Saudis Threaten Retaliation If Sanctions are Imposed

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

This is getting ridiculous. Nobody's mentioned sanctions but the big boys in Riyadh are ready for them.

"As the Riyadh stock market plunged on growing investor jitters, Saudi Arabia warned Sunday that it would retaliate against any sanctions imposed on the oil-rich kingdom over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, AFP reported." Here.

I haven't heard anyone threaten with sanctions, have you? Even Marco Rubio is quite guarded in his choice of words regarding the affair.

The party's in full swing. An op-ed from an apparently prominent Saudi media person has warned, yes warned, the Russians will end up setting a military base in Saudi Arabia if the U.S. turns its back on its Middle Eastern ally. I wish they did their research before taking to the media, honestly.

[John Foote + 1,135]

MBS's Game of Thobes plays well In Kingdom, but his out of Kingdom adventures suggest a fool with little concept of the limitations of his power. With the right leaning there will be another silent coup, and the Kingdom back to their version of normal. Saudi's have deposed Kings before. I'll be surprise to see MBS live to be an octogenarian like so many of the House of Saud. And what happened to the guy who game up with the '73 oil embargo? Shot by a crazed relative. 

The King is allegedly semi-senile, with good days and bad days, and probably didn't know, and might still not. It's not like he's fluent in english and Trump speaks efficiently. But the King stopped the nonsense over supporting the US moving the embassy in Israel, and wouldn't have selling the crown jewels (Aramco) on his watch. At some point he'll have to pull the plug on his favorite son for the legacy of the family. And those 15,000 royals, probably 14,990 would pull the trigger if they had the chance to remove MBS. He might be as ruthless as Stalin, but Stalin was a self-made man, not born on third base, believing he hit a triple.

Saudi is so interconnected in global finance the classic overt retributions can't happen, and they can't retaliate either. If there is any country more addicted to petrodollars than Saudi Arabia, I don't know it. And that includes the US. And OMG do they invest in quiet lobbying. They know how to buy a vote. If hitting the World Trade Towers and funding global terrorism for years didn't stop their special relationship with the US, trying to extradite one of their own citizens certainly won't end the relationship. Although if I'm Putin, it's Xmas in October.

As for worrying that the Saudi's won't support our Iranian witch hunt, not a worry. They want that far more than we do.

If MBS doesn't suffer a loss of face over this, he will be even more embolden. As for the giant arm sales. The agreement was made up, fake MOU. The MOI was mostly just what was already agreed to under Obama. And they haven't acted on most of it. Don't get me wrong, they buy a lot, but not the scale suggested.

The only real losers here are Jamal, his fiancee, and good Saudi people. I am relieved he wasn't Shia. 

[Epic + 390]

A lot of strange geopolitical things have been happening in the last year.  Part of me feels that MbS is being set up by forces out of his control.  I don't think the US will take the bait.  

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

6 hours ago, John Foote said:

not born on third base, believing he hit a triple.

Love it!

Sadly, this describes to a T so many SJWs and self-entitled others in the world these days.  There's nothing that disgusts me more than someone saying something like "I'm from xyz country and we are the greatest" when they have not done a damned thing "great" themselves.  Saying the country you come from is a great country is okay, and enough, if that is your opinion.  Just because a person was born of a woman in xyz country does NOT make that person one of the greats, and the opposite is true as well.  As my father taught: every man deserves a chance, but he has to earn a second chance.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Dan Warnick

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

They wheeled back on Sunday but now there's been hypothetical talk about stopping oil exports to the U.S. It's cute.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Marina Schwarz said:

They wheeled back on Sunday but now there's been hypothetical talk about stopping oil exports to the U.S. It's cute.

So about that Yemen hiccup...

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

What's that you're saying? Sorry, can't hear you. Hello? Hello? Did you say yeomen?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Saudi Arabia's years-long war against Yemen.  Middle East's richest country unilaterally attacks the Middle East's poorest country.  And still can't win, despite years trying, and using hugely expensive U.S. milirary hardware.

And a few days ago, I seem to recall reading that Yemen forces pushed through and reclaimed some of their former territory in Southern Saudi Arabia.  Since that news is normally censored and murky, it's difficult to confirm.

The U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia seems to have something to do with this sudden, manufactured, breathless, "breaking news" about a reporter getting murdered by Saudi Arabia. 

