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ASUG8 wrote:I'm not sure I agree. They provided 15/19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

Cluck U wrote:

ASUG8 wrote:I'm not sure I agree. They provided 15/19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

Good point.

BTW, as of 4 months ago, they've managed to lose an Apache helicopter and three M1 Abram's tanks in their intervention against Yemen. Seems as though those anti-tank missiles are getting better and better every day.

How come the mainstream media isn't covering the Saudi war against Yemen? The link below gives a nice synopsis of what has been going on...but you hear crickets from the US media. Saudi Arabia decided to get involved in the Yemen civil war, and now they are getting what they deserve.

Nlo wonder they now want Israeli (and US, and Europe's) help.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/poli ... t-in-yemen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"HOUTHI COUNTERMOVES
Houthi units and former Yemeni Army forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh have responded to the coalition buildup in Marib by scaling up their cross-border raids into the Saudi provinces of Asir, Jizan, and Najran. Since mid-August, platoon-strength Houthi light infantry teams have overrun border forts and conducted deadly ambushes. The heavy Saudi losses have included one Apache gunship, three M1 Abrams tanks, three other tanks, one M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four tracked armored personnel carriers, plus over two dozen MRAPs, Humvees, and light vehicles. And on August 23, the commander of the Royal Saudi Land Forces 18th Brigade, Maj. Gen. Abdul Rahman al-Shahrani, was killed during a border fight in Jizan. Since then, the raids have escalated into more sustained engagements that have forced the Saudis to call in airstrikes inside their own territory.

Houthi/Saleh forces have also increased their missile and rocket attacks into the kingdom. On August 26, a Scud fired toward the Jizan power plant was intercepted by a Saudi Patriot missile, and Najran Airport was attacked with BM-27 Uragan rocket fire on September 2. Airports in Asir, Jizan, and Najran provinces have been closed since July due to the rocket threat. The deadliest incident was the aforementioned September 4 missile strike, in which an SS-21 Scarab (a.k.a. OTR-21 Tochka) fired by pro-Saleh forces struck a vehicle park at the Safir FOB, killing forty-five Emiratis, ten Saudis, and five Bahrainis. Pro-Houthi media sources claimed four Apaches were destroyed, along with forty other vehicles."

Fuck the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia Continues Hiring Spree of American Lobbyists, Public Relations Experts

Lee Fang
Oct. 5 2015, 8:53 a.m.
Saudi Arabia is in the market for a better reputation in Washington, D.C.

In September alone, foreign lobbying disclosure documents show the Saudi government signing deals with PR powerhouse Edelman and lobbying leviathan the Podesta Group, according to recent disclosures.

Edelman, the largest privately owned public relations agency in the world, is known for helping clients win favorable media coverage on mainstream outlets. The Podesta Group is a lobbying firm founded by Tony Podesta, a major fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The new signings are the latest in a year-long hiring spree by the Persian Gulf state as it further builds up its already formidable political arsenal inside the Beltway. The Saudi Arabian Royal Embassy did not respond to a request for comment.....

Cluck U wrote:

ASUG8 wrote:I'm not sure I agree. They provided 15/19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

Good point.

BTW, as of 4 months ago, they've managed to lose an Apache helicopter and three M1 Abram's tanks in their intervention against Yemen. Seems as though those anti-tank missiles are getting better and better every day.

How come the mainstream media isn't covering the Saudi war against Yemen? The link below gives a nice synopsis of what has been going on...but you hear crickets from the US media. Saudi Arabia decided to get involved in the Yemen civil war, and now they are getting what they deserve.

