But who cares if the Gulf states engage in all sorts of nastiness. SA is the apparent bastion against terror, Dubai is the place to visit and Qatar will host the 2022 Football World Cup.
Is that an actual course, or did foreign psychopaths (albeit with state department approval) get training in actual military stuff (shooting, ironing beds, polishing boots, logistics, etc.) and then go on all by themselves to butcher journalists with a carving knife?
I don't see the link here, other than a bit or outrage and a wee dopamine hit.
I think the relevance of this news is generally that Murica trains agents of oppressive states.
I can easily see how an additional training in torture, logistics etc. could have helped perpetrators organize and perform the act. Although they would probably managed to kill him even without it in some way or the other.
One of the things I would hate if living in US - not such a great feeling knowing some part of your taxes goes into directly supporting things like this, whether you like it or not...
You only need to have one barbeque at your home to work that out.
If training → crimes, then surely we should be more worried about training Saudi butchers and chefs?
The real and IMO only reason the crime occurred as it did is that the Saudi's guessed correctly that the US (and others) would let them get away with it.
Would be that more evil than throwing tied men and women alive to the sea from helicopters so they drown, while kidnapping their babies at the same time? I don't think so.
He was a bit like Litvinenko - not nice, but not worth shedding too much tears for him.
Because they spawn outfits who ram airplanes into skyscrapers. I see no logic in this, but some "expert geopolitical strategists" do. Same with Israel, sinks USS Liberty, and then people on the hill go orgasmic, because "higher meaning" — whatever that means.
A simpler explanation which seems to be much more believable: great amounts of money spent by them to keep the whole US political establishment wined, dined, well moneyed, and happy.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/sep/21/israelandthepa...
I don't think it's fair to compare Israel with Saudi. The former is a functioning democracy and is ranks significantly better that its neighbors when it comes to Civil liberties.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...
The Saudi's are a very loyal supporter of US policy for all of that and their country is very strategically located in the region and a big reason why the US has been able to exert power there for so long. E.g. Saudi support was crucial for both Gulf wars, the Sudan invasion, and more recently the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc.
Being able to park some aircraft carriers off the coast of Saudi Arabia is also helpful when it comes to controlling the Iranians of course. That's technically a long series of proxy wars but of course the US has been battling with them ever since the Iranian revolution all over the region in a long series of proxy wars that usually also involve the Saudis. Ugly but very profitable.
So, oil, money, and strategic value basically. You could pass some moral judgement on that but in the end most wars are about economic interests. And the interests of the US are worth trillions of dollars.
Edit: While I don’t agree with the person below who replied saying crypto could fill this gap, I don’t think they should be downvoted to the point where we can’t reply. I even hit the “vouch” button but it’s still not possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_lobby_in_the_Unit...
In fact, I’d say they are a check on a region that could easily fall under the influence of Iran, Russia, and China. Global oil supply being messed with in a destabilized region is a concern, and festering of Islamic terrorism (think about how Russia let’s ransomware terrorists fester).
Russia would go pretty far to destabilize oil in that region. Plus, they are for sale. If we don’t pay them, China will.
The price for all of this is the same price the devil always charges - your soul and values. Genocide in Yemen in 2020, murdering of journalists (in an embassy, goodness), all done with impunity.
To a considerable extent, the family also ensures a stable leadership and rule of law. A decade back, I would have supported forceful overthrow of the family. However, after observing Arab "Spring" and its implications in Syria and Libya, I am dead certain that I do not want a power vacuum in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi were very anti-Communist and opposed Arab nationalist (a 'socialist' type regime) in Egypt. In a period known as 'Arab Cold War'.
There was a fear that most of the middle east would unify under Arab nationalism. The Saudi were opposed that.
A second important part is the sale of oil, people will often argue that this is less important now because domestic production. However it was always more about European and later Asian allies of the US and ensuring oil for them.