In the Middle East, a journalist getting murdered is suddenly global headline news?  Really?  This seems fairly routine for absolute dictatorships in the Middle East. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Without oil, what value does Saudi Arabia in general offer to the world?  We already have enough absolute dictators.  And sand.

[Epic + 390]

5 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Without oil, what value does Saudi Arabia in general offer to the world?  We already have enough absolute dictators.  And sand.

Saudi Arabia has many wonderful things to offer.  They come in really handy when you need a prisoner tortured, or if you need a journalist killed, or if you need to tweet about funding secured...  The list goes on and on!

[Tomasz + 1,608]

Arab people for sure are not good soldiers.

In couple of wars with Israel they had a decent weapon although USSR always sold them export versions like T-72 M which is in fact completely other tank than soviet T-72 B - they have only the same name but soviet version is more expensive and a lot better. T-72 M  were produced in Poland in Łabedy factory and german experts after 1990 were suprised that T-72B which was only in soviet and east german army were such a lot better than standard T-72M export version outside soviet union. This was case with Saddam Husein T-72 M - you can read about it on military websites. Saddam aditionally had archaic bullets for its tanks thank to the fact USSR during iraq-iran war decided not to sell military equipment for Saddam. 

The same with aircrafts like Mig-15 and probaly all weapons they get from Warsaw Pact.

There was a general rule. First class weapon was only available for Soviet Army alone second class version was for Warsaw pact countries third class was for Arabs because the had no choice.

So they always got cheaper and significantly worse export versions of modern soviet weapons but that was still rather on decent level. They for example had a revolutionary T-55 which could fight in dark so isreal tank  forces should have lost without doubt.

And despite that in all wars with Isreal they were beaten quite easily because jewish soldiers especially pilots were best in the world and Arab contries had arab soldiers.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Tomasz

[Seleskya + 50]

This actually might have been a rather outsized overstep for MbS. Others have mentioned how it's not insignificant that everyone's talking to King Salman now instead of him. He is not all powerful in his oil-rich kingdom and this won't bode well for him in that respect. I think he's going to lose something in a rather dramatic Royal manner over this. 

[Seleskya + 50]

meaning that markets have every cause to be jittery right now, even if it's not explicitly about Russia gaining more influence in the Middle East. 

[AE911truth.org + 17]

If there are people in KSA who would like to get rid of MbS via a coup, I think they could get plenty of outside support now.  I'm wondering if there's a possibility of KSA going into civil war with the effect upon oil production similar to Libya's.     https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coup-saudi-dissident-prince-khaled-bin-farhan-urges-uncles-seize-power-mbs-1776042904

Edited October 17, 2018 by AE911truth.org
Edited to add link

[Tomasz + 1,608]

59 minutes ago, mthebold said:

I can't speak to the relative quality of Israeli and Arab soldiers, but I do see that Israel has developed a fiercely competent culture whereas Arab countries are only able to survive on oil money.  Oil has elevated their international influence far beyond what they could earn on merit, and wealth has made their cultures soft.  It wouldn't be surprising, then, if Arab soldiers were sub-par. 

I would also note that competence is earned by facing challenge.  Infantry - allegedly the lowest of the low - must combine physical skill, emotional discipline, extensive professional knowledge, and PhD-level creativity into a single package - and they must do so under extreme stress and deprivation.  When you play the most dangerous game, you get smart or you die.  As a result, veteran infantry tend to be fiercely competent.  College graduates, on the other hand, strike me as mentally stunted. 

Which brings us back to the Middle East: wealthy, soft, countries with no competence worth mentioning.  I expect we'll see these fools parted from their money. 

I can say just that my father who was military pilot had a contact in Poland with syrian pilots during some trainings for communist pact.

  Polish instructors were very upset that syrian pilots were quite insorburdinate especially in contacts with women.

But main problem was rather that they have all teaching aids translated to Arabic and instructors really take care of them  in quite long military training in Poland but they still obtained rather poor results both in theory and practice.

Finally he was shocked when it turned out that  significant part of them  = pilots that are traditionaly elites of every army were simply iliterate.

Another problem was that they were not the most talented people in Syria but because of clannish structure of every Arab society rather the well-connected.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Tomasz

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 minute ago, mthebold said:

Now that you mention it, a war between Middle Eastern nations would be rather hilarious to watch. 

You mean like the ongoing war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen?