[Keith_McClary]

Cid, for the record, do you even support the mission of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place?

Do you mean the purported missions, or what they actually did?

[ennui2]

Cid, for the record, do you even support the mission of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place?

Do you mean the purported missions, or what they actually did?

Why don't you let Cid respond before taking this off-topic?

What I don't like, if anyone notices a pattern in my posts, is basically political whine-fests where it's all criticism and no recommendations offered, or if there ARE recommendations, those are very poorly thought-through, and therefore riddled with potential risks and unintended consequences. Foreign policy is by nature a game of tradeoffs. There is no way to perfectly navigate through this. You can do something thinking it's the better option and wind up making it worse. As they say, the road to ruin is paved by good intentions. Coulda shoulda wouldas sound great because you fill in the outcome with your imagination. Doesn't mean it really would have turned out that way.

However, it's a lot easier to look at our leaders and expect perfection, when if we were actually in a position of power we would suddenly discover how hard it actually is to walk a tightrope when the world is this much of an tinderbox where peace is held together more through benign self-interest than true friendship.

[Cid_Yama]

At last, a Western country stands up to Saudi Arabia

The Swedish Government this week decided to scrap an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, effectively bringing to an end a decade-old defence agreement with the kingdom.

The move followed a complaint by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom that she was blocked by the Saudis from speaking about democracy and women's rights at a gathering of the Arab League in Cairo.

Tensions between Stockholm and Riyadh have grown so acute that Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Sweden on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia bought some US$39 million ($52.7 million) in Swedish military equipment last year alone.

That Sweden's centre-left Government has chosen to risk that sort of investment marks an important moment. For decades, Saudi Arabia's vast energy reserves and strategic position in the Middle East have led Western countries to politely skirt around the issue of the kingdom's draconian religious laws and woeful human rights record.

"This shows a break in the 50-year view in the West of 'We can't touch Saudi Arabia'," said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Washington-based Institute of Gulf Affairs.

The double-standard in Western attitudes toward Saudi Arabia has looked glaring in the past year. After Isis (Islamic State) began decapitating American hostages in its custody, Saudi Arabia carried out beheadings of inmates on death row.

American politicians routinely hurl invective against Iran, accusing the Islamic Republic of fomenting terrorism abroad and maintaining a tyranny at home. But Saudi Arabia has an even less democratic system than that in Tehran, and as the chief incubator of orthodox Salafism, has played a major role in the rise of fundamentalist terror groups around the Middle East and South Asia.

Sweden's Wallstrom, meanwhile, has emerged as an outspoken figure, not averse to taking moral stands. The Saudis apparently were concerned about her remarks after she earlier had described the Saudi regime as a dictatorship. In an interview with Swedish media, Wallstrom had described the punishment for a dissident blogger who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes as "medieval."

Last year, Sweden became one the most high-profile European countries to officially recognise Palestine as an independent state. Wallstrom said at the time that the move was intended to "support those who believe in negotiations and not violence", but it was widely interpreted as a rebuke to the right-wing Government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It also showed up a host of Arab states, some of whom have long postured as champions of the Palestinian cause but have done little to improve their plight.

"Saudi Arabia and other countries start losing their edge as the main political voices on behalf of the Palestinians," said al-Ahmed.

"A country like Sweden can now come in and say, 'Hey, Riyadh, what have you done for the Palestinians lately'?"

Sweden's decision came after months of "nail-biting", reports Bloomberg's Leonid Bershidsky.

But it's likely just the start of a larger European conversation regarding the ethics of dealing with Saudi Arabia.

link

[ROCKMAN]

“Saudi Arabia bought some US$39 million in Swedish military equipment last year alone.” Wow…that has to really put the hurt on the KSA. The Swedes are holding back about 0.08% of the arms sales of the US to the Saudis just since the current administration took office.

“New figures show President Obama has overseen a major increase in weapons sales since taking office. Saudi Arabia tops the list at $46 billion in new agreements. The volume of major deals concluded by the Obama administration in its first five years exceeds the amount approved by the Bush administration in its full eight years in office by nearly $30 billion. That also means that the Obama administration has approved more arms sales than any U.S. administration since World War II.

As they say: war is hell. But $49 billion in revenue takes a bit of the sting off of it. LOL.

[Cid_Yama]

The point wasn't to hurt Saudi Arabia, it was to remove Sweden from an ethically untenable relationship.

That is the problem with Capitalism as it is currently practiced in the United States, there is no place for ethics to figure in on the spreadsheet. And apparently the lives of our service men and women don't figure in either.

