[Arthur75]

I don't think the KSA is going to have a revolution for the same reasons we in the USA won't. Nobody is hurting enough yet.

Not so sure, there are a lot of poor people in KSA and huge inequalities, but both poor and uneducated, which is quite different from Egypt (besides the population being much smaller)
But also a lot of Shia/wahabi tensions, see for instance :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7959531.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNMFMgHkwE

Plus the Shia regions are also the oil fields ones

Meanwhile the rich saudis kids are having fun :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQR3w15i-NA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI3lcwsMMPU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1K8P0GCXrI

[ian807]

I don't think the KSA is going to have a revolution for the same reasons we in the USA won't. Nobody is hurting enough yet.

Not so sure, there are a lot of poor people in KSA and huge inequalities, but both poor and uneducated, which is quite different from Egypt (besides the population being much smaller)
But also a lot of Shia/wahabi tensions, see for instance :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7959531.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSNMFMgHkwE

Plus the Shia regions are also the oil fields ones

Meanwhile the rich saudis kids are having fun :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQR3w15i-NA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI3lcwsMMPU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1K8P0GCXrI

You could very well be right. I just don't know enough about internal tensions in Saudi. I do think that if the House of Saud can stop a revolution with money, they will. The good side of that is that social inequalities might be addressed to some degree.

[mos6507]

So, you are unaware? From your posts, I would say yes. Matter of fact most ppl here are in the same boat. moss, watch the video.

YOU watch the video.

[vision-master]

Good propaganda clip. lsol

[Oneaboveall]

So, you are unaware? From your posts, I would say yes. Matter of fact most ppl here are in the same boat. moss, watch the video.

YOU watch the video.

Remember the T-Shirt?

"This Is Your Brian on Drugs" (Picture of Egg)
"This is Your Brain on Drugs" (Picture of Frying Egg)
"This is your Brain on Toast with a Side Order of Bacon" (Picture of Egg on Toast with a Side Order of Bacon)

[Novus]

Here is the version on the official Saudi news website (there aren't any unofficial news websites):
President Obama joins King Abdullah in condemnation of Egyptian turmoil

Their articles are usually well written. This sounds a bit panicked.

I hear that Saudi TV has nothing about Egypt & Tunisia but burning and looting - trying to scare their own population. Same in the US.

Of course they are panicked. We in the West are not getting the whole story for we can't handle the truth of our own government's hypocrisy. The whole middle East is turning against its' US backed puppet dictators. America stands on the side of Tyranny in this war and for that we are hypocrites.

I smell a black swan coming where all that bad Karma catches up to us.

[Roy]

Of course they are panicked. We in the West are not getting the whole story for we can't handle the truth of our own government's hypocrisy. The whole middle East is turning against its' US backed puppet dictators. America stands on the side of Tyranny in this war and for that we are hypocrites.

I smell a black swan coming where all that bad Karma catches up to us.

I think you're right. I smell it too, and hope that happens soon. The longer we go without that happening, the worse the 'catching up' is going to be.

I notice how our propaganda machine is starting to spin this episode as the 'muslim brotherhood', Islamist extremism, and the oncoming caliphate. FEAR THE ISLAMO=FACISTS THEY HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOM....

I don't see it that way.

[Fishman]

Amazing I agree with Mos. This is an incredibly volitile situation. Unfortunately for the Arab world, history would indicate either a new dictator or an islamic theocracy approaching Taliban status. Hypocricy yes, based on lots of experience however.
Roy, you may not see it that way, but feel free to give an example otherwise. I just don't see any unicorns at these protests.

KSA will be tougher to fall, but it certainly may. Can you say $10 gas in one week, and food tripling in price in a month? Starvation in much of the third world in a year. No Roy, I'm not backing a dictator just articulating unintented consequences. The first things that will happen will be the closing of the canal. Then hamas will flood gaza with even more weapons with the Egyptians otherwise occupied. 8 million coptic christians are quaking right now.

[EnergyUnlimited]

It would be a nightmare scenario if the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia turned against its' ruling elite. This where we enter the realm of world wide doomer porn with oil prices doubling over night quickly followed by a massive 9 MBPD shortage. They say it couldn't happen. If you asked a few days ago the media talking heads would have told you Egypt would never fall like Tunisia. It couldn't happen to Egypt but it happened none the less. It has been said that Egypt is the heart and soul of the Arab world and where Egypt goes the rest of the middle East goes as well. Arab nationalism was born in Egypt and Egypt's cultural influence throughout the middle East is huge. So if the rest of the middle East particularly the KSA decides to go off the deep end we will be in for a world of hurt.

