Saudi Arabia - should we do business with them?

[AreOut]

umm not really the smartest way for saying "it's not me"

[Sam All]

AreOut said:

umm not really the smartest way for saying "it's not me"

Money trumps the truth.

[BlackLabel]

Our friends the Saudis are busy bombing hospitals again.


(CNN)At least 14 people -- including one aid worker -- were killed when an airstrike hit a hospital in northern Yemen Monday, according to the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders.

A few days ago it was a school.

Ten children have been killed and more than 20 injured by an air strike on a school in Yemen carried out by the Saudi-led military coalition, residents and aid agencies said on Saturday.

[Tom Logan]

Sam All said:

AreOut said:

umm not really the smartest way for saying "it's not me"

Money trumps the truth.

Correct.

The House of Saud owns so much US debt that if they so chose they are quite capable of bringing the house of cards down.

This would lead to a global financial crisis so is it remotely likely that any White House incumbent would call their bluff? I think not.

A prime example of where real world power lies, I know it's only electronic money without any physical entity but a few strokes on a computer keyboard could easily cause global mayhem.

All IMHO of course.

[BigLion]

Tom Logan said:

Sam All said:

AreOut said:

umm not really the smartest way for saying "it's not me"

Money trumps the truth.

Correct.

The House of Saud owns so much US debt that if they so chose they are quite capable of bringing the house of cards down.

This would lead to a global financial crisis so is it remotely likely that any White House incumbent would call their bluff? I think not.

A prime example of where real world power lies, I know it's only electronic money without any physical entity but a few strokes on a computer keyboard could easily cause global mayhem.

All IMHO of course.

Sorry I don't want to trample on your tin foil hat, but here are some facts to think about:

Saudi Arabia stockpiled $116.8 billion of U.S. Treasuries as of March, the Treasury Department announced on Monday, ending four decades of keeping the figure secret.
That makes Saudi Arabia the 13th largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, though well behind the $1 trillion-plus owned by China and Japan each. The Saudi figure was first reported by Bloomberg News based on a Freedom of Information Act request.

[pim]

The Middle east is a quagmire.Who ever you do bussisnes with from that region somebody has a hand in the till somewhere.Selling weapons is always profitable.

Business people look at opportunities not how their decisions affect people.You got to have a certain mind to rob people it its called just business as the Mafia used to say.>

[BlackLabel]

The United States congress has forced through a bill that will allow the families of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, overriding a veto by Barack Obama for the first time in the eight years of his presidency.

[Smiler.]

Decided to post this here rather than start a new thread.


Saudi executes Prince

What struck me from the article was this:

The interior ministry released a statement saying the royal death was proof of the government’s commitment to “implement the rules of Allah everywhere and against anyone who kills civilians and commits bloodshed”.

So how does bombing civilians in Yemen fit this particular piece of rhetoric then? Surely Allah won't be pleased.

[BlackLabel]

They bombed a funeral the other week killing at least 140 and wounding over 500. At first they denied all knowledge of the bombing, then they claimed it wasn't a funeral but a gathering of houthi fighters, then they finally admitted it was them and it was a funeral but they blamed it on human error and have now promised compensation to the wounded and the families of the dead.

Telegraph said:

The deaths of 140 people in a Saudi-led airstrike on a funeral in Yemen was a "deliberate error" made by an "individual", a minister has said.

Tobias Ellwood, Britain’s minister for the Middle East, revealed that Riyadh had ordered against the attack which turned a funeral gathering into what witnesses called “lake of blood.”

An individual who "breached" procedure will now be "disciplined" and "fall on their sword", while compensation will be offered to the victims.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/08/saudi-led-coalition-airstrike-hits-yemen-funeral-kills-82/

Meanwhile more wikileaks revelations tell us what we already knew.....

independant said:

It is fortunate for Saudi Arabia and Qatar that the furore over the sexual antics of Donald Trump is preventing much attention being given to the latest batch of leaked emails to and from Hillary Clinton. Most fascinating of these is what reads like a US State Department memo, dated 17 August 2014, on the appropriate US response to the rapid advance of Isis forces, which were then sweeping through northern Iraq and eastern Syria.

At the time, the US government was not admitting that Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies were supporting Isis and al-Qaeda-type movements. But in the leaked memo, which says that it draws on “western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region” there is no ambivalence about who is backing Isis, which at the time of writing was butchering and raping Yazidi villagers and slaughtering captured Iraqi and Syrian soldiers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allies-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html

[Luther Blisset]

Smiler. said:

So how does bombing civilians in Yemen fit this particular piece of rhetoric then? Surely Allah won't be pleased.

When the Saudis are to blame the stock excuse is "It was the will of Allah" - see 2015 Hajj stampede.
Appalling hypocrites.