Nlo wonder they now want Israeli (and US, and Europe's) help.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/poli ... t-in-yemen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"HOUTHI COUNTERMOVES
Houthi units and former Yemeni Army forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh have responded to the coalition buildup in Marib by scaling up their cross-border raids into the Saudi provinces of Asir, Jizan, and Najran. Since mid-August, platoon-strength Houthi light infantry teams have overrun border forts and conducted deadly ambushes. The heavy Saudi losses have included one Apache gunship, three M1 Abrams tanks, three other tanks, one M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, four tracked armored personnel carriers, plus over two dozen MRAPs, Humvees, and light vehicles. And on August 23, the commander of the Royal Saudi Land Forces 18th Brigade, Maj. Gen. Abdul Rahman al-Shahrani, was killed during a border fight in Jizan. Since then, the raids have escalated into more sustained engagements that have forced the Saudis to call in airstrikes inside their own territory.

Houthi/Saleh forces have also increased their missile and rocket attacks into the kingdom. On August 26, a Scud fired toward the Jizan power plant was intercepted by a Saudi Patriot missile, and Najran Airport was attacked with BM-27 Uragan rocket fire on September 2. Airports in Asir, Jizan, and Najran provinces have been closed since July due to the rocket threat. The deadliest incident was the aforementioned September 4 missile strike, in which an SS-21 Scarab (a.k.a. OTR-21 Tochka) fired by pro-Saleh forces struck a vehicle park at the Safir FOB, killing forty-five Emiratis, ten Saudis, and five Bahrainis. Pro-Houthi media sources claimed four Apaches were destroyed, along with forty other vehicles."


Eff the Saudis.

ASUG8 wrote:I'd like for us to unbalance the scales with the Saudis. Drill most of our oil domestically and have them totally reliant on us for military equipment and training while they fight their own wars.

Cluck U wrote:You know what is funny? We have been supplying arms to Syria even as Obama was saying publicly that we were only supplying non-military aid.

So how does that stuff fly below the radar? Who supplies the arms? The CIA won't name or admit their contacts, but the Pentagon sometimes has to be more transparent.

Well, here's one story about those lovely arms dealers that work in the shadows:

"In early 2007, three stoner twentysomethings won a Defense Department contract to supply the Afghan military with $300 million worth of ammunition. "The dudes," as they came to be known—a ninth-grade dropout, a masseur, and a low-level pot dealer, all with little or no experience but plenty of nerve—had begun bidding on Pentagon arms contracts and winning out over massive international conglomerates. The Afghan contract wasn't their first, but it was by far their largest. They would have to source thousands of tons of mortar rounds, grenades, rockets, and 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and deliver all of it to Kabul at a particularly fraught time for the Afghan war effort.

To fill the order, though, the dudes secretly repackaged millions of rounds of decades-old, surplus Chinese ammo—illegal under the contract terms—before shipping them to Afghanistan. It was all going fine until they got caught by Pentagon investigators and wound up with their mugshots spread across the front page of the New York Times.

Their story is detailed in Guy Lawson's new book, Arms and the Dudes, a wildly entertaining saga with dual narratives. The first involves blackmail, criminals, hustlers, corrupt government officials, and three kids in way over their heads. The other, and for Lawson more important, side of the story, concerns how the Pentagon came to use private contractors like the dudes as proxies—and eventual fall guys—to secure weapons from gray market arms dealers, the only people who could supply what it needed.

...GL: Here's something for you: None of this has changed! The risks are apparent in the headlines every day in Syria, Iraq. Proliferation is proliferation—the idea that you can pour a hundred million rounds of AK ammunition into a war zone with positive consequences strikes me as insane. The Albanian-Chinese ammunition at the center of this story is almost certainly being used in Syria right now, either by ISIS or Iran-backed Shia forces. You know, half the guns that went to Iraq were lost. Lost! This policy doesn't work. "

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ontracting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ibanez wrote:

Cluck U wrote:You know what is funny? We have been supplying arms to Syria even as Obama was saying publicly that we were only supplying non-military aid.

So how does that stuff fly below the radar? Who supplies the arms? The CIA won't name or admit their contacts, but the Pentagon sometimes has to be more transparent.

