Saudi Arabia:Activists appeal to Mariah Carey to cancel Saudi Arabia performance

[WinterHold]

The tactic is as clear as daylight: he is throwing dust in the eyes of people to forget his crimes; thinking that bringing Mariah Carey and holding musical concerts will make people forget that the kingdom is going bankrupted, and that he is a thieve who cut people with bonesaws inside embassies.

Not the worst tactic.  Looking at Mariah Carey makes me forget a lot of things.



Boru

When "other native ladies" are being tortured and raped in prisons, enjoying her in Saudi Arabia becomes a matter of...immorality and psychopathy.

---

---

It's a historical point; and the west must think deeply about its interests in the region.

The generous assumption is that we do...but the horrible realization is that our interests may not align with your own.  As a broad rule, our interests drag stability along as the underlying predicate - and any thoughts of regime change of any kind are weighted against that.  We're not averse to regime change (obviously, lol) but we tend to support those regimes which do or can persist and support us.  So, there won't really be any US support for an alternative to MBS until we see an achievable alternative to MBS that more closely aligns with our interests in the region than he does.  Even that eventuality will have to fight against the tide of historic agreements and partnerships, and the tangled mess of personal alliances that people in these positions create for themselves.

Stability does not stand with MBS. Assuming that is a very big fall for the Intelligence Agencies of the west; and a very big indication of total lack of knowledge with the reality of the scene in Arabia.
It's impossible to compress the European evolution into the "illumination period" in a 2 years span -the time MBS was in charge-. A society that was living under a rock for 300 years would not skip the hundreds of years of evolution needed in the European illumination model.
MBS is skipping whole eras. That would destroy the society he was appointed to lead -of course; appointed via dictatorship and brutality but that's not our topic-.
If you skip eras like an idiot, the whole model would fall down and won't apply; and the society would explode.
Europe took centuries to reach what it reached. To copy-cat their bloody experience by waging idiotic wars against windmills -like the war in Yemen-, and destroy the church -Wahhabi institution- that made your rule legit to the eyes of Saudies in the first place, and compress the whole European model of evolution that extended for hundreds of years into a pathetic model that extends for 10 years is the signing of your doom.
European and American politicians must think very wisely about this.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not like our intelligence agencies don't know that Prince Bonesaw is a dick (and you don;t even need an intelligence agency to figure that out, lol), or how the house of saud has maintained control for these last few centuries.  

Our interests, as I indicated to you previously, simply aren't -your- interests.  This is realpolitik.  We have an interest in maintaining a relationship with a stable authority in the region.  For better and for worse, the house of saud is that authority.  It may be chock full of assholes and helmed by a brutal dictator, but this doesn't make them less stable.  MBS eradicated any competition to his claims and in the process extracted the wealth of those who may have made a bid in future - thus depriving them of the most direct means to do so.  He demonstrated that he can kill on foreign soil with impunity..like a common american warlord..and he didn't even need drones to do it.  He's shown that he can play the role of charismatic middle eastern progressive and that he has an understanding of a pr blitz.  He's shown that he can make impactful private and public alliances with other world leaders and in so doing insulate himself from consequence by unacceptable complicity.

I don't know what to tell you other than that the US isn't likely to lend you a revolutionary hand, and not because we've failed to calculated our own interests..but because we have done so.  It is more conducive to our interests that this brutal but competent dictator remain in office than to engage in or promote regime change....that we roll the dice with some saudi muslim brotherhood or another arab spring or..really... any of a grab bag of random islamists like yourself.

The wise decision from this end of the pond simply isn't in your favor.

There's actually a great example of an unwise decision going on right now, in this vein, in how the Trump Admin has handled the Maduro issue closer to home.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

When "other native ladies" are being tortured and raped in prisons, enjoying her in Saudi Arabia becomes a matter of...immorality and psychopathy.

This from the man who used verses from the Quran to justify wife beating and told women that, if attacked by a man, they should 'fight fair'.  You steaming great hypocrite.

Boru