[Digga]

The whole area is riddled with religious and racist hatred. we cannot make a difference to this. Our interventions can seldom end well.

If and when they decide they want to join the 21st century, that's another matter.

[BlackLabel]

Boris Johnson accused Saudi Arabia of abusing Islam and acting as a puppeteer in proxy wars throughout the Middle East, in remarks that flout a longstanding Foreign Office convention not to criticise the UK’s allies in public. The foreign secretary told a conference in Rome last week that the behaviour of Saudi Arabia, and also Iran, was a tragedy, adding that there was an absence of visionary leadership in the region that was willing to reach out across the Sunni-Shia divide.

[Biker 1]

BlackLabel said:

Boris Johnson accused Saudi Arabia of abusing Islam and acting as a puppeteer in proxy wars throughout the Middle East, in remarks that flout a longstanding Foreign Office convention not to criticise the UK’s allies in public. The foreign secretary told a conference in Rome last week that the behaviour of Saudi Arabia, and also Iran, was a tragedy, adding that there was an absence of visionary leadership in the region that was willing to reach out across the Sunni-Shia divide.

Seems a bit rich from Boris. Aren't the British government some of the best puppeteers in the business? At least we're good at something....
The Sunni-Shia 'divide' hwas been going on for some 8 centuries. It is much deeper than most would understand in the West, & will not be resolved anytime soon, let alone by Boris. Proxy-wars will bubble up all over the place: Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon; who's next?? The Russians appear to be pro Shia & the US/UK pro Sunni.
Whatever: lots of cash to be made over weapons deals.

[BlackLabel]

Shock, horror!

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar are supporting extremist Islamic groups in Germany, according to a leaked intelligence report. A brief seen by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and broadcasters NDR and WDR raised concern over a reported increase in support for fundamentalist Salafism in Germany, warning that the ideology already has 10,000 followers and is growing. The report, by Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency and Federal Intelligence Service (BND) reportedly accused Gulf groups of funding mosques, religious schools, hardline preachers and conversion or “dawah” groups to spread the ideology.

[BlackLabel]

Good news for civilians in Yemen - the Americans are going to hold their head- chopping Saudi friends to account. Oh hang on......


The US will “hold to account” any state or group who targets “innocents”, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said, in a thinly-veiled warning to America’s adversaries in Russia, North Korea and the Middle East.

[BlackLabel]

article said:

Saudi Arabia was elected to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The addition of the Gulf nation was first flagged by UN Watch, a nongovernmental body that monitors the United Nations. The Commission on the Status of Women's main mission is to assess the challenges to reaching gender inequality, according to the U.N. website.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/thehill.com/policy/international/un-treaties/330149-saudi-arabia-elected-to-un-womens-right-commission%3Famp

[Murph7355]

BlackLabel said:

article said:

Saudi Arabia was elected to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The addition of the Gulf nation was first flagged by UN Watch, a nongovernmental body that monitors the United Nations. The Commission on the Status of Women's main mission is to assess the challenges to reaching gender inequality, according to the U.N. website.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/thehill.com/policy/international/un-treaties/330149-saudi-arabia-elected-to-un-womens-right-commission%3Famp

The URL is potentially Freudian ("un-womens right")

tbh, it might not be that bad a move. Being able to openly discuss the topic in a forum like that might not be a bad way to instigate change in their attitudes/approach.

There's not enough constructive discussion and understanding in that region IMO. This may, of course, not lead to that. But the tried and tested approaches used over the last 40-50yrs certainly don't work. So why not try something new?

[Halb]

We're looking at decades, maybe centuries of terrorism?
If people really care about doing business with the House of Saud look into the businesses that deal with them, the politicians that deal with them and who support those businesses. Nothing much seems set to change until our relationship changes.

[MrBrightSi]

BlackLabel said:

Shock, horror!

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar are supporting extremist Islamic groups in Germany, according to a leaked intelligence report. A brief seen by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and broadcasters NDR and WDR raised concern over a reported increase in support for fundamentalist Salafism in Germany, warning that the ideology already has 10,000 followers and is growing. The report, by Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency and Federal Intelligence Service (BND) reportedly accused Gulf groups of funding mosques, religious schools, hardline preachers and conversion or “dawah” groups to spread the ideology.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. What kind of world are we living in?

[BlackLabel]

When there's this much money on the table I guess you'd even do a deal with the devil.


The United States is close to completing a series of arms deals for Saudi Arabia totaling more than $100bn, a senior White House official said on Friday, a week ahead of President Donald Trump's planned visit to Riyadh. The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the arms package could end up surpassing more than $300bn over a decade to help Saudi Arabia boost its defensive capabilities while still maintaining US ally Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbours.