CC, Does Abdullah's Death Mean Change?

[Anonymous]

As far as their predatory pricing of world crude NO!! However, I'm thinking about domestic reforms and foreign policy? I have heard he was considered a moderate, especially for expanding women's roles in society. Will the new ruler move even further to Islamic right or pursue more liberalization?



What does this succession mean?

[Romero]

I don't think there'll be any significant changes. The Saud's love things just the way they are and the West won't be pushing for reforms.



"You beheaded how many innocent people for witchcraft? Tsk tsk. Wanna buy some tanks?"



Maybe in a few years they'll let women drive cars as long as they're on a leash.

[Romero]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has offered his condolences to the people of Saudi Arabia on the death of King Abdullah.



The monarch of the oil-rich country who sought to modernize the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom died Friday at the age of 90.



A royal court statement said Abdullah's 79-year-old half-brother, Prince Salman, would become the new Saudi leader.



In a statement, Harper said Abdullah was a "strong proponent of peace" in the Middle East.



http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/22/stephen-harper-king-abdullah_n_6528942.html">//http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/22/stephen-harper-king-abdullah_n_6528942.html

 ac_wot

[Anonymous]

I don't think there'll be any significant changes. The Saud's love things just the way they are and the West won't be pushing for reforms.



"You beheaded how many innocent people for witchcraft? Tsk tsk. Wanna buy some tanks?"



Maybe in a few years they'll let women drive cars as long as they're on a leash.

It sickens me the way the entire hypocritical Western world has done business with that awful fucking country. The West kisses their asses. I would turn that shithole into the international pariah it deserves to be like the West did with apartheid era South Africa. Remove the security guarantee, so their oil cannot get to market. Drive the price of crude back up and make North America the new OPEC.



FUCK THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA!!

[Romero]

Oh, I should have included this in my last post, via Gay Boy Bob on VF:

The Harper government boasts of conducting a high-minded, "principled" foreign policy. In that case, could someone in government explain why Saudi Arabia is Canada's second-largest export market for military sales? Where's the principle in that?



Could that same person explain why the Harper government cozies up to a regime whose decision to drive down the world price of oil is crippling Canada's oil industry and hurting the economy; whose government-sponsored support for a Wahhabi/Salafist form of Islam has spawned terrorism in many places; whose government opposes any attempt to curtail greenhouse gases; whose government oppresses its Shia minorities; and whose government has beheaded more people in 2014 than any other in the world and sentences a blogger to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam.



Where's the "principle" in a 14-year deal to sell $10-billion worth of Canadian light armoured vehicles to a systematic human-rights-abusing regime? That deal was underwritten by the Canadian Commercial Corporation last year, and touted by Harper ministers as a job-creator for General Dynamics in London, Ont., and more than 500 other Canadian firms.



The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters association hailed the contract as an "Olympic win for Canada." Maybe it was commercially, but where's the "principle" in selling $10-billion worth of military equipment to an unlovely regime whose actions run so counter to Canadian interests around the world?



Where's the "principle" in arranging visits to Saudi Arabia for Foreign Minister John Baird and welcoming Saudi leaders to Canada when that country, arguably more than any other, has been responsible for financing schools and teaching that promote the Saudi's Wahhabi version of Islam, which in turn has provided a fertile breeding ground for extremism and terrorism.



The government itself, of course, no longer spreads money around the Muslim world to promote Wahhabi thought, but plenty of individual Saudis and non-government organizations do. Since the Canadian government now declares that we are in a "war" against terror (the word "war" is politically arresting, but it dangerously misrepresents the actual state of affairs), no country's religious philosophy has done more to spawn terrorist thinking than Saudi Arabia's.



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/cozying-up-to-saudi-arabia-how-can-that-be-principled/article22489227/">//http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/cozying-up-to-saudi-arabia-how-can-that-be-principled/article22489227/

[Anonymous]

Saudi Arabia is a lucrative military export market for Britain and Germany too.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/defence-and-security-blog/2015/jan/15/bahrain-human-rights-arms-military">http://www.theguardian.com/world/defenc ... s-military">http://www.theguardian.com/world/defence-and-security-blog/2015/jan/15/bahrain-human-rights-arms-military

http://www.dw.de/controversial-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia/a-16602151">http://www.dw.de/controversial-arms-exp ... a-16602151">http://www.dw.de/controversial-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia/a-16602151

[Anonymous]

Saudi Arabia is a major arms importer. If we don't sell to them the French, British, Germans, Norwegians, Chinese or Americans will. Barring an international embargo(which wouldn't be honoured anyway), I would rather see Canada earn revenue from arms exports to the ME than our competitors.