[ROCKMAN]

I suppose it boils down to a question of what's untenable and what's not. Compared to 2003-07 Sweden increased its weapons exports to Africa from 0% to 26% during 2008-12, to Asia from 2.45% to 35% and for the Middle East from 1% to 4%. So giving up a little bit of the ME market wasn't too big a price to pay for being selectively "ethical". At least it made for good press.

Unlike the bad press they got from their own Agency for Non-proliferation: Fresh figures from the Swedish Agency for Non-proliferation show that a large percentage of Swedish arms exports go to undemocratic countries and dictatorships, despite a decision from the Riksdag last year to tighten regulation on arms exports. “I am terribly disappointed to see exports to dictatorships soaring. It is a radical increase compared to previous years, despite the Riksdag's decision from last year to tighten arms export rules,” said Anna Ek, head of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society.

[Cid_Yama]

Saudi Arabia is funding and arming Al Qaeda, IS and the Taliban. We are selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Thus, our nation is selling arms that are being used to kill our own service men and women.

I have a problem with that.

If we substituted Iran in that first sentence for Saudi Arabia, there would be shouts of moral outrage on the floor of Congress. But it's not Iran it's Saudi Arabia, and not a peep out of Congress. And the Western Media, shouldn't they be all over this?

It was the same when Remington was selling munitions to Nazi Germany. Bullets manufactured in the US were killing US servicemen.

I wonder if the Trading with the Enemy Act is still on the books.

Since our stated mission was a war on terror, Saudi Arabia and the GCC should be right at the top of the most wanted list. Funny how their names appear to be absent.

[Plantagenet]

The point ... was to remove Sweden from an ethically untenable relationship.

If Sweden finds Saudi Arabia so morally objectionable, then why don't they stop buying oil from Saudi?

Don't the Swedes know that every kroner they send off to Saudi Arabia to buy oil gets converted into bullets and bombs to be used against Shia Houthi rebel in Yemen?


Well, isn't that special...the Swedes won't sell weapons to the Saudis, but they ship them kroner for oil so the saudis can buy weapons from the US and other arms suppliers...

[Cid_Yama]

What oil Sweden doesn't produce itself, it get's from Russia.

So much for your trollishness. Bet you didn't even bother looking.

As for the US, we currently only get 9% of our oil from the Persian Gulf. We could easily get that from Canada even without the XL pipeline.

Back to topic:

Saudi Arabia and the GCC are funding and arming Al Qaeda, IS and the Taliban.

I have a problem with that.

Do you?

[ennui2]

Saudi Arabia is funding and arming Al Qaeda, IS and the Taliban.

I probably could read back on this thread, but please draw a straight line between the SA government and these groups. Not wealthy individuals, the government.

[Cid_Yama]

Kudos to CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/01/20 ... rorism.cnn

Well into the war on terror, Saudi Arabia continues to serve as the capital of international terrorist financing. Through groups such as the Muslim World League, the International Islamic Relief Organization, and the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, as well as through Islamic affairs bureaus at Saudi embassies and consulates worldwide, Saudis continue to fund radical Islamic groups that support or engage in international terrorism.

Some cases are both clear cut and extreme. For example, after his arrest in Indonesia on June 5, 2002, Omar al-Farouq, al-Qaeda's operational point man in Southeast Asia, told his interrogators that al-Qaeda activities in the region were funded through a branch of al-Haramain. According to al-Farouq, "money was laundered through the foundation by donors from the Middle East." In another case, Italian wiretaps monitoring members of a European al-Qaeda cell overheard a senior operative reassuring his subordinate about funding: "Don't ever worry about money, because Saudi Arabia's money is your money."

Other cases are far more subtle, particularly the activities of a host of purportedly political or social-activist groups operating in the United States. For example, Omar Ahmed, cofounder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) -- an organization that has received significant funding from Saudi Arabia -- also helped found the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) in cooperation with Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader and Specially Designated Terrorist. IAP, a Hamas front organization, was the first to publish the Hamas charter in English. Given this background, CAIR's pro-Hamas and pro-Hizballah positions should come as no surprise; the group regularly rises to the defense of terrorist suspects and openly supports terrorist groups. For example, in 1994, CAIR leader Nihad Awad, a former IAP employee, stated, "I am in support of the Hamas movement." More recently, CAIR employee Randall "Ismail" Royer was indicted for his role in a northern Virginia jihad network that had trained in Pakistani terrorist camps affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba in the hopes of fighting Indian forces in Kashmir. Two other CAIR officials have been arrested since September 11, 2001. On December 18, 2002, Ghassan Elashi, founding board member of CAIR's Texas branch, was arrested by federal authorities on a number of charges, including conspiracy, money laundering, trafficking in illegal exports, making false statements on export declarations, and dealing in the property of a designated terrorist. Elashi also served as chairman of the Holy Land Foundation (a Hamas front group shut down by federal authorities in December 2001) and vice president of Infocom (whose offices were raided by U.S. investigators one week before the September 11 attacks). In January 2003, Bassem Khafagi, who served as CAIR's community affairs director, was arrested in New York for his alleged role in the Islamic Assembly of North America, a Saudi-funded group currently under investigation for recruiting terrorists and "instigating acts of violence and terrorism."

