Saudi King is Dead

So the king of the country most responsible for bankrolling salafist terrorism has scuttled off the mortal coil. Will it be business as usual, or will the region become more destabilized than it is at present?

Business as usual.

His brother, Prince Salman is the key financier of the Bosnian Mujahideen. He set up a network of “charitable organisations” that were frontgroups for funnelling money to terrorist groups. At the height of the Soviet War in Afghanistan he was moving $25 million a month to insurgents in Afghanistan. There may be a serious crisis after Salman’s and Muqrin’s departure as there are so many claimants amongst the grandson’s of the founder of the House of Saud, Abdelaziz Ibn Saud.

I don’t think this is business as usual and it will further destabilize the region.

I also saw that ISIS snuck across the Saudi border and took out a general and a proposed solution was to build a massive wall to help protect the country’s borders. Yemen just changed hands in a coup too. Not really a good time to have a stabilizing factor pass away.

As volatile as that region is, it’s going to get worse.

I watched a video this week where a woman had been verbally accused of murder, and was then beheaded in public in Saudi Arabia. If this is “moderate Islam,” I can only imagine what happens when the moderates die off.

Their has not be stability in the middle east, ever. If it was not for oil, no one would give a crap. The sooner everyone leaves the area the sooner this shit stops. Oh wait, the USA has an agreement with the royal family. Price oil in US dollars and we guard your nation, the oil!

If the US wishes to continue controlling the world market they need to protect the Saudi nation even from themselves it seems. If the USA stopped protecting them they would change how oil is priced. Any currency other than American would have a huge impact on the US economy. Politics, what can you do. Voting never changes those issues.

More on topic, I hear the US and the ISIS made the same tribute to the King. That is embarrassing to say the least.

[quote]streamline wrote:
Their has not be stability in the middle east, ever.

[/quote]

Not so. Many of the Islamic sultanates have existed for over a thousand years. There were centuries if relative stability after the Ottomans consolidated the Byzantine Empire. I say “relative” as Europe was often in a more chaotic state than the Middle East for much of its history.

Yes, and Islamic nations occupy near a third the earth’s landmass including strategically vital waterways and shipping lanes. Furthermore, the modern world and the traditional Islamic societies are on a sort of collision path; globalisation, international trade and relations and so forth, ensure we cannot avoid involvement. But the real problem of course is the hostility and belligerent actions of Muslims whether on a nation state level; irredentism, menacing Israel and the West, or on a smaller level with groups, often tribal, waging a war of terror against the non-Islamic world.

Given the fact that the United States is the only thing preventing a major world war breaking out and given the realities of globalisation in the 21st Century we can’t really “leave” the area and even if we did our embassies would be bombed and shipping lanes attacked, allies menaced and invaded - in short, it would be a catastrophe. The US needs “forward operating bases” in these places in order to protect our national security. Surely?

And we’ve had relative stability from the royal families of the region in comparison to the alternatives that have presented themselves; military dictatorship, secular/quasi-religious tyrannies like Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad etc.

[quote]streamline wrote:

More on topic, I hear the US and the ISIS made the same tribute to the King. That is embarrassing to say the least. [/quote]

Link?

I thought ISIS was opposed to the Saudi Kingdom.

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

Not so. Many of the Islamic sultanates have existed for over a thousand years. There were centuries if relative stability after the Ottomans consolidated the Byzantine Empire. I say “relative” as Europe was often in a more chaotic state than the Middle East for much of its history.

[quote]

Even so, there was constant warfare between the different tribes, Kingdoms and sects. There was never any peace in the Middle East. The Ottomans eventually gained control, but even they were constantly fighting someone.

Edited for clarity

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

Even so, there was constant warfare between the different tribes, Kingdoms and sects. There was never any peace in the Middle East. The Ottomans eventually gained control, but even they were constantly fighting someone.[/quote]

Yes, but my point was that colonial powers were able to keep a lid on things to a certain extent. The same is true in all the world’s trouble spots. The Balkans were always a seething hotbed of sectarianism and separatist movements but the Austro-Hungarian empire kept it bottled up and cracked down on terrorists. It wasn’t until the Ottoman Empire finally collapsed and the French and British folded up the colonies, drew up a map with new countries and handed them over to the natives that the place(the Middle East) disintegrated.

Things were a lot better in the past. That is my point. For example, Beirut used to be a paradise. It was like the South of France; casinos, luxurious holiday resorts, beach front bars and swimming pools everywhere. But after the French pulled out and the PLO came in and tore up the place it’s been a warzone ever since. It’s the same story in parts of South East Asia to North Africa. All these places did well under colonialism and tore themselves apart when left to their own devices(with some help of Islamic fundamentalist regimes and organisations of course).

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

Things were a lot better in the past. That is my point. For example, Beirut used to be a paradise. It was like the South of France; casinos, luxurious holiday resorts, beach front bars and swimming pools everywhere. But after the French pulled out and the PLO came in and tore up the place it’s been a warzone ever since. It’s the same story in parts of South East Asia to North Africa. All these places did well under colonialism and tore themselves apart when left to their own devices(with some help of Islamic fundamentalist regimes and organisations of course).[/quote]

Ok, I get what you are saying. Better under colonial rule. But you see, the natives think Western society is decadent. The Islamists want to return to what amounts to tribalism and constant warfare. Like these people who run to Syria and Iraq think living under ISIS is such a good deal till they get there and realize it’s a killing field. Most of these people would be criminals or failures in the long run anyway so it’s a perfect place for them.

I’m also saying that Britain in particular bears some responsibility for the way they handled the question of divying up the land after The First World War and how they treated the Jews and the Jewish survivors of the holocaust who were trying to escape to Israel and the ones already there.