According to SIPRI, who released new figures this week, global arms sales for 2009–13 were 14 per cent higher than in 2004-2008. SIPRI analysis shows the biggest importers globally were India, China, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, with the largest exporters being USA, Russia, China, Germany and France.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/10510-gulf-states-among-worlds-largest-arms-importers">https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/artic ... -importers">https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/10510-gulf-states-among-worlds-largest-arms-importers

[Romero]

Our competitors can sell their souls if they want to. NATO countries should only sell to NATO countries. The armoured vehicles we're selling to the Saudis aren't for defence. They're for cracking down on innocent people who dare say any little thing against the regime.



ISIS is having all sorts of fun with the weapons and vehicles the US sold to Iraq. It's so hypocritical and we're so naive. All this talk of wanting peace and winning the  War on Terror, and all we do is flood the Middle East with more and more arms.

[Anonymous]

Our competitors can sell their souls if they want to. NATO countries should only sell to NATO countries. The armoured vehicles we're selling to the Saudis aren't for defence. They're for cracking down on innocent people who dare say any little thing against the regime.



ISIS is having all sorts of fun with the weapons and vehicles the US sold to Iraq. It's so hypocritical and we're so naive. All this talk of wanting peace and winning the  War on Terror, and all we do is flood the Middle East with more and more arms.

Some do only sell to NATO countries(officially anyway, unofficially fuck no). Norway sells weaponry to the Czech Republic and Poland who then they resell to some pretty nasty countries.



201 Iraqis Killed with Norwegian Weapons

http://www.tnp.no/norway/politics/2068-201-iraqis-killed-with-norwegian-weapons">http://www.tnp.no/norway/politics/2068- ... an-weapons">http://www.tnp.no/norway/politics/2068-201-iraqis-killed-with-norwegian-weapons



If ME regimes have the money to pay it's not difficult finding a supplier.

[Renee]

Our competitors can sell their souls if they want to. NATO countries should only sell to NATO countries. The armoured vehicles we're selling to the Saudis aren't for defence. They're for cracking down on innocent people who dare say any little thing against the regime.



ISIS is having all sorts of fun with the weapons and vehicles the US sold to Iraq. It's so hypocritical and we're so naive. All this talk of wanting peace and winning the  War on Terror, and all we do is flood the Middle East with more and more arms.

So it's the fault of the US that the cowardly ragheads ran like little girls and abandoned millions of dollars of US provided weapons and equipment?



Yeah, I guess that makes sense to a dumbass proggy like you.  ac_toofunny  



BTW, ever stop to think that they were sold those weapons and then trained people how to use them so that they could defend themselves against aggressors like ISIS? It's not the fault of the US or any other country that the Iraqi people are more interested is jamming their fingers in the asses than they are protecting themselves.

[Romero]

So it's the fault of the US that the cowardly ragheads ran like little girls and abandoned millions of dollars of US provided weapons and equipment?

No, it's Bush and Cheney's fault. Did you forget?



The US supported and armed the mujahideen in Afghanistan. They became the Taliban and al Qaeda.



The US illegally invaded Iraq. It created ISIS.



The US bombed Libya. It created yet another terrorist haven.

[Anonymous]

It's the fault of those pesky Swedes.



Arming dictators

"Swedes see themselves as very ethical and restrictive when it comes to giving human rights violators or dictators things that help them stay in power. But the reality is that has happened," said Siemon Wezeman, an arms expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).



"In the last decade or so they've been more open to it, because those are the markets," he added.



"In the past they wouldn't have done business with Saudi Arabia due to human rights concerns -- it's obviously a place that rings all kinds of alarm bells -- but that has changed... They've sold them Eriye (radar tracking systems) and anti-tank missiles and marketed other weapons there."

http://www.businessinsider.com/swedens-dirty-secret-they-arm-dictators-2014-5">http://www.businessinsider.com/swedens- ... ors-2014-5">http://www.businessinsider.com/swedens-dirty-secret-they-arm-dictators-2014-5

The reality is that blaming the West is stupid and solves nothing. Private Gulf funding to various Syrian rebel groups has splintered the Syrian opposition and paved the way for the rise of groups like ISIS and others.



The ultimate fault though lay with a barbaric ideology called [size=200]ISLAM!![/size]



As long as we keep sticking our heads and denying what the real problem is we can expect groups like ISIS and AQ to take advantage of what they perceive as our weakness/cowardice.

[Romero]

I don't see how Islam is forcing us to support and arm human rights violators and dictators.



I'm quite sure our leaders are doing so because they want to.

[Gary Oak]

Muslims are slime. Europe and Canada send them weapons and they are so useless they let them wind up in the hands of their enemies. If they didn't have oil they would be wild apes living in caves.

[Anonymous]

I'm quite sure our leaders are doing so because they want to.

The West will continue to do this as long we keep sticking our heads in the sand. We have to first acknowledge that Islam is a cancer. Picking good and bad Muslims is like deciding if we should shoot ourselves in the head or the chest. Islam is the problem and not acknowledging that fact is our problem.