Nihal Awad's proud declaration of support for a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity responsible for the deaths of American citizens is reminiscent of similar remarks by another prominent Muslim-American activist with connections to Saudi Arabia. In 2000, American Muslim Council (AMC) founder and former executive director Abdurahman Alamoudi announced at a rally outside the White House, "We are all supporters of Hamas. Allahu Akbar! . . . I am also a supporter of Hizballah." After President George W. Bush announced the closure of the Holy Land Foundation, which had raised $13 million for Hamas in its last year of operation, AMC condemned the action as "particularly disturbing . . . unjust and counterproductive." AMC's position was predictable given that Alamoudi himself had attended a conference of major Islamic terrorist groups in Beirut in January 2001.

Alamoudi was arrested on September 30, 2003, for allegedly accepting $340,000 from the Libyan government, a state sponsor of terrorism. According to recently unsealed documents, Alamoudi told officials that he "intended eventually to deposit the money in banks located in Saudi Arabia, from where he would feed it back in smaller amounts into accounts in the United States."

Saudi diplomatic personnel stationed abroad play a critical role in the financing of radical Islamic organizations in the West, particularly in the United States and Europe. For example, numerous Islamic extremists have been linked to the Saudi-funded al-Nur Mosque in Berlin. One of them, Tunisian al-Qaeda associate Ihsan Garnoaui, was believed to have been plotting an attack in Berlin. Muhammad Fakihi, chief of the Saudi embassy's Islamic affairs section in Germany, confessed to doling out embassy funds according to the instructions of "close friends" of Osama bin Laden. Similarly, in May 2003, Saudi diplomat Fahad al-Thumairy was denied reentry into the United States because of his links to terrorism. Like Fakihi in Berlin, Thumairy worked in the Islamic and cultural affairs section at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles.

link

[Plantagenet]

What oil Sweden doesn't produce itself, it get's from Russia.
So much for your trollishness. Bet you didn't even bother looking.

Actually I did look.

Swedent gets 46% of its oil from Russia----That means the bulk of Sweden's oil DOES NOT come from Russia. Sweden imports the majority of the oil it uses from non-Russian sources, including OPEC and Saudi Arabia.

Cid Yama is wrong again---Sweden does not get its oil from Russia

So much for your trollishness.

Since you've exposed your ignorance once again and lost another bet with me, please send $1000 to the widows and orphans fund for Ukraine, which is helping to care for victims of the ongoing Russian invasion.

Cheers!

[Cid_Yama]

Please, try your bluff again. Sweden imports no oil from the Persian Gulf. Moron. The only time you have ever won out against me was in your dreams.

sweden_oil_imports_2009.png

sverige_oljeimport_2012.png

Back on topic:

King Salman, Saudi Arabia’s newly crowned monarch, has a controversial history of helping to fund radical terror groups and has maintained ties with several anti-Semitic Muslim clerics known for advocating radical positions, according to reports and regional experts.

Throughout his public career in government, Salman has embraced radical Muslim clerics and has been tied to the funding of radical groups in Afghanistan, as well as an organization found to be plotting attacks against America, according to various reports and information provided by David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

In 2001, an international raid of the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, which Salman founded in 1993, unearthed evidence of terrorist plots against America, according to separate exposés written by Dore Gold, an Israeli diplomat, and Robert Baer, a former CIA officer.

Salman is further accused by Baer of having “personally approved all important appointments and spending” at the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a controversial Saudi charity that was hit with sanctions following the attacks of September 11, 2001, for purportedly providing material support to al Qaeda.

Salman also has been reported to be responsible for sending millions of dollars to the radical mujahedeen that waged jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who is now director of the Brookings Intelligence Project.

“In the early years of the war—before the U.S. and the Kingdom ramped up their secret financial support for the anti-Soviet insurgency—this private Saudi funding was critical to the war effort,” according to Riedel. “At its peak, Salman was providing $25 million a month to the mujahedeen. He was also active in raising money for the Bosnian Muslims in the war with Serbia.”

Salman also has embraced radical Saudi clerics known for their hateful rhetoric against Israel and Jews.