Got doom? Be ready for it.

Egyptians are quite insulted when called "Arabs".
Very much like Iranians are.

Egyptians are not a Semitic nation.
By Arabs they are called "Maghreb peoples" and considerably distrusted.

You should rather replace word "Arab" with "Muslim" or perhaps "Sunni Muslim" in your statement.

[mos6507]

The whole middle East is turning against its' US backed puppet dictators. America stands on the side of Tyranny in this war and for that we are hypocrites.

Nice knee-jerk anti-US spin. Funny you would say this. On NPR on the way in they played a clip of Obama's "Mea-Culpa" trip in 2009 where he urged democratic reforms in the middle-east, which is exactly what the protesters are calling for. So if anything, the Egyptians are heeding Obama's call, not doing it as a backlash against the US.

BTW, here is the state of anti-americanism in Egypt.

[mos6507]

I don't see it that way.

Curious. What would it take to make you see it that way? I would guess nothing would convince you, since in your mind the US is the root of all evil.

[Fishman]

Egypt is a member of the Arab League, though perhaps they do not call themselves such or other may not see them as arab.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_League.
So calling them arab in discussion would be quite appropriate. If the protesting goes outside those in the League of Arab states, we'll make corrections.

[Keith_McClary]

I don't see it that way.

Curious. What would it take to make you see it that way?

Just lock him up in a room with nothing but the US corporate media to tell him what to think.

I would guess nothing would convince you, since in your mind the US is the root of all evil.

Nah.
Israel seeks to drum up support for Mubarak

Israel has asked its diplomats in the West, including the US and Europe, to drum up support for President Hosni Mubarak''s tottering regime
...
"The Americans and the Europeans are being pulled along by public opinion and aren''t considering their genuine interests," one senior Israeli official was quoted as saying.

"Even if they are critical of Mubarak they have to make their friends feel that they''re not alone. Jordan and Saudi Arabia see the reactions in the West, how everyone is abandoning Mubarak

[Arthur75]

Egyptians are not a Semitic nation.
By Arabs they are called "Maghreb peoples" and considerably distrusted.

Not at all, Egypt can be called Mashreq, but Maghreb stops in Libya, not a single Egyptian guy would consider himself from Maghreb, Maghreb is basically Tunisia, Algeria , Morocco, and more or less Lybia.
As to Egyptian being pissed at being called Arabs, debatable, depends, same in Maghreb (and by the way in Maghreb especially Algeria and Moroco, the languages prior to Arabic remains, Kabyle (or Amazigh) in Algeria, Chleuhs in Morocco, Berbere languages :

Berber languages in North Africa :


http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_berb%C3%A8res

Note : Also don't forget that Saint Augustin was from today's Algeria for instance and forgot which Roman Emperor was from there also

http://www.google.com/images?hl=fr&q=am ... 20&bih=924
http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=fr ... 7&aql=&oq=
http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=fr ... 0&aql=&oq=

Also Maghreb means in Arabic "where the sun sets down", basically west.
And Mashriq the east or "orient" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashriq
If you don't include Egypt in Mashriq, then it is just Egypt, wich indeed it is.
But Lebanese the same you can say they are Phenicians and not Arabic.

And also true that "true Arabs" (from KSA or Jordan typically) would not really consider Maghreb (or Egyptian) people Arabic, but also depends

[kildred590]

The Tunisian riots were caused when a market trader had been refused a trading licence and set fire to himself.

This is the real cause of the troubles ; a select group of government ministers and friends control the supply of all products in these countries and are driving prices up.
(The collapse of the Suharto regime was caused by a similar event, when petrol and rice prices were jacked up by a monopoly owned by Suharto's son).

Islamic insurgency ? Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the other Arab states are already Islamic.
The Western powers sponsored the rise of Islamic groups in the middle east in the 1970s and 1980s as a foil against communism.

[SeaGypsy]

[Suharto was convicted and sentenced in 2002 to fifteen years jail for paying a hitman to kill Syafiuddin Kartasasmita, a Supreme Court judge who had convicted him of graft. Other charges include illegal weapons possession and running from the law.

