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I'm so disappointed with the global status this shithole maintains. They are spending so much money on bots and propaganda that if you look at Twitter, Tiktok or Instagram it's full of organic spam and any comments calling out this disgusting place get removed or piled on.
Khashoghi died because he funded a campaign against the Saudi Twitter bot army.
If it helps, that money is leaving their country which is funded by a natural resource that is losing its economic value and they have nothing economically beyond that, plus will get drilled by climate change which they are responsible for in a lot of ways!
So, temporary problem :-)
How many PGA golfers lined up to join LIV golf sponsored by the Saudi regime? Last year this was Phil Mickelson simping for the Saudi government saying: “I certainly do not condone human rights violations. And addressing what happened to Jamal Khashoggi is awful. But I have seen the good that game of golf has done throughout history. And I really believe that LIV can be good for the game of golf as well.’’
Money trumps morals.
Same with soccer
Seeing footballers who've spent the last decade preaching to their domestic fans about progressive politics bugger of to Saudi Arabia as soon as the money was better was hilarious. There's montage that Al Ettifaq put out of Henderson when they brought him, where they went as far as censoring the LGBT armband he's worn in the Premier League and internationals.
Lol no Saudi is weaker than it ever has been. The Saudis know their military is shit and their people won’t do anything to preserve their regime if the Iranians come after them. With the U.S. pulling out of the Middle East since Afghanistan they are flailing about seeking treaties with the Chinese and the Russians to guarantee their safety. However the Russian military and their equipment have proven to be very shit. The Chinese talk a good game but they don’t have the military to project power overseas and most of their equipment is based on Russian garbage.
The US doesn’t need their oil as we are a net exporter now. They’ve also cut oil exports in the last year to try and prop up prices. There is also a very good chance they have passed peak oil production and simply can not produce more.
So what does Saudi have left to offer? Peace with Israel and a conclusion to the Palestinian conflict… maybe. At least that is what they are offering Blinken for an Alliance during their latest visit.
Don’t let the article fool you the Saudis are weak and know they are in trouble without US guarantees of peace.
Do you really think the media would do that? Just outright lie to benefit their capitalist overlords?
Dont do that. The Guardian is a pretty good source. Yes they are alarmist at times, but they're the last UK newspaper to lick a boot.
The problem is systematic. It didn't take long for BBC to go from respectable journalism to trans genocide.
The BBC has reported the official line since time immemorial. Their director is now more pro-fascist than ever, but the Guardian is not the mouth-piece of the government as the BBC was, and have had their offices raided numerous times.
Alright you've convinced me. They don't attack journalists who are on the side of evil.
Eh, while they are a good publication overall, the Guardian is the definition of permitted dissent.
As an American, I really hope that Saudi Arabia crumbles and implodes. It's a horrible country with horrible leadership and governance.
I hope you're right. They sure have been breaking from the pattern lately, I guess it's a logical explanation...
The only reason the USA is exporting all that oil is because they don't have the facilities to refine it.
No. The USA has a lot of natural oil reserves, but a lot of them are more expensive to extract than the global average.
Even with American companies no longer investing in new production, the USA has a lot of oil it has access to extract.
That smug shit should be staked-out in the desert for a week.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Since then, Mohammed bin Salman – Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, who, according to US intelligence officials, approved Khashoggi’s assassination – has managed a near complete rehabilitation of his increasingly autocratic regime.
Prince Mohammed has met with Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders; he’s positioning Saudi Arabia as a global tourism destination; and he’s plowing ahead with plans to build Neom, his $500bn futuristic city in the desert.
Trump dropped the pretense that the US-Saudi alliance is anything more than a transactional arrangement based on keeping global oil prices stable, common security interests in the Middle East, and negotiating large weapons deals.
After Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, disrupting global oil markets, the prince seized his opportunity to pressure Biden into becoming a supplicant seeking lower gasoline prices for American consumers.
