Posted on 11/06/2017 7:10:17 AM PST by RoosterRedux
A coup is taking place within the House of Saud, in which a modernizing monarch is grabbing power and taking out rivals. Forces now under command of the ruler just arrested 11 princes among dozens of others and is launching financial investigations that could lead to serious punishment. In Saudi Arabia, they behead people (at least 157 times in 2015) and amputate a limb off of thieves. It is widely believed that baksheesh is not unknown in Saudi Arabian business circles, and an “anti-corruption committee” was recently formed. In other words, the tools are in place to take out any opposition among the powerful, within or outside the royal family.
Bloomberg reports:
Prince Miteb, son of the late King Abdullah, was removed from his post as head of the powerful National Guards.That’s the first thing you do in coup: grab control of the forces on the ground.
Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was picked up at his desert camp, the senior official said. Authorities did not disclose the evidence that prompted the arrests.Prince Alwaleed bin Talal presides over a vast financial empire (estimated $35 billion in 2015):
Alwaleed is the largest individual shareholder of Citigroup, the second-largest voting shareholder in 21st Century Fox and owns a number of hotels. TIME even called him "Arabian Warren Buffet".*snip*
A big part of the modernization is entering closer relations with Israel, a natural mutual ally in resisting Iranian Shiites. Purportedly clandestine cooperation is widely in to be underway already.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The appropriate term is self-coup. It has happened many times:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
The Arabs always said if the oil ran out or the market evaporated they could always go back to herding and milking goats. The fact is most don’t know how to herd, milk, butcher or grow anything.
I agree with post 9. The new Saudi king and his announced heir have started this purge to try to move away from Wahhabi Islam which wants to make the world live under the year 700 a.d. but the pushback may be brutal.
According to Lynn and Venhanen's book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, there's a pretty strong correlation between per capita GDP in most nations and the average IQ in the population. There are outliers, however. On one side, you have Communist or former Communist countries where the nations are much poorer than IQ would predict for institutional reason. The other outlier is Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations - which are swimming in oil and so are filthy rich in spite of a mean IQ in the 80's. Even without radical Islam to muddle their minds, I doubt any of these countries would ever amount to much. The best you can hope for is mediocrity without the religious fanaticism and violence.
Inbreeding, I haave read stories that many Saudi pilots have night vision issues as well as others making training them for this aspect near impossible. They intermaqarry cousins etc and the gene pool is becoming polluted and depleted.
Yeah. I just looked. I can't find anything.
I would like to see that.
Thank you
See post 14 above.
Inbreeding seems to be the norm throughout the Arab world - marrying 1st cousins is how they keep their clan loyalties going. I wonder whether inbreeding was one, if not the, main driving forces behind the decline of the Arab/Muslim world between the Middle Ages and modern times.
Wow. Thank you
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.