[SeaGypsy]

That is not just Saudi, most places in the world outside Europe & European derived cultures same same. Left is for shit, right for food & friendship.

[careinke]

CID,
The meal you were having is called a Capsa, and yes eating with the left hand is a no no.

[Keith_McClary]

CID,
The meal you were having is called a Capsa, and yes eating with the left hand is a no no.

I thought everybody knew that. What DO they teach in diplomat school?

[SeaGypsy]

Not keeping shit separate from food or distinguishing appendages & orifices perhaps. Not sure what they do teach.

[Cog]

No wonder the State Department is in such disarray. They have forgotten the principle reason that we have a State Department. It is to protect American interests and those of our corporations.

[Cid_Yama]

1. I was very young at the time. I had not yet worked outside the US.

2. This dinner happened in the United States. I met a Saudi prince at the sidelines of a conference that was going on. He invited me to dinner at his place with friends of his that were also princes of other Arab states, Oman, Kuwait, Dubai, and Qatar, I believe they said. They were all in their 20's as I was at the time.

3. It was just a faux pas, we smoked water pipes and discussed their impressions of the US afterwards.

They tried to get me to go out with them to the bars as they wanted to demonstrate to me that all women in the US were whores. That all they had to do was wave their money around and the women would sleep with them. I declined. They all went out to the bars, I went home. (They may not allow alcohol back home, but they sure indulged here.)

No diplomatic crisis, no injuring of international relations. Cog, you are such a drama queen.

[careinke]

They tried to get me to go out with them to the bars as they wanted to demonstrate to me that all women in the US were whores. That all they had to do was wave their money around and the women would sleep with them. I declined. They all went out to the bars, I went home. (They may not allow alcohol back home, but they sure indulged here.)

No diplomatic crisis, no injuring of international relations. Cog, you are such a drama queen.

It's amazing how Allah can't see past their countries boarders.

[Cid_Yama]

As for anyone concerned about protocol, I reported the initial contact to my superior who encouraged me to go, then filed a report afterwards.

Such informal contacts is how we accrue information on individual power players for their profile.

[Keith_McClary]

They tried to get me to go out with them to the bars as they wanted to demonstrate to me that all women in the US were whores. That all they had to do was wave their money around and the women would sleep with them.

US whores have an intelligence network that alerts them whenever Saudi princes enter a bar.

[Cid_Yama]

In what is being hailed as the “largest-ever smuggling operation uncovered at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport,” two tons of drugs were seized by authorities off a private jet.

Among the five Saudi nationals detained for questioning in connection to the drugs was Saudi prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz, member of the Saudi royal family.

Charges involve the smuggling of two tons of Captagon aka Fenethylline pills (amphetamine) and some cocaine to the Saudi capital of Riyadh, according to NBC New York.

It was also recently reported that Captagon is the “drug of choice” for ISIS fighters to stay alert on the battlefield, the sales revenue of the drug also helps fund the terrorist regime’s operation:

While cheap to make, it has a street value of $20 (£12.90) and revenues from its sale reaches into the millions of dollars – part of which is believed to be used by the Islamic State and other militia groups in Syria to buy weapons.

One secular ex-Syrian fighter who spoke to the BBC said the drug is tailor-made for the battlefield because of its ability to give soldiers superhuman energy and courage:

"So the brigade leader came and told us, 'this pill gives you energy, try it,' " he said. "So we took it the first time. We felt physically fit. And if there were 10 people in front of you, you could catch them and kill them. You're awake all the time. You don't have any problems, you don't even think about sleeping, you don't think to leave the checkpoint. It gives you great courage and power. If the leader told you to go break into a military barracks, I will break in with a brave heart and without any feeling of fear at all — you're not even tired."

A drug control officer in the central city of Homs told Reuters he had observed the effects of Captagon on protesters and fighters held for questioning.

"We would beat them, and they wouldn't feel the pain. Many of them would laugh while we were dealing them heavy blows," he said. "We would leave the prisoners for about 48 hours without questioning them while the effects of Captagon wore off, and then interrogation would become easier."

Captagon has been around in the West since the 1960s, when it was given to people suffering from hyperactivity, narcolepsy and depression, according to the Reuters report. By the 1980s, according to Reuters, the drug's addictive power led most countries to ban its use.

The United State classified fenethylline ("commonly known by the trademark name Captagon") as a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act in 1981, according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Still, the drug didn't exactly disappear.