Then last October, as the world braced for a surge in fuel prices due to the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russian oil, the Saudi-led Opec Plus cartel decided to cut production by 2m barrels a day – the opposite of what Biden administration officials had pleaded with the Saudis to do.
After the shock of that embarrassing announcement, which threatened to raise gas prices around the US midterm elections, Biden vowed: “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done.” Yet, a few months later, the US administration quietly dropped any pretense of holding Prince Mohammed and his regime accountable.
The original article contains 1,260 words, the summary contains 240 words. Saved 81%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Putin taught Kim Jong, who taught MBS, who taught Modi. When one or two civilians lives are an acceptable compromise to retain a relationship with another country, you open up that route for all.
Edit: The triggered tankies from Hexbear just soothe my soul. Cry more.
Wow not kidding pretty much all hexbear... and I'm sorry they are upset cause Putin didn't originally come up with murder? Like not even defending anything just in here to shout and make noise because their favorite shitstain was called a mean name? They truly are peak rational humans huh? How could we not see their superiority? ತ_ತ
If you need help explaining just how fascist the west is to an average person, point out how they keep aligning themselves with some of the most savage murderous regimes in human history. There isn't a single answer that doesn't make them look like a complete monster.
People who talk of the west as fascist must not know much of what’s going on in the east or eastern history.
'This is bad.'
'No, another thing is bad.'
Right, sorry, only one problem allowed at a time.
Calling something Fascist when it is very clearly and objectively not Fascist does not actually make it Fascist. The West isn't Fascist. The point he was trying to make is that people like you have a world of view so narrow and ignorant that you don't understand what Fascism is, hence the incorrect usage. A country like Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan are Fascist, a country like Germany or the Netherlands are not.
Western goverments endorse most of what's happening in the east
No, they don't.
there's a 99.99% probability you are sending this comment from a chinese piece of hardware your government is totally fine importing from china
China barely produces hardware, unless someone is specifically buying a product from a Chinese company. A lot of hardware isn't even manufactured in China anymore, let alone designed and engineered.
Just check for yourself, open up the devices around you and check where they are made...
If freedom of press is one of the ways you can assess how fascist a state is, which it is, then I wonder which countries you consider better than the west. China? Russia? North Korea? Yeah, all places renown for not silencing journalists, poisoning political opponents or ruling with an iron fist. All places where you can just criticize the government, publicly, on prime TV, in the journals, without repercussions.
Also all places where they don't murder people for their political views, where they don't incarcerate them, torture them, send them to "re-education camps" or try to genocide entire ethnic groups in order to reduce dissent.
At the end of the day, "the west" remains the only place where you can actually go on tv, in the squares and protest against the government decisions, criticize them and even vote for the government to leave power. Is it perfect? Hell no, it's a disgusting system rigged by the rich and powerful, but it's still miles ahead of any totalitarian, authoritarian dictatorship.
Also it's not like China isn't buying lots of oil from Iran, a country which it's as much a savage murderous regime as Saudi Arabia, and from Russia, an imperialistic warmongering nation. And the reason it's clear, they need energy as much as the west needs energy. It's the reason why everyone puts up with those kinds of people.
The sooner we, as a species, can move away from oil, coal, gas and the likes, the better it will be for everyone. No more energy wars and a cleaner planet overall.
By that standard the only countries not monstrous are those too feeble to ally with.
Plenty of countries on all continents have sided with oppressive regimes, and conveniently ignored atrocities as long as they're aimed at someone else. In anything from the Korea or Pakistani wars, to genocides in Central America, to slave trading within the African continent.
The West is due some criticism, but this approach is useless.
America itself has been an oppressive regime. Britain and France were both oppressive regimes not too far in the past (and still to some degree today).
Why are people surprised that oppressive regimes ally themselves with other oppressive regimes? Geopolitics isn't a story of "good" and "bad," it's a story of rational self-interest.
Google the name of your favorite politician shaking hands with one of saudi arabia rulers