Salman has worked closely with Saleh al-Moghamsy, who tweeted in August 2014 that “Allah only gathered Jews in the land of Palestine to destroy them.”

Al-Moghamsy also stated in a 2014 television interview that “the hatred of Jews toward Muslims is an eternal hatred.” He also claimed in 2012 that Osama bin Laden had died with more “sanctity and honor” than any infidel, or non-Muslim.

Despite this rhetoric, Salman has maintained close ties to al-Moghamsy.

Salman chairs the board of an organization run by al-Moghamsy and has sponsored the cleric’s public events, including a 2013 festival. Salman and al-Moghamsy were pictured many times together at that event, according to regional reports.

Al-Moghamsy also has been an adviser to two of Salman’s sons, one of whom posed for a selfie with the cleric in July.

Salman also has reached out to other hardline preachers, including Safar Hawali, a one-time mentor of Osama bin Laden who has called for non-Muslims to be expelled from Saudi Arabia.

In 2005, Salman called Hawali to inquire about his health and in 2010 praised him upon the release of a book.

While crown prince, Salman also made a point of phoning Aidh Abdullah al-Qarni, a Saudi author currently on the U.S. Terrorist Screening Center’s No Fly List who has praised Hamas and called Israelis “the brothers of apes and pigs.”

Additionally, Salman, in his role as crown prince, has recently visited Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti, the nation’s highest religious authority, who has asserted that 10 is an appropriate age of marriage for girls and called for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula.

“Just like King Abdullah tried to present himself as a reformer, some are trying to suggest that the new king, Salman, is a moderate who will continue his half-brother’s so-called progressive policies,” Weinberg said. “But just look at where Saudi Arabia is after Abdullah: people are being decapitated and flogged by the state in the streets.”

“Women are systematically oppressed by their own government, and the regime continues to propagate incitement and intolerance,” he continued.

link

A former Al Qaeda operative who helped plot the 9/11 terrorist attacks has claimed that he has firsthand knowledge that members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family financially supported the terrorist network in the late 1990s. Zacarias Moussaoui, who is serving a life sentence at a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, also said that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

“I was supposed to go to Washington and go with him…find a location where it may be suitable to launch a Stinger attack and then, after, be able to escape,” the French-born Moussaoui said of a plan he made with a Saudi Arabian Embassy official while in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Moussaoui said he was arrested before he could carry out the plan.

The former terrorist’s testimony has been submitted as part of a case brought by the families of 9/11 victims against Saudi Arabia for its alleged involvement in the terrorist attack that killed more than 3,000 people. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on that day were Saudi.

Over the course of two days in October, Moussaoui told lawyers that he met with the newly anointed King Salman of Saudi Arabia and other royals as a part of his duties as a courier for Osama bin Laden. He also told lawyers in a sworn statement that he listed at least three Saudi royals on ledgers to keep track of donations they made to Al Qaeda.

Some in Congress believe that evidence of the Saudi-Al Qaeda connection was left out of the Commission’s report – and that 28 pages of government documents classified by the Bush administration prove that Saudi officials did, in fact, play a part in the terrorist attack.

“Those twenty-eight pages tell a story that has been completely removed from the 9/11 Report,” Rep. Stephen Lynch, (D-MA), who has read the classified pages, told the New Yorker.

“I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia,” former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) wrote in an affidavit filed as part of the case against the Saudi government.

The two are among a small band of legislators who are pushing to have the classified documents made public.

Although former President George W. Bush said in 2003 that releasing the 28 pages would compromise national security, Lynch and Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) introduced a resolution urging President Barack Obama to declassify the pages last month.

link

[Keith_McClary]

Cid, for the record, do you even support the mission of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place?

Do you mean the purported missions, or what they actually did?

Why don't you let Cid respond before taking this off-topic?

How is your question to Cid on-topic?

[kuidaskassikaeb]

Zacarias Moussaoui, who is serving a life sentence at a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, also said that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

“I was supposed to go to Washington and go with him…find a location where it may be suitable to launch a Stinger attack and then, after, be able to escape,” the French-born Moussaoui said of a plan he made with a Saudi Arabian Embassy official while in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Moussaoui said he was arrested before he could carry out the plan.

So was he tortured before he said this?

This discussion could use some deep context, if anybody feels like providing it. Maybe mention Mossadegh and Kermit Roosevelt, Kassim the CIA and Sadam Hussein. Mention that some people think that while Reagan was negotiating with the Iranian government to keep the hostages till after the election, Carter was okaying the Iran Iraq war. Maybe throw something in about the British mandate, first use of chemical weapons in Iraq, countries made for civil war. Tribes with flags etc. This discussion is beyond myopic.