VOA notes that while Westerners have speculated that the drug is being used by Islamic State fighters, the biggest consumer has for years been Saudi Arabia. In 2010, a third of the world's supply — about seven tons — ended up in Saudi Arabia, according to Reuters. VOA estimated that as many as 40,000 to 50,000 Saudis go through drug treatment each year.

“My theory is that Captagon still retains the veneer of medical respectability,” Justin Thomas, an assistant professor of psychology and psychotherapy at the UAE’s Zayed University and author of "Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States," told VOA in 2010. “It may not be viewed as a drug or narcotic because it is not associated with smoking or injecting.”

link

If they are acquiring a third of the world's production, they aren't using it all themselves.

This same prince, only a week before, had been charged in the US with kidnapping, rape, and sexual slavery, involving 3 women. We let him leave the country. (I would guess 'diplomatic immunity'.)

[Cid_Yama]

It would be just as much of a mistake for the United States to tilt in favor of Iran in this conflict as it is to tilt in favor of Saudi Arabia. Taking either side in this rivalry, as with many other international rivalries, entails several disadvantages for the United States.

The fundamental disadvantage is that taking sides means the United States committing itself to objectives and interests that are someone else’s, and not its own. An objective such as getting the upper hand in a local contest for influence may be a very rational objective for a local power to pursue, but that is not the same as what is in U.S. interests.

Some of the objectives and policies, as is true with Saudi Arabia, may not even be very rational for the local power itself. Internal political weaknesses and rigidity may lie behind some of the local power’s policies, as is true of the apparent Saudi inability to recognize the long-term threat that radical Salafism poses to Saudi Arabia itself and to shape policy accordingly.

Sheer emotion may underlie other policies, as with how the Saudi obsession with toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is related to possible Syrian involvement in the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who had close ties with Saudi Arabia.

Another disadvantage for the United States of taking sides in a conflict is that doing so immediately subjects the United States to resentment and disapproval because of whatever baggage has come to be associated with the conflict, in addition to whatever the immediate issues ostensibly are.

The current state of Saudi-Iranian relations is a function not just of last week’s execution of the Shia activist cleric but of several other things. One of the most prominent sore points in recent months, for example, has been the fatal stampede at last year’s hajj, in which hundreds of Iranian pilgrims died. Iranians have been understandably infuriated with Saudi Arabia for letting this incident happen. Anyone taking Saudi Arabia’s side on anything at issue with Iran right now may seem to be insensitive to this tragedy.

Related to the point about associated baggage is the strong sectarian flavor of the conflict. For the United States to be seen taking sides in a conflict between Sunni and Shia, amid the highly charged sectarian tensions along this fault line in the Middle East, can only be a lose-lose proposition for Washington. The United States is much more likely to be seen as an enemy of some part of Islam than as a friend of some other part of it.

A further disadvantage of taking sides is that it reduces the opportunities for U.S. diplomacy, which serves U.S. interests best when the United States can do business with anybody and everybody. Shrewd U.S. diplomacy exploits local rivalries to obtain leverage and to play different rivals against each other for the United States’ own advantage.

Stupid U.S. diplomacy would cut in half the number of other countries the United States can effectively deal with by declaring half of them to be on the “wrong” side of local conflicts. Diplomacy does not work well when one is using only carrots with some countries and only sticks with others.

Finally, one should always be wary of the danger of getting sucked into larger conflicts because of involvement with the spats of lesser states. The European crisis in the summer of 1914 is the classic case of this.

An equivalent of World War I is unlikely to break out in the Middle East, but this is just one of the costs and risks that constitute good reasons for the United States not to make as its own the quarrels of others, no matter how deeply ingrained is the habit of talking about certain states as allies and certain others as adversaries.

link

[Cid_Yama]

I would like to address some people's concern about Saudi Arabian Oil, and using it as an excuse to continue to back Saudi Arabia.

1. Due to the domestic instability in Saudi Arabia and it's financial situation, Saudi Arabia will continue to export as much oil as they possibly can, allies or not.

2. We actually would be better off if Saudi Arabian production stopped all together, especially with Iran coming online. Low oil prices are hurting US shale oil companies.

3. One good raid on Abqaiq would put and end to the 'War on Terror' as funding for the terrorists would immediately dry up. No more Islamic State, no more Wahabi madrassas around the world teaching Sunni extremism. No more weapons and explosives for the terrorists. One B-2 and a weapons load of incendiaries is all it would take. No one need even know we did it. Just a horrible accident or terrorists through the fence.

