MBS sans robe walking with Tim Cook at Apple's new headquarters...and is that a red bull he's drinking?
Posted on 04/21/2018 12:02:09 PM PDT by Tea Party Terrorist
UNCONFIRMED: COUP ATTEMPT AT THE ROYAL PALACE IN RIYADH SAUDI ARABIA IS UNDERWAY
KING SALMAN EVACUATED TO AN AIR FORCE BASE
I believe you.
Freepers are not long on empirical sense
Not when bias and hunches will do
Good job
“Saudi Arabia is an ally”
And particularly so since the advent of MBS, Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
I believe Saudi Arabia was the first stop on Trump’s first overseas trip as President. That was not insignificant.
And Saudi Arabia is not just an ally of the United States. They are also an important ally of Israel, which will come as a surprise to many.
Both KSA and Israel, as well as the countries making up the Gulf Cooperation Council, see Iran as their mortal enemy. And during the Obama years they understood that they could no longer rely on the United States; in fact the US was strengthening their mortal enemy Iran, so they would have to work together to defend themselves. Oddly enough, and surely without intending to do so, Barack Obama solidified an alliance between Israel and the leadership of several of its Muslim neighbors. They all are greatly relieved to have Donald Trump restoring the USA as their ally.
Not for one, damned second.
MBS sans robe walking with Tim Cook at Apple's new headquarters...and is that a red bull he's drinking?
How about: “He who draws his sword against a Prince must throw away the scabbard.”
“Going with the drone story.”
Yes. ;-)
Saudi forces shoot down ‘toy drone’ near royal palaces
https://www.yahoo.com/news/saudi-forces-shoot-down-toy-drone-over-riyadh-214154640.html
The US is contracted to defend SA. So, the Royal Ruler of the time would be entitled to protection.
Can’t tell but his “a well used anus nearby” sensors are pegging out at spinal tap 11
Well explained
gracias
If the Saudis hate terrorists as much as we do and are willing to take them on so we can get the hell out of the middle east,we can be friends.
The guy there now is the closest we've had in a long long time - he can be useful and those who tried to knock him off would make things a lot harder.
Israel is an interesting question. Considering the USS Liberty, they have killed more American service members than Saudi Arabia. Israel exists because of our money and military support, yet does act contrary to our interests more than it seems to support them. It’s occupation or colonization of Arab lands is problematic. That it is imposing a religious state upon an unwilling majority of people in the lands it controls is a recipe for disaster. The Islamic residents will not convert to Judaism. It cannot repeat evicting them in large numbers like occurred in 1948 and thereafter—not accepting back residents who initially fled the area. It increasingly cannot legitimately claim to be a democratic state when it denies equal rights to the majority of its residents. The pressing questions are many and time only makes them worse. Who is who among those direct residents are citizens, what to do with the occupied lands and their residents, especially where many of these lands are being colonized by Jewish people, what to do with people that have family claims to lands that Israel has seized, occupied, maybe even sold to others. This is a festering situation. And, yes, I’m sure I’ll get flamed on this, but it is a problem, one of many in the Middle East. I’m not saying stop support of Israel, just saying our support needs to be with open eyes, realizing that its values and actions do not align with ours, that its future is troubled because they have not found a way to resolve any of the problems they face—occupied lands, occupied people, imposing religious rule upon a majority of people not sharing the same religion, etc. Lebanon shared similar fate and endured a bloody civil war. Israel has kept the powder keg under control but at cost. It has far more weapons, even nuclear weapons. Will force of arms keep it controlled forever? Are we along for that ride forever? Are their lines that Israel will face and cross that we will not follow? Since we are its primary supporter, money and weapons, can and should we play a bigger role in guiding or directing its future?
As you point out, nothing is really black and white and it’s the myriad shades of gray that we need to analyze when we make decisions - while I acknowledge much of what you laid out, I believe there is more benefits to keeping Israel strong than to let her be abused into oblivion by all the Islamic States that surround her. Forcing her direction would be anathema to our own concepts of “Democracy” but that’s not to say we can’t leverage our largess in certain areas/policies. No reason to “treat all her ‘citizens’ the same” anymore than we need to treat all our illegal invaders the same as our own citizens.
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