred million rounds of AK ammunition into a war zone with positive consequences strikes me as insane. The Albanian-Chinese ammunition at the center of this story is almost certainly being used in Syria right now, either by ISIS or Iran-backed Shia forces. You know, half the guns that went to Iraq were lost. Lost! This policy doesn't work. "

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ontracting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SDHornet]

^^^That would make a great Seth Rogan movie.

[SDHornet]

I'd like for us to unbalance the scales with the Saudis. Drill most of our oil domestically and have them totally reliant on us for military equipment and training while they fight their own wars.

[Ibanez]

You know what is funny? We have been supplying arms to Syria even as Obama was saying publicly that we were only supplying non-military aid.

So how does that stuff fly below the radar? Who supplies the arms? The CIA won't name or admit their contacts, but the Pentagon sometimes has to be more transparent.

Well, here's one story about those lovely arms dealers that work in the shadows:

"In early 2007, three stoner twentysomethings won a Defense Department contract to supply the Afghan military with $300 million worth of ammunition. "The dudes," as they came to be known—a ninth-grade dropout, a masseur, and a low-level pot dealer, all with little or no experience but plenty of nerve—had begun bidding on Pentagon arms contracts and winning out over massive international conglomerates. The Afghan contract wasn't their first, but it was by far their largest. They would have to source thousands of tons of mortar rounds, grenades, rockets, and 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and deliver all of it to Kabul at a particularly fraught time for the Afghan war effort.

To fill the order, though, the dudes secretly repackaged millions of rounds of decades-old, surplus Chinese ammo—illegal under the contract terms—before shipping them to Afghanistan. It was all going fine until they got caught by Pentagon investigators and wound up with their mugshots spread across the front page of the New York Times.

Their story is detailed in Guy Lawson's new book, Arms and the Dudes, a wildly entertaining saga with dual narratives. The first involves blackmail, criminals, hustlers, corrupt government officials, and three kids in way over their heads. The other, and for Lawson more important, side of the story, concerns how the Pentagon came to use private contractors like the dudes as proxies—and eventual fall guys—to secure weapons from gray market arms dealers, the only people who could supply what it needed.

...GL: Here's something for you: None of this has changed! The risks are apparent in the headlines every day in Syria, Iraq. Proliferation is proliferation—the idea that you can pour a hundred million rounds of AK ammunition into a war zone with positive consequences strikes me as insane. The Albanian-Chinese ammunition at the center of this story is almost certainly being used in Syria right now, either by ISIS or Iran-backed Shia forces. You know, half the guns that went to Iraq were lost. Lost! This policy doesn't work. "

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ontracting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I didn't read the article but are these the guys that were based out of Florida, bought and sold old, illegal and defective Chinese munitions and were eventually arrested? Sounds familiar. The guys were idiots.

[YoUDeeMan]

You know what is funny? We have been supplying arms to Syria even as Obama was saying publicly that we were only supplying non-military aid.

So how does that stuff fly below the radar? Who supplies the arms? The CIA won't name or admit their contacts, but the Pentagon sometimes has to be more transparent.

Well, here's one story about those lovely arms dealers that work in the shadows:

"In early 2007, three stoner twentysomethings won a Defense Department contract to supply the Afghan military with $300 million worth of ammunition. "The dudes," as they came to be known—a ninth-grade dropout, a masseur, and a low-level pot dealer, all with little or no experience but plenty of nerve—had begun bidding on Pentagon arms contracts and winning out over massive international conglomerates. The Afghan contract wasn't their first, but it was by far their largest. They would have to source thousands of tons of mortar rounds, grenades, rockets, and 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and deliver all of it to Kabul at a particularly fraught time for the Afghan war effort.

To fill the order, though, the dudes secretly repackaged millions of rounds of decades-old, surplus Chinese ammo—illegal under the contract terms—before shipping them to Afghanistan. It was all going fine until they got caught by Pentagon investigators and wound up with their mugshots spread across the front page of the New York Times.