4. There is no bigger Devil in the Middle East. So the 'devil we know' argument doesn't hold water.

And we wouldn't be doing it for anyone else but ourselves. Whatever follows, follows. It certainly wouldn't be worse than the situation we find ourselves in now.

It would instantly clean up our diplomatic relations, and allow us to be straight forward again. (We would also need to take out Erdogan now rather than later. You know the old, 'if we had only taken out Hitler at the start' argument.) Then we can start working on cleaning up our image with the rest of the world.

And all the money we are wasting in the Middle East can come back home to fund infrastructure projects here.

[SeaGypsy]

Exactly Cid, a handful of Saudi & Turk scum are dragging the world into a quagmire. The USA has the delete button. There would be no retribution worth worrying about. Good people are being killed & enslaved daily while these filthy excuses for human beings do whatever they like.

[vox_mundi]

Add unemployment, inequality, overpopulation to the brew ...

Tunisian city under curfew after unemployment rally

Tunisian police have fired tear gas at protesters demanding jobs in the western Kasserine province, two days after an unemployed man committed suicide, locals have said.

Clashes between protesters demanding jobs and Tunisian police escalated in the city of Kasserine, the capital of the province, on Tuesday, Tunisia's state news agency (TAP) reported.

At least 23 people were injured in the clashes, including three security forces, according to TAP. The injuries mostly resulted from the use of tear gas.

Ridha Yahyaoui, a young job-seeker, committed suicide in Kasserine on Sunday after he found out his name had been taken from a government pool of potential public employees.

According to the World Bank, Tunisia's unemployment rate is at 15.3 percent, only a little under the country's unemployment rate post-2011 revolution of 16.7 percent, but still well above the pre-revolution level of 13 percent.

Protest in Kasserine Province Tunisia

People in Kasserine province in Tunisia protested against the government because of unemployment of educated people. And there was a clash between people and the police. The protests are spreading in many other Tunisian provinces and the media are turning a blind eye on this subject.

kinda like burning the candle at both ends.

[Cid_Yama]

Bob Graham spills the beans on Saudi involvement in 911, Al Qaida, ISIS, and other Sunni Terrorism as well as disinformation by US Agencies in an attempted cover-up. He was on the committee that reviewed the evidence on 911 and knows what is on the classified 28 pages since his committee wrote the report.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/bob-graham-o ... tml?ref=gs

[onlooker]

I am waiting for some real shocking spill the beans on US involvement in 911. Rumors were that Putin might do it.

[onlooker]

Well now we have a more extreme and overt continuation of Western policies in the ME. Here is a good article on that. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/20/ ... ggression/

[SeaGypsy]

Nicely written article Onlooker. I agree with all of it except for the thrust that the imperial goal is all out war with Russia & possibly China. My view is that two most obvious things Orwell got right, government doublespeak & perpetual war. The doublespeak implies unbelievability of everything said, the perpetual war perpetuates the MIC, which requires turnover & growth like any other business, & without which there is no State power. Just take the above argument to it's most dreamy neocon conclusion, Russia & China defeated, Islam pacified & subdued, global 'free' trade- what has happened to the MIC? It has become worthless, futile, pointless doomed to redundancy. Recall that international arms sales alone approach $1 trillion US a year nearly 2/3 of which is US exports. Consider the shape & timing of the wax & wane of the MIC in monetary terms. Instead of dragging us inexorably to all out war, the MIC gains by enticing sales of everything from pistol bullets to jet fighters & warhead delivery systems. The more tension in the world, the more arms sales, the more MIC growth & consequential maintenance of the empirical status quo. What is most unsure is that new players may not play by the rules, hence access to the most dangerous equipment must be restricted, requiring some surgical industrial hits perhaps, just enough to restrict & provoke, a quelled enemy is a dead market & markets is what it's really about.

[SeaGypsy]

I am waiting for some real shocking spill the beans on US involvement in 911. Rumors were that Putin might do it.

From what I have been told, Russia is a 'Truther' nation, not just Putin. Have a look around the world which leaders have called out the official narrative & how they get treated for it. If you want to be our friend, you won't go outside the boxcutter narrative.

[onlooker]

Agreed Sea, Perpetual War is the goal. As for truthers nations well what we have now is a world divided between those who believe the
"official" narrative of 911 and those who do not. Even within the US, Sea they''re are some people like me who do not believe it. At this point any narrative about anything gets put through the meat grinder that is the propaganda machines of all countries.