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FourLeaf posted:if you really give a poo poo about him you'll stop driving his forums name on searches, hth
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Oct 10, 2018 04:07
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enraged_camel is right, we don't have enough reliable information. We're pretty sure he entered the consulate, and decently sure that he didn't exist willingly. His death, the 15 man hit squad and so forth are a lot more tenuous. I wouldn't be surprised if he was still alive, possibly back in KSA. Seems like the kinda of guy they'd want to interrogate/torture.
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Oct 10, 2018 04:41
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https://twitter.com/ShibleyTelhami/status/1049868188379418625
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Oct 10, 2018 04:45
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If that's true, interesting that Turkey hasn't released the video yet. And how the hell did Turkish intelligence get it? Someone filmed it to show to folks back home, and it was somehow intercepted? Maybe that's why they don't release it, as it would show they're able to read Saudi mail. MBS sure is giving a constant stream of insane scandals.
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Oct 10, 2018 04:50
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I'd heard rumors about a tape but how in the gently caress would Turkey have it
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Oct 10, 2018 05:10
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I'd say maybe if they caught one of the guys, but they all got out right? Maybe the intercepted it being uploaded to MBS's private vimeo account
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Oct 10, 2018 05:26
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Volkerball posted:I'd heard rumors about a tape but how in the gently caress would Turkey have it Given the Saudi competence... They probably accidentally mailed it to a Turkish TV station.
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Oct 10, 2018 07:53
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Scaramouche posted:I'd say maybe if they caught one of the guys, but they all got out right? Maybe the intercepted it being uploaded to MBS's private vimeo account This would be my guess. If the Saudis made a video and uploaded it somewhere, then the Turks probably intercepted it. After all, the Saudi consulates connection has to go through a Turkish ISP.
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Oct 10, 2018 09:07
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I'm just waiting to find out they uploaded it to YouTube as an unlisted video or something.
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Oct 10, 2018 09:57
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Perhaps Turkey bugged the Saudi consulate, and this pissed them off enough they figure they can afford to lose their spycams over it.
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Oct 10, 2018 11:49
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Willie Tomg posted:if you really give a poo poo about him you'll stop driving his forums name on searches, hth good point
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Oct 10, 2018 13:11
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If you're going to torture and dismember someone for criticizing you it is important to video tape it so you can show other dissidents what could happen to them if they don't shut up. The problem here is that MBS did not follow Putin's lead on how to assassinate dissidents. He needed to make it seem like unofficial pro-MBS guys did the killing, and in a random area, rather than an official regime assassination squad in the Saudi consulate.
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Oct 10, 2018 13:50
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quote:ANKARA, Turkey — Top Turkish security officials have concluded that the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on orders from the highest levels of the royal court, a senior official said Tuesday. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/world/europe/jamal-khashoggi-turkey-saudi-arabia.html
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Oct 10, 2018 14:30
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qkkl posted:If you're going to torture and dismember someone for criticizing you it is important to video tape it so you can show other dissidents what could happen to them if they don't shut up. The problem here is that MBS did not follow Putin's lead on how to assassinate dissidents. He needed to make it seem like unofficial pro-MBS guys did the killing, and in a random area, rather than an official regime assassination squad in the Saudi consulate. It's been said before, but while this approach of making it blatantly and brazenly obvious that you just hired thugs to do a mob-style hit makes no sense in a modern nations context, it makes perfect goddamn sense if you suppose that MBS still has a medieval mindset. It's exactly on par with them detaining the Lebanese Prime Minister - woefully behind the times in how effective it actually is, but if your rulebook is from a different age you'll be thinking to yourself: "That'll show 'em!"
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Oct 10, 2018 14:43
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I'm loving furious that it seems that the US government may have known this was coming and didn't do anything to stop it. https://twitter.com/attackerman/status/1050031771558006790 Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 14:59
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Willie Tomg posted:Your problem is you're thinking like a person doing a job of work for money in order to do a Thing. You would think if the aristocrat had seen Breaking Bad 3 times he would know to just bring a couple guys with hydrofluric acid and a barrel but whatevs
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Oct 10, 2018 16:15
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Sinteres posted:I'm loving furious that it seems that the US government may have known this was coming and didn't do anything to stop it. The US government either ordered it or greenlit it.
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Oct 10, 2018 16:57
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Sinteres posted:I'm loving furious that it seems that the US government may have known this was coming and didn't do anything to stop it. 
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Oct 10, 2018 17:16
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Feldegast42 posted:You would think if the aristocrat had seen Breaking Bad 3 times he would know to just bring a couple guys with hydrofluric acid and a barrel but whatevs Why risk the chance of compromising the mission by hauling a barrel of acid around when the human stomach already contains plenty of acid.
