I'm so disappointed with the global status this shithole maintains. They are spending so much money on bots and propaganda that if you look at Twitter, Tiktok or Instagram it's full of organic spam and any comments calling out this disgusting place get removed or piled on.
If it helps, that money is leaving their country which is funded by a natural resource that is losing its economic value and they have nothing economically beyond that, plus will get drilled by climate change which they are responsible for in a lot of ways!
How many PGA golfers lined up to join LIV golf sponsored by the Saudi regime? Last year this was Phil Mickelson simping for the Saudi government saying: “I certainly do not condone human rights violations. And addressing what happened to Jamal Khashoggi is awful. But I have seen the good that game of golf has done throughout history. And I really believe that LIV can be good for the game of golf as well.’’
Seeing footballers who've spent the last decade preaching to their domestic fans about progressive politics bugger of to Saudi Arabia as soon as the money was better was hilarious. There's montage that Al Ettifaq put out of Henderson when they brought him, where they went as far as censoring the LGBT armband he's worn in the Premier League and internationals.
Lol no Saudi is weaker than it ever has been. The Saudis know their military is shit and their people won’t do anything to preserve their regime if the Iranians come after them. With the U.S. pulling out of the Middle East since Afghanistan they are flailing about seeking treaties with the Chinese and the Russians to guarantee their safety. However the Russian military and their equipment have proven to be very shit. The Chinese talk a good game but they don’t have the military to project power overseas and most of their equipment is based on Russian garbage.
The US doesn’t need their oil as we are a net exporter now. They’ve also cut oil exports in the last year to try and prop up prices. There is also a very good chance they have passed peak oil production and simply can not produce more.
So what does Saudi have left to offer? Peace with Israel and a conclusion to the Palestinian conflict… maybe. At least that is what they are offering Blinken for an Alliance during their latest visit.
Don’t let the article fool you the Saudis are weak and know they are in trouble without US guarantees of peace.
How has Western equipment fared in the Ukrainian counteroffensive? Last I checked, the Leopard 2 and Challenger were relegated to backline support because they weren't effective on the offensive and that Ukraine is still struggling with air defence (given that Russia has been tossing around FABs with impunity). The real takeaway from this conflict is that artillery is king and that tanks/planes can't keep up in development pace with modern interceptors like drones and MANPADS. WW2's doctrine of large-scale combined arms and blitzkrieg tactics may be a thing of the past.
The only country on this planet that is currently capable is SEAD is the USA. No single or combined European power/s can put together a strike package that can significantly degrade an enemies air defenses. I don’t think China has the capacity yet and Russia obviously doesn’t have it.
I don’t expect Ukraine even with Western hand me down Vipers to take down Russian air defenses. They may be able to contest for air superiority over a sector of the battlefield but it would be costly.
Stealth is a huge component of modern Western air warfare doctrine that allows fighters to operate in contested airspace. But stealth isn’t SEAD.
For everyone else, light mobile artillery, long range rockets, AA and drones are going to be the way forward.
Saudi-led Opec Plus cartel decided to cut production by 2m barrels a day – the opposite of what Biden administration officials had pleaded with the Saudis to do. After the shock of that embarrassing announcement, which threatened to raise gas prices around the US midterm elections, Biden vowed: “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done.”
A free market is a distinct concept from a perfect market. You're describing a perfect market operating under ideal conditions.
A free market with laissez-faire policies lends itself directly to cartels and monopolies because a perfect market cannot exist without government intervention. Maybe you should've paid attention in ECON 101.
Since then, Mohammed bin Salman – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, who, according to US intelligence officials, approved Khashoggi’s assassination – has managed a near complete rehabilitation of his increasingly autocratic regime.
Prince Mohammed has met with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders; he’s positioning Saudi Arabia as a global tourism destination; and he’s plowing ahead with plans to build Neom, his $500bn futuristic city in the desert.
Trump dropped the pretense that the US-Saudi alliance is anything more than a transactional arrangement based on keeping global oil prices stable, common security interests in the Middle East, and negotiating large weapons deals.
After Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, disrupting global oil markets, the prince seized his opportunity to pressure Biden into becoming a supplicant seeking lower gasoline prices for American consumers.
Then last October, as the world braced for a surge in fuel prices due to the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russian oil, the Saudi-led Opec Plus cartel decided to cut production by 2m barrels a day – the opposite of what Biden administration officials had pleaded with the Saudis to do.