Well, here's one story about those lovely arms dealers that work in the shadows:

"In early 2007, three stoner twentysomethings won a Defense Department contract to supply the Afghan military with $300 million worth of ammunition. "The dudes," as they came to be known—a ninth-grade dropout, a masseur, and a low-level pot dealer, all with little or no experience but plenty of nerve—had begun bidding on Pentagon arms contracts and winning out over massive international conglomerates. The Afghan contract wasn't their first, but it was by far their largest. They would have to source thousands of tons of mortar rounds, grenades, rockets, and 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammunition and deliver all of it to Kabul at a particularly fraught time for the Afghan war effort.

To fill the order, though, the dudes secretly repackaged millions of rounds of decades-old, surplus Chinese ammo—illegal under the contract terms—before shipping them to Afghanistan. It was all going fine until they got caught by Pentagon investigators and wound up with their mugshots spread across the front page of the New York Times.

Their story is detailed in Guy Lawson's new book, Arms and the Dudes, a wildly entertaining saga with dual narratives. The first involves blackmail, criminals, hustlers, corrupt government officials, and three kids in way over their heads. The other, and for Lawson more important, side of the story, concerns how the Pentagon came to use private contractors like the dudes as proxies—and eventual fall guys—to secure weapons from gray market arms dealers, the only people who could supply what it needed.

...GL: Here's something for you: None of this has changed! The risks are apparent in the headlines every day in Syria, Iraq. Proliferation is proliferation—the idea that you can pour a hundred million rounds of AK ammunition into a war zone with positive consequences strikes me as insane. The Albanian-Chinese ammunition at the center of this story is almost certainly being used in Syria right now, either by ISIS or Iran-backed Shia forces. You know, half the guns that went to Iraq were lost. Lost! This policy doesn't work. "

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ontracting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I didn't read the article but are these the guys that were based out of Florida, bought and sold old, illegal and defective Chinese munitions and were eventually arrested? Sounds familiar. The guys were idiots.

Cluck U wrote:

Ibanez wrote:
I didn't read the article but are these the guys that were based out of Florida, bought and sold old, illegal and defective Chinese munitions and were eventually arrested? Sounds familiar. The guys were idiots.

And they got approved to be arms dealers...for us.

Think about that.

And they aren't even the really bad guys that we hire to destabilize our enemies.

We dump HUMONGOUS amounts of money to groups that have not been vetted (intentionally in the dark) so that we can have an element of denial.

We can't seem to find money to put computers in every school and to improve our education, but gawdamn we don't even blink when giving tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to put guns in other people's hands in order to destabilize some backwoods country.

Ibanez wrote:

Cluck U wrote:
And they got approved to be arms dealers...for us.

Think about that.

And they aren't even the really bad guys that we hire to destabilize our enemies.

We dump HUMONGOUS amounts of money to groups that have not been vetted (intentionally in the dark) so that we can have an element of denial.

We can't seem to find money to put computers in every school and to improve our education, but gawdamn we don't even blink when giving tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to put guns in other people's hands in order to destabilize some backwoods country.

yeah, there was a Rolling Stone article on them when they were found out to be frauds. Interesting story.

CID1990 wrote:

Ibanez wrote:yeah, there was a Rolling Stone article on them when they were found out to be frauds. Interesting story.

Well there I went believing the whole story and then you go adding that element of doubt

Ivytalk wrote:They should carpet-bomb the whole ME and North Africa with the Zika virus and embargo the vaccine (if any).

ASUG8 wrote:There's no hope for the ME. If we could fast forward 50 or 100 years they'll still be fighting over the same piece of sand and arguing over what branch of Islam is the most correct interpretation. Maybe by then we will have learned our lesson that US involvement in the region pays no dividends and we've hopefully become self sufficient from an energy perspective.

kalm wrote:

Ivytalk wrote:They should carpet-bomb the whole ME and North Africa with the Zika virus and embargo the vaccine (if any).