the Saudi royals made a pact with the devil when they bought domestic “peace” with their political alignment with the radical fundamentalist Wahabi-Sunni clerics, clerics whose preachments make a social and cultural lie out of Saudi “alignment” with the west which is nothing more or less than the Saudi purchase of western alignment with the saudi royals - an alignment that keeps plaguing the U.S. and U.S. middle east policy, and one that will one day be part of the domestic undoing of the house of Saud
Agreed, I just got back from Abu Dhabi. The place is amazing, and it seems that everything that glitters is gold. Regardless, it has that strange sense of pretend. It is like being in a Disney World city without the crowds.
How can they maintain that surrounded by so much poverty?
They are trying to make capitalist nations because their oil is running out. Perhaps they are supporting the lucrative narco trade outside of UAE as well.
In Colombia most people supported FARC terrorists because initially they represented a lot of money, they were a Peter Pan type organization for the dissenfranchised poor, and nobody got hurt.
Corrupt politicians were complicit, and Colombians felt gringos were at fault for being ravenous consumers. Eventually the criminals had more power and money than the entire national government, and they could act with impunity. FARC got out of control and started killing anyone who got in their way. They even bombed government buildings. They didn’t need to grease palms and play nice anymore. Thousands of deaths later, and with the help of a nation Colombians had no compassion for (the US), they overcame that monster.
There is no appeasement of terrorists, criminals, or drugs that will not come back to haunt people.