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Will we defend Saudi Arabia?

I believe that was an invasion of Kuwait, but I'm sure the concern was they may well be next. Personally, I hope we continue to harvest our own resources, and allow that region to work out their own problems. I just don't want our young men dying for something their own young men can certainly handle themselves.
 
good luck, saudi arabia's military is very well equipped, iran would be trounced and russia cant project power that far.
 
Hobbsforlife said:
I believe that was an invasion of Kuwait, but I'm sure the concern was they may well be next.
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Damned right they were concerned. Iraq almost literally stopped on their border with Kuwait, and most estimates showed that Iraq was ready to move South again within 14 days (the time needed to consolidate Kuwait and extend their logistical train). Except that by the end of those 14 days, the US and other nations were already flooding Saudi Arabia with military equipment and troops.

Instead what happened was a months long build-up of coalition power, and a simmering border dispute between Saudi Arabia and a newly expanded Iraq.
 
QuadpolarNutjob said:
good luck, saudi arabia's military is very well equipped, iran would be trounced and russia cant project power that far.
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Well, Israel could probably beat them. And if things got really nasty, they could nuke 'em.

But generally I agree with you.


What the heck would the POTUS do then? If Israel attacked S.A. - or the other way around? Which side would he/she take?
 
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Children of Briton sentenced to 350 lashes over alcohol appeal to PM | World news | The Guardian

Children of Briton sentenced to 350 lashes over wine appeal to PM
Karl Andree, 74, who reportedly broke Saudi Arabia’s laws with homemade alcohol, will not survive flogging, say family
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The son of Karl Andree fears he will not survive the punishment
Ben Quinn
Tuesday 13 October 2015 07.20 BST Last modified on Tuesday 13 October 2015 10.12 BST
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The children of a British man have called on David Cameron to intervene to save their father from being subjected to 350 lashes in Saudi Arabia. Karl Andree, 74, faces being publicly flogged as part of a punishment imposed after bottles of homemade wine were reportedly found last year in his car by Saudi police enforcing strict laws prohibiting alcohol.

The family of the oil executive, who is being held at Jeddah’s Briman prison, say he is already weak as a result of cancer and fear that the flogging will kill him. They said in a statement reported by the Sun: “Our father has given 25 years of his working life to Saudi Arabia, and this is how he is treated. Until his arrest, he has always been happy working there and felt safe.

“He is 74 years of age, has had cancer three times and his wife is dying in a home in the UK. He now needs medical care for his cancer and asthma, and there is no doubt in our mind that 350 lashes will kill him. We implore David Cameron to personally intervene and help get our father home. The Saudi government will only listen to him.”

The Foreign Office said: “Our embassy staff are continuing to assist Mr Andree, including regular visits to check on his welfare, and frequent contact with his lawyer and family. Ministers and senior officials have raised Mr Andree’s case with the Saudi government and we are actively seeking his release as soon as possible.”

Andree’s three children, Hugh, 46, Kirsten, 45, and Simon, 33, are reported to have been lobbying discreetly for their father for more than a month but have now decided to go public.

The campaign by the family comes at a time when Britain’s diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia is under new scrutiny. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, last month used his keynote speech at his party’s annual conference to call on the prime minister to secure the release of a Saudi protestor, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who has been condemned to execution. Al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 for reportedly being involved in Arab spring protests in Qatif, in the country’s eastern province.
 
DA60 said:
What the heck would the POTUS do then? If Israel attacked S.A. - or the other way around? Which side would he/she take?
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Not bloody likely, since the 2 countries israel has the best relations with in the region is Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Might as well ask what the US would do if the US attacked Canada. About as likely.

dani67 said:
Children of Briton sentenced to 350 lashes over wine appeal to PM
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And your point here is what exactly?

Sorry, I have little to no pitty for people who go to other countries, and break their laws. No more then I have for people that come from other countries and break our laws.

Alcohol may be legal in the country somebody comes from, but when it is illegal in another country and they break it, well, it sucks to be them. Is not like a 74 year old man did not know what he was doing, nor the consequences for what he did.

And I have no more real pitty for him then I have of a 35 year old man who comes over here and rapes a 14 year old girl. Sure, he may claim all he likes that "where he comes from that is normal". Well, guess what. This is not where he is from, and here it is neither normal nor accepted. So he pays the price for his actions.