The relations were at is worse during the oil crisis. However once the Iranian revolution happened, and Iran was no longer an US ally there was major fear of Soviet invasion or Iranian revolution spreadng. Jimmy Carter declared the 'Carter doctrine':
> Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
Since their major client Iran was gone the US basically 'had to' depend on Saudi Arabia.
This was then majorly expanded upon by Reagan. While up to this point, relation were diplomatic (and CIA blabla) under Reagan there was a militarization. Bases were starting to build in the region and the US wanted to sell more weapons to the Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain as well.
The US started to build bases in Saudi itself during the first Golf War (that was the major reason for 9/11 btw).
Since 9/11 despise what the general population wants (and correctly believes), politically the US sees Saudi as a major ally in the 'fight for terrorism' when it is convenient but the consistent opposition to Iran is arguably the more important part.
Saudi Arabia has also totally sold out the Palestinians and has been practically allied with Israel.
So here are why the US politicians continue this 'partnership':
- Major oil state that insures sale to European and Asian allies
- Oppose Iran
- Oppose the Islamic Brotherhood (Saudi paid for the overthrow of the Egyptian 'democracy')
- Saudi regime drove AQAP (Al Quida Arab Peninsula) out of Saudi and pretends to fight them in Yemen
- Saudi (and golf state) buy a gigantic amount weapons to the point where Trump basically treated the Crown Prince like cash cow and made him do TV ads with him
- Saudi spend a lot of lobbying and fund many of the 'think tanks'
- Saudi and Israel get along
However, this episode here that so many people car about is literally never what the US cared about. An allied regime killing journalist is about as interesting as empty glass of water. To me this is a total non-story.
This is only a media outrage story. The US routinely helps in repression of journalists and what the US/Saudi are doing in Yemen is about a million times were the this Khashoggi thing. Not to mention that they are also oppressing and killing journalist there too, but I guess there are not good videos of it so it can be safely ignored.
In my opinion the whole strategic approach the US has towards the Saudi and the Middle East in general is fundamentally flawed and pilled on top of a whole bunch of wrong assumption.
Unfortunately realignment in foreign policy is very difficult. With Israel and Saudi (and co) money continually buying of congress/Washington while Iran and others don't have such powerful lobbying organizations within the US.
At the moment Iran and its proxies are actively threatening the US and its allies. Stopping that will be a prerequisite for any lobbying attempt.
Sadly, the US didn't learn from this and then went and turned Iraq into complete chaos.
Who do you think pours money into defense contractors, financial services and politicians pockets?
Who do we rely on to control the oil price for us?
Who else is an important ally in the region for Israel?
I dispise the Saudis, we should drop them and warm up to Iran, but that above 3 points are why no one has done it yet (plus momentum/tradition).
America and our democratic allies spent half a century fighting totalitarianism, only to turn around and treat the post-Cold War "peace dividend" as carte-blance to sell out everything we had just finished fighting for. Now authoritarianism is on the rise again as a result.
This has to be most idiotic own-goal in history.
By destabilizing and ousting democratically elected leaders around the world and replacing them with our puppets? Or do you mean fighting those puppets when they became inconvenient?
I suspect what happened is not the history you think it is.
Maybe they weren't fighting totalitarianism in the first place.
Perhaps this is an indirect result of the US providing military support to totalitarian regimes, but I don't see how it accounts for a rise in totalitarian/authoritarian tendencies in Russia, China, and other countries that don't receive such aid.
Nationalism and authoritarianism/totalitarianism tend to have more support when economic and other factors make people worried about their futures. In such situations, the natural human instinct is to crave stability at any cost, which opens the door for nationalism and authoritarianism/totalitarianism.
Likewise, the death squads trained by the School of the Americas were not there by some mistake or bureaucratic misstep -- it was known who they were working for, and their training was quite intentional.
Sure, we can argue that unapproved training will still take place, but it doesn't let us off the hook for the "counterinsurgency" training that was and is still consciously given to known repressive regimes.