He received a fifteen year sentence and served part of it in Cipinang Penitentiary Institution (LP Cipinang), Jatinegara, East Jakarta. His sentence was reduced to ten years on appeal, and he was given conditional release on October 30, 2006.[1] He spent a total of four years in detainment. Critics said Suharto was released solely because of his position of wealth and power.[2]

On August 28, 2008, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati stated that Bank Mandiri had been directed to transfer 1.23 trillion rupiah (US$134 million) of funds owned by Tommy Suharto's now-defunct car company Timor Putra Nasional to a government account. Earlier, the ministry filed a graft case alleging Suharto illegally sold assets from Timor to 5 of his companies. Tommy Suharto in response filed a 21.8 million dollars countersuit against the ministry. Suharto won a separate 61-million-dollar civil corruption case in February, 2008, receiving US$550,000 in a countersuit

4 years for murdering a judge!!! Plundering the country, triggering a revolution then succesfully suing the commonwealth for lost revenue!!! This is the kind of shit which goes on in despotic countries AFTER the revolution. Meanwhile some soldiers got less than a year for torture convictions recently, a guy yesterday got 7 years (which he willl serve most of) for 3 grams of cocaine. Indonesia is still backwards as hell, corrupt as the day is long and warped as it ever was under Suharto.

[kildred590]

Suharto was installed after a bloody coup in the 1970s in which tens of thousands of people were killed or "disappeared" after Sukarno had had a few meetings with Soviet ministers over purchasing weapons from the USSR.

During his reign he and the Indonesian military installed judges and senior civil servants that were members of the Golka (their political party) to enable themselves to steal billions of dollars of oil revenue and to set up monopolies for the sale of virtually every product in the country.
The Timor car deal is small beer.

This is similar to the situation in Egypt, and many countries where Western powers installed regimes to defeat usually democratic socialist governments (Pakistan under Zia being the most flagrant example).

Don't kid yourselves ; the Pentagon and the State Department are still of "cold warriors" like Rumsfield and Wolfowitz who think that Islam can be used to defeat communism and that the US can "win" a nuclear war.

[kildred590]

BTW, the US is by no means the most active in this area.

The French interfere in their former colonies constantly. The coup in Indonesia was organised with the support of the Netherlands.

[Keith_McClary]

The whole middle East is turning against its' US backed puppet dictators. America stands on the side of Tyranny in this war and for that we are hypocrites.

Nice knee-jerk anti-US spin. Funny you would say this. On NPR on the way in they played a clip of Obama's "Mea-Culpa" trip in 2009 where he urged democratic reforms in the middle-east, which is exactly what the protesters are calling for. So if anything, the Egyptians are heeding Obama's call, not doing it as a backlash against the US.

BTW, here is the state of anti-americanism in Egypt.

Chuck Spinney has traveled in the area and writes:
Did Obama’s Promise Trigger the Arab Revolt?

...
In contrast to the euphoria surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Arab Revolt of 2011 leaves one with a disquieting sense that we may be standing on the wrong side of history.
...
Clearly, the explosion of people power in Tunisia and Egypt caught the U.S. flat footed, and to date, has triggered only embarrassingly incoherent responses by our political leadership
....
Obama did surprisingly little to fulfill the hopes and dreams he unleashed worldwide during the election of 2008. Moreover, he deliberately magnified them in the Arab world with his 2009 Cairo speech. But coupled with his continuation of America’s cynical policies to prop up tyrannical Arab regimes, and particularly his spectacular failure to rein in the illegal Israeli settlements in the so-called Arab-Israeli Peace Process in 2010, Mr. Obama may have inadvertently exacerbated the explosive combination of frustrated expectations and business-as-usual that pressurized the current eruption of resentment, anger, and alienation among the Arab people in 2011.
...

[Toyota]

It would be a nightmare scenario if the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia turned against its' ruling elite. This where we enter the realm of world wide doomer porn with oil prices doubling over night quickly followed by a massive 9 MBPD shortage. They say it couldn't happen. If you asked a few days ago the media talking heads would have told you Egypt would never fall like Tunisia. It couldn't happen to Egypt but it happened none the less. It has been said that Egypt is the heart and soul of the Arab world and where Egypt goes the rest of the middle East goes as well. Arab nationalism was born in Egypt and Egypt's cultural influence throughout the middle East is huge. So if the rest of the middle East particularly the KSA decides to go off the deep end we will be in for a world of hurt.

Got doom? Be ready for it.

Egyptians are quite insulted when called "Arabs".
Very much like Iranians are.

Egyptians are not a Semitic nation.
By Arabs they are called "Maghreb peoples" and considerably distrusted.

You should rather replace word "Arab" with "Muslim" or perhaps "Sunni Muslim" in your statement.

maybe because Persians are not Arabs?

Egypt an sunni country? what about all the kopts and native religions?

and semitic people are mostly in syria/israel. Israel have many russian immigrants, would say that 1/3 of israelis speaks Russian, its says it all. But off course their are native semites in Israel, who are born in israel.