As far as I am concerned, he gets the lashes. If he dies, so be it. After all, as the article claims he has lived there for over 25 years. He can hardly claim to be ignorant of what the laws were, nor the punishment for breaking them.

Or would it be better to put him in jail for 15 years? Lashes and expulsion, or essentially a life sentence? His past activities are no excuse for breaking the law.
 
ecofarm said:
You think SA would need help?
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That's difficult to say. Saudi Arabia's military isn't particularly experienced or competent (both Saddam and the Houthis have been able to attack targets across the Saudi border), but it does have a lot more money and modern equipment at its disposal than Iran does. In the highly improbable event that Iran does go to war with Saudi Arabia, they have local allies they can rely on: Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and most likely Egypt - which, if I'm not mistaken, is the military muscle of the Arab world.

Beaudreaux said:
and el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia has destabilized the entire ME.
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Tunisia is actually a major exception to the recent trend in the Middle East. Tunisia represents how the Arab Spring should have worked out.
 
Hobbsforlife said:
It is only a matter of time before this country is attacked because they are flooding the market with cheap oil, should we, will we stand behind this complicated and odd ally. I think this is the real reason for the Russians invasion of Syria, and their recent relations with Iran, what should we do, if anything?
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Who is going to invade them?
 
I believe Iran has eyes on that fat little piggy, just waiting on the bomb to hide behind.
 
Hobbsforlife said:
I believe Iran has eyes on that fat little piggy, just waiting on the bomb to hide behind.
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Yea, right.

The only problem is that for starters, they have almost no naval power, and even more limited amphibious assets.

At most, they can move a heavy Battalion. No more then 500 men and their equipment.

Of course, they do not have to invade by sea. However, then they have to go over land. That means first invading Iraq, and quite probably Kuwait as well.

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And if they did either one, then they are also going to war with Jordan, Qatar, UAE, as well as half of NATO, including the US and UK.

Not bloody likely.
 
spud_meister said:
Is no-one currently raped, starved or killed in Iraq at the moment?
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Well, with that kind of strawman, I guess you can't lose?

The point is - it is no longer sanctioned by the government. Gang rape is no longer a court sentence for women, genocide is no longer standard policy.

What kind of pathetic idiocy is it to demand instant utopia as a foil?
 
ecofarm said:
Well, with that kind of strawman, I guess you can't lose?

The point is - it is no longer sanctioned by the government. Gang rape is no longer a court sentence for women, genocide is no longer standard policy.

What kind of pathetic idiocy is it to demand instant utopia as a foil?
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Good, I'm sure the victims of gang rape are happier knowing now that it's random, rather than government sanctioned, it must make them feel a lot better. Especially now that religious fundamentalism has taken hold, and they're likely to be beheaded for being immodestly gang raped.
 
spud_meister said:
Good, I'm sure the victims of gang rape are happier knowing now that it's random, rather than government sanctioned, it must make them feel a lot better.
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Wouldn't you be happy if rape was not a court sentence? Or you don't care?

Especially now that religious fundamentalism has taken hold, and they're likely to be beheaded for being immodestly gang raped.
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Saddam obliterated social capital, making the rise of extremists inevitable. Do you have no understanding whatsoever about what genocidal dictatorship causes in the developing world? Are you so void of personal ethics that you'd blame the West for the direct results of genocidal dictatorship. Does that void go so deep that you'd actually support genocidal dictatorship as a means of government because then the world needn't deal with its impacts?

You need to learn some basics about genocidal dictatorship and its impacts on developing world countries. Believing that this mess was created this decade is monumentally ignorant.
 
ecofarm said:
Wouldn't you be happy if rape was not a court sentence? Or you don't care?
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I don't think it matters to the victim.


Saddam obliterated social capital, making the rise of extremists inevitable. Do you have no understanding whatsoever about what genocidal dictatorship causes in the developing world? Are you so void of personal ethics that you'd blame the West for the direct results of genocidal dictatorship. Does that void go so deep that you'd actually support genocidal dictatorship as a means of government because then the world needn't deal with its impacts?

You need to learn some basics about genocidal dictatorship and its impacts on developing world countries. Believing that this mess was created this decade is monumentally ignorant.
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And the US removed him without a plan to stop the extremists from seizing power in the vacuum that followed. Saddam deserved to die, but the US's **** ups afterwards resulted in the power vacuum that let the extremists seize so much power in so little time.
 
spud_meister said:
I don't think it matters to the victim.
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It should. I would certainly be more afraid for friends and relatives if the state sentenced me to rape than a random event. You're talking out your ass; you're equating institutionalized rape with crime, that's colossally stupid.