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Oct 10, 2018 17:19
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https://twitter.com/desiderioDC/status/1050075782532489222 Translation: We have to pretend to care, so this is us pretending to care.
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Oct 10, 2018 18:33
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Guys, I'm sure they'll bring all the diligence to this investigations as they do in their Yemen air strike target selection. We have nothing to doubt!
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Oct 10, 2018 19:40
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EdithUpwards posted:The US government either ordered it or greenlit it. my thinking is more likely we knew but didn't do dick because everyone at the top is a dumb psychopath and some are in deep with MBS for various reasons. Trump has a boner for "toughness" so he basicaly lets our allies do whatever they want as long as browns die/etc. my guess is a bunch of generals/spooks/etc knew but didn't care because trump won't stop it. either way, this happened. https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/status/1050123371562844162 i don't put much faith in it but i find it interesting.
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Oct 10, 2018 22:12
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qkkl posted:The problem here is that MBS did not follow Putin's lead on how to assassinate dissidents. He needed to make it seem like unofficial pro-MBS guys did the killing, and in a random area, rather than an official regime assassination squad in the Saudi consulate. Uh wrongo, it would have been extremely difficult to make Skripal more blatant than it was, short of p-man himself waltzing into Salisbury. It was literally designed to be absolutely obvious what happened, they could have easily made it look like a robbery gone bad or even just a traffic accident if they wanted. Like do you think they went to the poison locker and was all like 'woops looks like we ran out of ricin, guess we have to use a poison that was only manufactured by the Russian government lol'. That they would be discovered and that it would cause a huge backlash from the UK was precisely part of the plan. CrazyLoon posted:It's been said before, but while this approach of making it blatantly and brazenly obvious that you just hired thugs to do a mob-style hit makes no sense in a modern nations context, it makes perfect goddamn sense if you suppose that MBS still has a medieval mindset. It's exactly on par with them detaining the Lebanese Prime Minister - woefully behind the times in how effective it actually is, but if your rulebook is from a different age you'll be thinking to yourself: "That'll show 'em!" This simply is not correct, there are very obvious reasons to do things in this way. Skripal was purposefully done the way it was so it would direct internal resentment over economic issues into anger over western russophobia and also to send a message to similar people. Maybe MBS overplayed the hand here, but there's definitely reasons to do things in this way because sending the message is the entire point: think we won't dare to take you out so long as you stay out of SA? That you will be ok so long as you keep your criticism fairly mild? That we are afraid of what the response from other governments will be? Think again! Again, to use the Skripal example: he wasn't even the initial target according to experts -- there probably was a long list of people who could have been targeted and Skripal just happened to be the one they picked (I believe the prime target couldn't be found in time). This was probably the same case, with Khashoggi being the easiest opportunity: the message is meant for anyone like him. China also routinely does similar things, this is hardly MBS doing something unorthodox when compared to other authoritarian governments. I'm not saying it won't turn out badly for them, SA isn't Russia or China and it might have been enough to really gently caress up the US relationship. But to say it has no sense behind it is nonsense.
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Oct 10, 2018 22:29
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The attacks on the 2016 election were also purposefully blatant, for another example. Compare to Stuxnet, which is still, 8 years or so later, not an entirely clear picture with continuing disagreement among experts about the relative involvement of the players. That's not because Russia couldn't obfuscate the attacks better, but rather because they had no interest in doing so and in fact the damage of the attack was strengthen by not doing so.
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Oct 10, 2018 22:45
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Dapper_Swindler posted:my thinking is more likely we knew but didn't do dick because everyone at the top is a dumb psychopath and some are in deep with MBS for various reasons. Trump has a boner for "toughness" so he basicaly lets our allies do whatever they want as long as browns die/etc. my guess is a bunch of generals/spooks/etc knew but didn't care because trump won't stop it. KSA is not Israel, it's not the 80's, and the relationship between the US and KSA is going to deteriorate significantly over the next decade regardless of the day to day geopolitics. Stuff like this is just speeding up the process. Edit: right on cue https://mobile.twitter.com/MicahTNDC/status/1050135972019617803 Volkerball fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Oct 10, 2018 |
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Oct 10, 2018 23:25
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Outside of purchasing US military equipment, what does SA do for us? They are an theocracy that treats their women like dirt. Most of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and I hear a lot of the funds the Sunni terror groups rely on comes from people inside the country. Is the entire key to getting on the US's side in that area simply to promise to be nice to Israel?
