There has to be a middle ground between isolationism and putting a company of marines into every third-world shithole, Brian.  They have far more shitholes than we have marines.

Would it be the worst thing I wonder to let them sort this shit out among themselves.  As you point out, we have a pretty sorry track record and it won't be long until Iraq descends into Sunni-Shi'a civil war again.  Both sides are out of ammo right now.  "Ceasefire" is arabic for "time to reload."

(November 19, 2017 at 9:02 am)Brian37 Wrote: According to you Atlass, is he supporting the side that wants to stay a theocracy? I won't shed a tear if Saudi Arabia falls and becomes a western democracy, but not sure that would happen either way.

Non of the sides has a "cause", though they use two different causes as weapons against each other.
The Crown Prince is moving towards Secularism; he is giving Wahhabies a very hard time (actually he's killing them along with their institutions- he allowed women to drive after a century of banning; he suppressed religious celebrations and began to introduce musical concerts instead...etc.) And believe it or not; these were red lines for the conservative Wahhabi: women driving was more than a disaster.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/world...alman.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world...purge.html

But that cause he claims to hold is a mere card to purge the any oppression.
So the charge is ready if he decided to wack you: you become a terrorist and you get killed.

The other side, which is many of his cousins and other family member, did not show the cause they will advocate just yet. Personally; I think it will be Wahhabism.

It makes sense now for them to hold the Wahhabi banner (just like their grandfather) to win Trump/ Ibn Salman deadly alliance.

I also point Canada is in a particularly bad position as we sell weapons to the Saudi's weapons probably be used in said war .  The Liberal government has some serious soul searching to do . 

(November 19, 2017 at 12:32 pm)Crossless2.0 Wrote: Somehow, I doubt any of this would be happening if Saudi oil exports weren't (relatively) in the toilet. It's a shame they never thought to offer the world anything but crude and terrorist ideology. As for them pivoting toward anything resembling a Western-style open society with liberal institutions -- forget it. This is a conflict at the highest levels of Saudi society and government. The leaders there don't give two shits about the average Saudi little guy, any more than our government cares about them.

I agree. Their economical crisis got them on all fours. All the chaos happening now is similar to a drowning man's last attempts to escape. The problem is: without oil, Wahhabi theocracy, and unity within the royal family, their kingdom can never hold tight. The change to secularism is too late

Warning: This won't be a popular post.

To be honesty, I think the whole region needs to have a single, large, all encompassing war to sort out the racial, ethnic, religious, tribal divides. And it should happen without the interference of outside agencies, apart from providing humanitarian assistance.

It sounds cruel, I know, but the region has basically been at war for several thousand years. both dues to internal differences and external intervention/invasion. If it weren't for the oil, most of us wouldn't give a fuck what was happening in the region.

(November 19, 2017 at 12:36 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: It's seems almost perverse, and maybe Hari Seldon could explain it, but I'm almost convinced the US could be flipping a coin and deciding on that basis which side to back in the various clusterfucks around the world, and I'd bet we would still be on the WRONG side EVERY time.

Supporting any side in this conflict is just wrong. I think Trump is going in for the cash; just like he said in his campaign.

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(November 19, 2017 at 2:53 pm)Minimalist Wrote: There has to be a middle ground between isolationism and putting a company of marines into every third-world shithole, Brian.  They have far more shitholes than we have marines.

Would it be the worst thing I wonder to let them sort this shit out among themselves.  As you point out, we have a pretty sorry track record and it won't be long until Iraq descends into Sunni-Shi'a civil war again.  Both sides are out of ammo right now.  "Ceasefire" is arabic for "time to reload."

Isolationism with respecting the human rights of other is what our world needs. Arabs are not animals but they didn't see what the west saw. I'm speaking about world wars and similar events.

Compare Turkey to Arabia: so many differences can be spotted just because Turkey saw the shock of the great war. Arabs were distant somehow; the great war is rarely discusses here. They need such shock even though it's a harsh, harsh thing.

And for that to happen; you need to leave them alone. They'll grow up.

For every place America intervened, the place turned to shit. Look at Iraq.

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(November 19, 2017 at 9:29 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: I also point Canada is in a particularly bad position as we sell weapons to the Saudi's weapons probably be used in said war .  The Liberal government has some serious soul searching to do .

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The Saudi army is pulverizing Yemen now using weapons purchased from Western countries.
Just like the Myanmar army.

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(November 19, 2017 at 9:33 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: Warning: This won't be a popular post.

To be honesty, I think the whole region needs to have a single, large, all encompassing war to sort out the racial, ethnic, religious, tribal divides.  And it should happen without the interference of outside agencies, apart from providing humanitarian assistance.

It sounds cruel, I know, but the region has basically been at war for several thousand years. both dues to internal differences and external intervention/invasion.  If it weren't for the oil, most of us wouldn't give a fuck what was happening in the region.

Exactly, like slapping a hysterical person to come back . It's always two local factions ready to kill each other due to idiotic differences; and a supplier of weapons and support from the outside to use the internal conflict to gain interest.

Shock the natives with an event; and you'll change their mentalities for good. Arabs are lost; their compass is quite messed up.

Bill Maher once put up a chart of the size of the armies allegedly fighting ISIS.  They totaled 5 million men,  ISIS had about 40,000 and Bill was wondering why they couldn't handle ISIS by themselves without dragging us into it.

Bill is a comic he is not an expert in realpolitik.  Those armies are primarily designed to keep the regimes which pay them in power.  How far any of them could project power across their own borders is an open question.

(November 19, 2017 at 12:36 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: It's seems almost perverse, and maybe Hari Seldon could explain it, but I'm almost convinced the US could be flipping a coin and deciding on that basis which side to back in the various clusterfucks around the world, and I'd bet we would still be on the WRONG side EVERY time.

Back one side openly and the other clandestinely. They're both gonna buy war tech. 

How cynical is that?

"It is necessary to get behind someone in order to stab them in the back."

—Sir Humphrey Appleby

60 Minutes did a piece tonite on how Saudi Arabia is fucking Yemen and indiscriminately killing children.

I'm thinking any fault lines develop in Saudi Arabia they'll just say "hey, we have a Shia mess in Yemen, gotta tackle that lest the fucking Iranians do to us what we'd love to do to them"