[Plantagenet]

He cheapens this site. Is pure troll. In his mind he is a child burning ants with a piece of crap broken glass in a filthy empty rubble-strewn lot. His posts are empty, dirty, and he gets his jollies pissing people off. Should be banned. Should have been banned years ago as a psycho. Everything he says is suspect, has a non-political agenda: merely to get a rise from others. Most here are good people with a sincere search for the truth who maybe want to make things better. Even debate issues. Not plant.

Gosh Peter. Seems like just a few months ago you were apologizing to me and others here for engaging in these kinds of ad hom rants and promising to be more responsible in your posts here.

I'm sorry to see you've fallen back into your bad old ways.

-----------------------
So, what is the big argument about here?

CId is having a childish temper tantrum because he is wrong again--- his claim that Sweden imports all its oil from Russia is wrong. Thats the bottom line.

Now, lets leave the temper tantrums behind us, shall we, and just look at the facts.

Sweden doesn't import all its oil from Russia. Sweden does't even import a majority of its oil from Russia. Its nice that Sweden has cut off weapons sales to Saudi because the Saudis are unethical. But the fact remains that Sweden's ethical concerns suddenly disappear when it comes to buying oil. Sweden buys oil from a whole host of unethical countries, including Putin's Russia (under US sanctions for invading Ukraine), Venezuela (which is under US sanctions for its violent repressive attacks on its own citizens) and Nigeria, land of Boko Haram and war against Islamist extremists, very similar to what is happening in Yemen.

So my points are 100% valid. Now lets review again for those who have difficulty comprehending the facts:

1. Sweden does not get 100% of its oil from Russia. It doesn't even get a majority of its oil from Russia. Cid is wrong on this.

2. Its nice that Sweden says it won't sell its weapons to the Saudis because they engaged in an unethical war.

3. But at the same time Sweden's ethical concerns go out the window when its time to BUY oil. Sweden is quite willing to BUY oil from unethical countries engaged in unethical wars like Russia (under US and EU sanctions for invading Ukraine), Nigeria (engaged in internal war against Islamist extremists much like the internal war in Yemen) and from Venezuela (under US sanctions for violent internal repression).

Cheers!

added note: Sweden does deserve credit for consistently pushing for tougher EU sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine but as far as I know Sweden is still buying oil from Russia.

[Cid_Yama]

Hey moron, aren't you forgetting that the start of this was your trollish attack on Sweden claiming they were buying oil from Saudi Arabia, even though they quit selling arms to them.

The point ... was to remove Sweden from an ethically untenable relationship.

If Sweden finds Saudi Arabia so morally objectionable, then why don't they stop buying oil from Saudi?

Don't the Swedes know that every kroner they send off to Saudi Arabia to buy oil gets converted into bullets and bombs to be used against Shia Houthi rebel in Yemen?

Well, isn't that special...the Swedes won't sell weapons to the Saudis, but they ship them kroner for oil so the saudis can buy weapons from the US and other arms suppliers...

I pointed out that they weren't buying oil from Saudi Arabia. That you were just making another of your trollish attacks without even verifying if what you said was true.

They get the majority of what they import from Russia by a large margin, followed by Norway and absolutely none, zilch, nada from anyone in the Persian Gulf.

sverige_oljeimport_2012.png

You outright claimed they weren't getting their oil from Russia.

Cid Yama is wrong again---Sweden does not get its oil from Russia

Pretty clear who won the day here. So STFU.

(You do realize people can look back and see how the conversation went, that they don't just go by the last post you wrote. Kind of hard to rewrite it when it's right there.)

He cheapens this site. Is pure troll. In his mind he is a child burning ants with a piece of crap broken glass in a filthy empty rubble-strewn lot. His posts are empty, dirty, and he gets his jollies pissing people off. Should be banned. Should have been banned years ago as a psycho. Everything he says is suspect, has a non-political agenda: merely to get a rise from others. Most here are good people with a sincere search for the truth who maybe want to make things better. Even debate issues. Not plant.

Pstarr is correct, You're a troll, you've always been a troll, and I have no problem saying it, because it's true. You add nothing of value. And you won't ever see me apologize for the truth. I'm sure pstarr has already taken back his apology.(If he actually ever made one.)

[Keith_McClary]

Cid Yama is wrong again---Sweden does not get its oil from Russia

Pretty clear who won the day here. So STFU.

Now you have to repeat that in every post, to remind him.

[Keith_McClary]

Nigeria (engaged in internal war against Islamist extremists

So we should stop buying their oil?