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Oct 10, 2018 23:35
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They are a source of profitable wars.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:38
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pro starcraft loser posted:Outside of purchasing US military equipment, what does SA do for us? I suspect oil has something to do with it.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:39
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pro starcraft loser posted:Outside of purchasing US military equipment, what does SA do for us? Well, there's also making available an ungodly amount of oil being a factor in addition to purchasing equipment. Then there's them allowing the US to operate a number of very important military and naval bases in the region, incidentally the presence of these bases was initially and probably still is an extremely significant factor in motivating Islamic terrorists both from Arabia and from the rest of the Muslim world. It seems we seldom hear it (though it was brought up in the immediately post-9/11 episode of South Park of all places), but American troops on Muslim holy land is kind of a big no-no to a lot of people.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:41
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The Saudis are basically the head of OPEC.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:42
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KSA is actually way more strict about US basing of assets and military personnel in their country when contrasted with UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:44
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mlmp08 posted:KSA is actually way more strict about US basing of assets and military personnel in their country when contrasted with UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait. True, but I think it'd be hard to maintain those bases without Saudi acquiescence in either case.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:46
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Randarkman posted:True, but I think it'd be hard to maintain those bases without Saudi acquiescence in either case. Sure. In the weird counterfactual scenario where somehow Iran and KSA were united against the USA, it’s not like we would’ve built a bunch of bases in a small sliver of space sandwiched by KSA and Iran.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:49
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KSA is a legacy ally from an era where gas rations and lines at pumps around the block could make or break political parties. Islamophobia is trending up, and the importance of oil is trending down, so the writing is on the wall for them. The only thing left in their corner besides arms sales is the sort of realpolitik argument that the monarchy is preferable to the segments of Saudi society who would be best positioned to succeed them, but I don't expect that argument to hold much water in the near and long term. Among the right who are increasingly xenophobic and isolationist, it's only playing worse and worse to be all buddy buddy with card carrying Islamists, and on the left, there's the human rights abuses and a general negative sentiment due to KSA's long term presence in the US' circle giving them a bad reputation. The pro-Saudi voices are being marginalized and ridiculed, and the anti-Saudi voices are getting louder and bolder. It's a gradual process but in time, I think MBS is going to be a Saddam-esque figure in American history, presiding over an extreme degradation in relations and who knows what sorts of other fun things.
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Oct 10, 2018 23:49
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The Orb's power seems to be diminished as of late.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:15
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The deal was KSA has a ton of oil, and sells it to the US. It uses the money it made selling the oil to buy weapons, yes, but all manner of other things, from private jets to oil refineries. They send their kids to US schools, they buy property in the US itself, and they are lavish the right people.* They buy US bonds in vast quantities. After '79 the Saudis were a bit spooked, and were eager to help US efforts in Afghanistan to oust the Soviets. 9/11, perversely, since most of the highjackers were Saudi, led to an even closer relationship. They seem like they should be the worst of enemies, and yet in other ways they're perfect friends-- its a hosed up relationship and The Power of Nightmares captures the feel of this well. Now the US is back to being a big oil producer, and the Saudis aren't as rich as they used to be. *The Bush family was and probably still is famously close with the Saudis. One got so close he got the nickname "Bandar Bush".  e: grammar Count Roland fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Oct 11, 2018 |
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Oct 11, 2018 00:16
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Uhh they have Oil, hate Iran, and are OK with Israel. That's a conservative trifecta if I've ever seen one
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Oct 11, 2018 00:23
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pro starcraft loser posted:Most of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and I hear a lot of the funds the Sunni terror groups rely on comes from people inside the country. The other big thing is requiring to be paid in dollars for their oil, forcing all other countries in the world to give value to US dollars.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:27
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IMO the biggest reason we play nice with the Saudis is the same reason we've played nice with Pakistan: we hate a lot of the poo poo they do, but we're even more afraid of what they'd do if we walked away from them.
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Oct 11, 2018 00:34
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Dapper_Swindler posted:my thinking is more likely we knew but didn't do dick because everyone at the top is a dumb psychopath and some are in deep with MBS for various reasons. Trump has a boner for "toughness" so he basicaly lets our allies do whatever they want as long as browns die/etc. my guess is a bunch of generals/spooks/etc knew but didn't care because trump won't stop it. Ironically the 'but what about Yemen, your side obviously doesn't care what SA does there' has become a talking point that both alt-righters as well as die-hard internet communists are making. The US KSA alliance is weird and at this point is more about business interests of the elite (in both countries) than about any concrete reason for mutual friendship. A lot of American conservatives seem to believe that the 60 year old oil policies where the US is straight up given a significant share of the profits is still in place, but that hasn't been for a long drat time. Given how ridiculously effective anti-Arab propaganda efforts have been in the US it's not really politically advantageous for anyone to be identified with them. The anti-arab stuff is remarkably non-partisan, too, though that makes sense given how much of it is disseminated in entertainment media as opposed to news networks. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Oct 11, 2018 |
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Oct 11, 2018 00:57
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