If I consider lucre bad I would have used the phrase filthy lucre.
Just didn’t wanna say money or profits.
You’re the ones acting as if the Prince’s definition of modern commercial competition as the Great Game is somehow so insulting to America.
Fine, it’s not the Great Game.
And the justifications for our Saudi rimming has been well documented and put forward, even here on FR, when all the defenders and suckers of the Saudi Teat proclaimed loudly all the reasons we couldn’t take out the biggest financiers of jihad.
And we haven’t. And they still finance Jihad.
Peachy. A great shining success of American diplomacy and foreign policy.
We pay the Saudis for oil to help them finance Jihadis who kill Americans.
Nice.
It is insulting for America to be included in the "Great Game" by a Prince who is seemingly living in the days of past glory and empire. However, the insult is even greater to the Kyrgyz Republic, which does not want to be seen as a pawn to be manipulated by the great powers. The Prince made a major diplomatic gaffe. Our ambassador recognized it immediately and distanced our country from it.
We pay the Saudis for oil to help them finance Jihadis who kill Americans. Nice.
The Saudis are our fourth largest supplier of oil after Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. Oil is a fungible commodity. The Saudis will sell their oil regardless.
The Saudis helped us remove Saddam from Kuwait letting us use their bases and port facilities. They paid all of the costs of our participation amounting to more than $30 billion. They have been buying American goods and services, including weapons. They were very helpful in removing the Soviets from Afghanistan and the communists in Central America. They have provided us with lots of information on AQ and cooperated with us on terrorism.