And the US removed him without a plan to stop the extremists from seizing power in the vacuum that followed. Saddam deserved to die, but the US's **** ups afterwards resulted in the power vacuum that let the extremists seize so much power in so little time.
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The power vacuum was inevitable - Saddam ruled by brutality alone and was never going to live forever. There is nothing that anyone could have done to stop it. This is obvious and Saddam was motivated, in part, to obliterate social capital so as to threaten the world with this outcome in the event of his demise.

Can you not understand that nobody could have done anything to prevent this? Any attempt to impose a police state by the West would have failed. One cannot "control a nation" so as to sidestep the impacts of genocidal dictatorship in the developing world. Once you manage to grasp that, you'll understand this is Saddam's doing and not anyone else's fault.
 
spud_meister said:
And the US removed him without a plan to stop the extremists from seizing power in the vacuum that followed. Saddam deserved to die, but the US's **** ups afterwards resulted in the power vacuum that let the extremists seize so much power in so little time.
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The problem as I see it is that the extremists were not stopped hard and fast enough when they started to pop up. Rather then meeting them with force, we met them with padded gloves, which only gave the incentive to try harder.

If you want to blame anybody, blame those who prompted the nations helping to rebuild Iraq to leave as soon as they could.

If there is one thing that should be learned after WWI and WWII, it is to take as long as is needed in a country to help it rebuild after it's government was overthrown. What was done in WWI with Germany was largely repeated in Iraq, with ultimately the same results.

Maybe next time we will take a winning page from WWII, instead of a loosing one from WWI.
 
We went to Iraq to stop them from invading Saudi. That pissed of Osama Bin Laden as he offered 30,000 troops to help Saudi and they refused him. The rest is history.
 
rhinefire said:
We went to Iraq to stop them from invading Saudi. That pissed of Osama Bin Laden as he offered 30,000 troops to help Saudi and they refused him. The rest is history.
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We did what?

Wow, talk about a history fail! We staged in Saudi Arabia to prevent them from invading, then we went to Kuwait to liberate it. We did not go into Iraq for more then a decade afterwards.

OBL was a lunatic. He offered fighters to help liberate Kuwait, and nobody wanted them. Most of them were already essentially exiles, and not wanted in their home countries.

Much like the US Military until the 1970's, the troublesome youth of the Middle East were essentially given 2 choices in the 1980's when they got into trouble. Face local law, or join the Mujahadeen fighting in Afghanistan. And most of them took exile and fighting. And after the war was over huge numbers remained in Afghanistan and became the Taliban because they could no longer go home.

So nobody accepted their offer, especially since the offer came with the demand that the Monarchy in Kuwait be overthrown and a Sharia Law Caliphate be established in it's place in exchange for such help (and of course the expulsion of the US and destruction of Israel). Yea, like anybody was gonna accept that offer, no matter what.

And even if say the offer was accepted, what good would 30,000 light infantry troops have done against Iraq? This was unorganized irregular light infantry. Their combat value would have been almost nothing.
 
Shadowless said:
If we weren't hypocritical, we wouldn't help them one bit. The Saudi regime is awful, and we should not consider them an ally.
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All the heads of state over there are terrible by our standards. Problem is, the leaders have kept the region stable, and every time we meddle, it gets less stable. The replacements are proving to be worse than those expelled.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Pontificate much, do you?

"All heads of state"? Wow, talk about a complete whitewashing. I suppose your next solution is to nuke the entire region.
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Why do you think that?

Why do you let your bias speak for you?
 
Lord of Planar said:
All the heads of state over there are terrible by our standards. Problem is, the leaders have kept the region stable, and every time we meddle, it gets less stable. The replacements are proving to be worse than those expelled.
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I agree, we certainly should not take on the Saudi's militarily, but we should denounce their government. They support Wahabism all over the world.
 
Hobbsforlife said:
It is only a matter of time before this country is attacked because they are flooding the market with cheap oil, should we, will we stand behind this complicated and odd ally. I think this is the real reason for the Russians invasion of Syria, and their recent relations with Iran, what should we do, if anything?
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We would at least have to protect our bases in SA.
 
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