Their story is detailed in Guy Lawson's new book, Arms and the Dudes, a wildly entertaining saga with dual narratives. The first involves blackmail, criminals, hustlers, corrupt government officials, and three kids in way over their heads. The other, and for Lawson more important, side of the story, concerns how the Pentagon came to use private contractors like the dudes as proxies—and eventual fall guys—to secure weapons from gray market arms dealers, the only people who could supply what it needed.

...GL: Here's something for you: None of this has changed! The risks are apparent in the headlines every day in Syria, Iraq. Proliferation is proliferation—the idea that you can pour a hundred million rounds of AK ammunition into a war zone with positive consequences strikes me as insane. The Albanian-Chinese ammunition at the center of this story is almost certainly being used in Syria right now, either by ISIS or Iran-backed Shia forces. You know, half the guns that went to Iraq were lost. Lost! This policy doesn't work. "

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ontracting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I didn't read the article but are these the guys that were based out of Florida, bought and sold old, illegal and defective Chinese munitions and were eventually arrested? Sounds familiar. The guys were idiots.

And they got approved to be arms dealers...for us.

Think about that.

And they aren't even the really bad guys that we hire to destabilize our enemies.

We dump HUMONGOUS amounts of money to groups that have not been vetted (intentionally in the dark) so that we can have an element of denial.

We can't seem to find money to put computers in every school and to improve our education, but gawdamn we don't even blink when giving tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to put guns in other people's hands in order to destabilize some backwoods country.

[Ibanez]

I didn't read the article but are these the guys that were based out of Florida, bought and sold old, illegal and defective Chinese munitions and were eventually arrested? Sounds familiar. The guys were idiots.

And they got approved to be arms dealers...for us.

Think about that.

And they aren't even the really bad guys that we hire to destabilize our enemies.

We dump HUMONGOUS amounts of money to groups that have not been vetted (intentionally in the dark) so that we can have an element of denial.

We can't seem to find money to put computers in every school and to improve our education, but gawdamn we don't even blink when giving tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to put guns in other people's hands in order to destabilize some backwoods country.

yeah, there was a Rolling Stone article on them when they were found out to be frauds. Interesting story.

[CID1990]

And they got approved to be arms dealers...for us.

Think about that.

And they aren't even the really bad guys that we hire to destabilize our enemies.

We dump HUMONGOUS amounts of money to groups that have not been vetted (intentionally in the dark) so that we can have an element of denial.

We can't seem to find money to put computers in every school and to improve our education, but gawdamn we don't even blink when giving tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to put guns in other people's hands in order to destabilize some backwoods country.

yeah, there was a Rolling Stone article on them when they were found out to be frauds. Interesting story.

Well there I went believing the whole story and then you go adding that element of doubt

[kalm]

yeah, there was a Rolling Stone article on them when they were found out to be frauds. Interesting story.

Well there I went believing the whole story and then you go adding that element of doubt

What? It's not like they raped somebody or something.

[Ivytalk]

They should carpet-bomb the whole ME and North Africa with the Zika virus and embargo the vaccine (if any).

[kalm]

They should carpet-bomb the whole ME and North Africa with the Zika virus and embargo the vaccine (if any).

[Chizzang]

If anybody had tried to argue these ^ points and observations in this thread before 9/11
They would have been looked at as crazy

Yet here we are...
So much more light has been cast on the dark corners of the Middle East

[AZGrizFan]

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

Don't hold your hand on your ass waiting for that to happen.

[Ivytalk]

They should carpet-bomb the whole ME and North Africa with the Zika virus and embargo the vaccine (if any).

It's a solution, klam. Do you have one?

Gawd, you're any easy troll.

[JohnStOnge]

I did some Googling on the chess thing. I'm sorry guys. I know at least some of you think all religions are alike and they're all crazy. But Islam is in a class by itself in that regard. You have to be an absolute lunatic to be a Muslim and believe some of the stuff that's in their sacred writings. And yes I know some Christians take the Bible literally and think a guy was swallowed by a whale and vomited up and all. But the Islamic texts are worse in terms of irrational crap they tell people to do and not do.