A man is dead. He was murdered at embassy, then they chopped him up to make him easier to move.
You aren’t tying for better than the internet default. You don’t want anything approaching open discussion or substantive discussion. You want bland inoffensive tripe. You want to have a bunch of people who can sit around discussing how we work will change the world.
A man is dead. He was murdered by a regime that has no respect for human rights. A regime that has funded terrorism. A regime currently trying to carry out genocide in Yemen. A regime propped up in no small part by American money.
If you don’t see any substantive discussion to be had then maybe you need to break a from tech for a little while so you can get your head out of your ass.
Once you understand that our government's primary function is to protect and expand markets for the capital class, you cease to be surprised or confused by it's actions. Google the coup instigated in behalf of United fruit. That was over 100 years ago, so none of this is new. Stop reading the New York times or any other mainstream publication for foreign policy opinion or news. Try alternative sites like greyzoneproject or truthdig if you want decent news.
No, you don't. You can be upset about our government being shitty, and hold the shitty allies it chooses to support as one of the many exhibits demonstrating the general shittiness of the government.
I think the wording that more accurately describes my thoughts would be "... legitimately surprised."
Certainly, the countries you like do things differently than the ones you want, but you won't even highlight those differences. No, instead it's only bad and good.
I'm frankly tired of people that can't describe in real thoughts what makes something great or terrible without falling back on the words that a two year old might make use of to describe their day.
Get creative. Go on a verbal tirade and tell me how you really feel. But please stop compressing your thoughts down to good, bad and shitty. If you really want to communicate, please do so.
You don't like capitalism? Because you're not making the money? What are the real reasons? You don't like communism? Because of the Gulag Archipelago? Be clear.
Well, telling people to hate a country on the basis one one corrupt incident sounds suspiciously like IDF to me. If you think corruption is an issue, then why don't you do something about it, instead of whining that it's bad?
"telling people to hate a country" the word hate never appears once in my comment. Again, you seem to be "responding" to some generalization of a viewpoint you don't like instead of what is actually on your screen. No disrespect but I don't really see any reason to continue to respond to you when you are making no effort to respond to what I'm actually writing.
Hi from the UK. I think we are still in the running. Mind you, we did have a head start.
Although, IANAHistorian but I bet if you limited the accounting to no earlier than 1776 the UK looks better than the USA.
Good luck practicing open and honestly blatantly hostile criticism of political figures in any other country. Even Europe has squashed things like memes to keep the public from realizing the truth.
You're not a patriot. You are a wanna be.
People are wrong and corrupt. Governments by and large can only do what we allow them to do. They are simply an amplification of the people underneath it all that are in charge.
If you think countries that help companies in their borders are wrong, you're going to have a really hard time with countries that openly steal from and abuse their citizens.
You think that the US isn't perfect, Possibly you're right. Tell me about your paradise now. Tell me who is perfect? The reality is that every country optimizes for different things. Which country do you think optimizes the best? Have you been able to find a job there you like, pays you well enough, and to move there? If so, great. If not, maybe there's a reason for that? Maybe you really like the X of one country and the Y of another because the X and Y are those things those countries have optimized best for.
One of the things I love about the US of A is our freedom of speech. We can talk openly about things like how our nation is founded on genocide and slavery, and being able and willing to do that is an essential part of overcoming our faults and atoning for our sins.
What are we even arguing about? Whether the US government is "shitty" or not? I would say it's too big: some shitty and some sublime, the totality beyond human comprehension.
Red White and Blue.
Brahma Vishnu Shiva
Every single system that man has invented has relied on exchanges of goods and services. Anyone can call them exploitative, and some are. However, in America, you do have a choice. If you don't like it, you can run for a political position. You can start a non profit. You can start your own business. And if for whatever reason, you still can't stand it after all these choices have basically been handed to you, you can try living in a different nation where more or fewer of these things are available. No one in the US is going to threaten you, like in the former USSR or North Korea if you try to leave.
If all you want to do is whine, then have fun doing nothing good for your fellow man or yourself.
It'd sure be nice if we had someone in DC doing that...
Ah, military contractors are well up to date. Okay, lets toss them a few billion in Saudi weapons contracts.
How did I do?
Nation states aren't supposed to have egos.
There’s a whole lot of lesser evils which define plenty of diplomatic decision making in that region.
It's like fighting Christianity's Devil by making a blood pact with Ialchtaluogoloth, Inscrutable Lord of the Slime Pits From Beyond the Dead Stars. At least Lucifer can appreciate a finely tailored suit.
If Saudi Arabia didn't have light, sweet oil reserves and control of the Hajj, they wouldn't have much of anything at all.
This is an excellent paragraph and I bet I would enjoy reading more of what you write. If you happen to blog, would you mind emailing me a link? My email address is in my profile.
North Korea is ruled by the capricious whim of a single person who makes the rules as he goes along, and whose decisions have led to multiple famines and other atrocities resulting in the deaths of millions of North Koreans, still ongoing. And Kim Jong-un doesn't need a cover up when he assassinates someone; he's a god incarnate.
Have a little perspective. It's easier to criticize Saudi Arabia precisely because it's more like Western society than North Korea, even if that similarity is often illusory.
Like, we could stop supporting their genocide in Yemen. Could stop selling weapons to them period. Could stop buying their oil. Could start putting out sanctions. Could actually demand some accountability for their role in 9/11.
Whole spectrum between what we have now and outright war.
Of course you can read the book one thousand different ways.
The point is that it is nice they fulfilled that promise.
edit: remember, their religious clerics can say whatever they want and thats the law in a theocracy. English wikipedia is not going to describe that adequately
In a free society, I'd have asked for for MBS' life under retributive justice. I wouldn't want him killed, just would want a much fairer diya (double digit share of Aramco?).
The Wikipedia article says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diya_(Islam)
> It only applies when victim's family want to compromise with the guilty party; otherwise qisas applies.
From a humanistic standpoint, the assassination was abhorrent. From an international politics and international law standpoint, intolerable. From the standpoint of a recently elevated absolute ruler suppressing dissent, diligent.
As the previous poster said, at least they're paying benefits, even though it's all part of the cover up. From a Western, guilt-based moralist standpoint such benefits can seem like a slap in the face. From a Middle Eastern, honor-based moralist standpoint, it's the decent thing to do, regardless of what precipitated it.
I guess they have no choice but to just accept it, because of the same dictator.
Can't believe this shitty government is our "ally". Fuck the Saudi Government.