Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia

What happens when oil prices fall…

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/round-saudi-princes-businessmen-widens-travel-curbs-imposed-083251967--finance.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/blaming-iran-saudi-says-huthi-strike-may-act-145627393.html

Looks like they’ll be too busy sorting out their own problems to sponsor terrorism. And Iran may be distracted for a while, too.

Terrorism is bad, but I much prefer local terrorism to global terrorism. It’s more… contained.

This is all Trump’s fault somehow. I can’t connect the dots, but it’s got to be. Right?

Or maybe it’s Sarah Palin. “Drill, baby, drill.” Thus cheap oil is big trouble to all sorts of regimes based on dodgy ideologies.

I’d be afraid that the collapse of oil revenue would lead to desperate acts of global terrorism, except history shows the exact opposite correlation.

Pure power grab. The Crown Prince wants to tackle corruption? His own Sudairi clan within the Royal family (e.g., think King Fahd) was by far the most corrupt. Abdullah`s side of the family was far less corrupt and yet the Crown Prince has gone after that side by purging his sons from the National Guard force.

2 Likes

They’ve always been corrupt, but it never mattered before. Now it matters. That’s the real story.

What would “corruption” even mean in a country where patronage politics is the norm, and most citizens either have no job at all, or “work” for the government? With thousands of parasitical princes?

1 Like

Corruption and honesty are culturally specific concepts. But some cultures just objectively work better than others.

So, yes. We can pass judgment on their culture as a whole. Especially when it has consequences for us. We can apply our standards to them - specifically, judge their standards by ours.

I favor the approach that won the Cold War. Just stop propping them up and focus on containing them while they self destruct. It seems cruel, but everything else leads to even greater human misery.

Remake alert! “Star Wars 2.0” will be better than the original Dune!

(And probably more expensive. Y’know, inflation… :whistle:)

How much of this can be blamed on “culture,” and how much on a particular political regime?

I thought oil was at a two year high?

Now the Iran China deal makes more sense. It wasn’t about ending the war in Yemen (I hope that happens, though), it’s about negotiating with the US. Shrewd

1 Like

Such strong links with China have been going on for years on human resource sides within the Kingdom.

Replacing Western-hired uni presidents with Chinese ones. Big preference for Asian academics over Western ones.

The former won’t lecture about human rights when MBS sends goon squads for extra-judicial killings. :laughing:

2 Likes

Yeah, I’m sure the woke academic activists are not welcome. That said, aside from KAUST which unis have nin Saudi Presidents I wonder?

On one hand they talk about science, creative collisions, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad in history, how they are contributing to the global community etc. at places such as KAUST, etc. then they act like uber-fascists/Vichyites that send academics packing over very small disagreements (hardly woke activism).

It’s also a face culture, like Asian countries. Don’t make people look bad, learn to work within the system.

Let’s face it, the Asian academics are probably going to work harder and cause fewer problems

1 Like

Then they shouldn’t market it as a place where creative collision occurs and where start-ups are welcomed to scale up. Not that it will happen despite unlimited cash. Despite Saudization, the Saudis, even at senior levels and Aramco executives, are almost child-like in their inability to spot talent and interact with professional foreigners. You are either their slave or enemy. Pure Wahhabism ideologies even at the higher levels.

They saw something in a young @TT, actually I found there was a variety but the guys at the top where I was were quite switched on

I was surprisingly well treated, especially considering my age and qualifications at the time. I think about going back there when Taiwan dries up for me

Yeah, that wasn’t my experience at all

Hopefully this ‘Rules Based Order’ sponsored war will end:

Woke crowd, feel free to ‘fact-check’ this, as it may be more ‘constant false information’.

2 Likes

More peace in Mideast. The MICers and neocons are not going to like this one bit. Need a war elsewhere.
Asia been very quiet with 'em for awhile, cough, cough.

2 Likes

It’s a civil war and proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, nothing to do with a rules based order

Enough with this

Thanks to Russian invasion and Chinese threats, the MIC can’t produce weapons fast enough right now. Many countries are practically begging for weapons. Not that a lot of US weapons go to Yemen.

it’s all about the next war(s) for MICers and neocons

1 Like