After the shock of that embarrassing announcement, which threatened to raise gas prices around the US midterm elections, Biden vowed: “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done.” Yet, a few months later, the US administration quietly dropped any pretense of holding Prince Mohammed and his regime accountable.
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Putin taught Kim Jong, who taught MBS, who taught Modi. When one or two civilians lives are an acceptable compromise to retain a relationship with another country, you open up that route for all.
Edit: The triggered tankies from Hexbear just soothe my soul. Cry more.
Wow not kidding pretty much all hexbear...
and I'm sorry they are upset cause Putin didn't originally come up with murder? Like not even defending anything just in here to shout and make noise because their favorite shitstain was called a mean name? They truly are peak rational humans huh? How could we not see their superiority? ತ_ತ
If you need help explaining just how fascist the west is to an average person, point out how they keep aligning themselves with some of the most savage murderous regimes in human history. There isn't a single answer that doesn't make them look like a complete monster.
By that standard the only countries not monstrous are those too feeble to ally with.
Plenty of countries on all continents have sided with oppressive regimes, and conveniently ignored atrocities as long as they're aimed at someone else. In anything from the Korea or Pakistani wars, to genocides in Central America, to slave trading within the African continent.
The West is due some criticism, but this approach is useless.
America itself has been an oppressive regime. Britain and France were both oppressive regimes not too far in the past (and still to some degree today).
Why are people surprised that oppressive regimes ally themselves with other oppressive regimes? Geopolitics isn't a story of "good" and "bad," it's a story of rational self-interest.
If freedom of press is one of the ways you can assess how fascist a state is, which it is, then I wonder which countries you consider better than the west. China? Russia? North Korea? Yeah, all places renown for not silencing journalists, poisoning political opponents or ruling with an iron fist. All places where you can just criticize the government, publicly, on prime TV, in the journals, without repercussions.
Also all places where they don't murder people for their political views, where they don't incarcerate them, torture them, send them to "re-education camps" or try to genocide entire ethnic groups in order to reduce dissent.
At the end of the day, "the west" remains the only place where you can actually go on tv, in the squares and protest against the government decisions, criticize them and even vote for the government to leave power. Is it perfect? Hell no, it's a disgusting system rigged by the rich and powerful, but it's still miles ahead of any totalitarian, authoritarian dictatorship.
Also it's not like China isn't buying lots of oil from Iran, a country which it's as much a savage murderous regime as Saudi Arabia, and from Russia, an imperialistic warmongering nation. And the reason it's clear, they need energy as much as the west needs energy. It's the reason why everyone puts up with those kinds of people.
The sooner we, as a species, can move away from oil, coal, gas and the likes, the better it will be for everyone. No more energy wars and a cleaner planet overall.
See the problem with this logic is that you're weighing the west's real actions at best, or probably their white washed actions against fairytale versions of their adversaries who only exist in the west's propaganda. It's not hard to be better than someone written to be a caricature of evil.
How much good has your criticism of the government done?
Do you have affordable housing? Are your healthcare needs covered? Is your taxpayer money going to help improve your life? Is the homeless issue solved? Has your government avoided going to war? Has your government fixed the rampant racial inequality in the prison system?
I say this like it's to an American, but really it applies to most Western countries.
This is a brain dead take because it's just guilt by association. Having diplomatic relations with countries around the world doesn't mean that you endorse or support their government. A country that's ruled by a shitty ideology like Fascism or Marxism is something to be weary of, but these countries do in fact exist and they do play a role in global politics and economics. For example, the UAE and Israel normalizing relations doesn't mean that they support each other, but they recognize each other's influence and understand that diplomacy and cooperation is more beneficial and productive than shunning each other.
I mean we tried to sanction, shun, and ignore authoritarian countries like Cuba and North Korea for decades... How has that worked out for us? My point is that we can't cut relations with every country we don't like. There are situations where that should be the case and there are definitely arguments for us to be more cautious when dealing with these types of regimes, but we can't cut ourselves off from the vast majority of the world (which is authoritarian) nor can we force countries to adopt our ways (we tried with Iraq and Afghanistan, it didn't work).
Just wondering what you think, didn't Jamal Khashoggi write articles defending Hisbullah and other terrorist orgs that Saudis didn't like? I am not justifying the actions of SA, but just wondering here.