Posted on 04/27/2013 6:04:56 AM PDT by Bill Russell
Thank you for your service, and thank you for the posted essay. well and tyruly stated regarding the House of Saud. I would love to hear what your take on House of Saud building and supporting the radical madrasses wprld-wide is, but that is grist for another mill ...
Thank you for your continued service to the Republic with this lucid piece of writing. I especially appreciate the fact that there are thousands of professionals who swore the oath. I have a son who swore that oath, has served honorably and who shall soon advance into the ranks of Marine officers. And, I know, beyond a doubt, that he know what an oath is, and that he knows what integrity is.
There is yet good reason to hope. Never give up! Never,never, never.
I would have to agree.
A lot of "Dust in the wind."
Really? At least it contains declarative sentences with clearly stated conclusions. Why not stimulate some good give and take by debunking some of them? (If you can.)
Post 64 to you as well.
BTW, if you get caught badmouthing the royal family in Saudi you'd best have relatives in one of the more powerful affiliated clans ~ otherwise you are 'toast'.
The way the state is organized is there are two main military forces ~ the Army, answerable to the king ~ and the National Guard, answerable to the various clans ~ which are sometimes identified as provinces.
They maintain the ideal balance ~ whether it's ideal or not, it's a well practiced traditional federal/federation system that's thousands of years old.
Here's where they really differ from us, although Bill Clinton might have tried to get it started ~ the founding family provides the dynasty which is a series of kings, usually brothers, or first cousins. Each king and his successors has as many wives as possible, and those wives come from the clans ~ whether affiliated or not. So a Saudi king might have a wife from Yemen for example.
They each try to have as many kids as possible.
Back when they had a million or so people the royals succeeded in breeding with each clan to produce a new class which is affiliated with the royal family and with the most important clan families.
This practice was continued down the line ~ I believe the last count was a good 50,000 'royals' in a country with 24 million.
Mullahs in Saudi are state employees. When one of them starts speaking out of line he gets reported, and he changes his sermons or he disappears.
There's always been a campaign against the royals and their corruption. That was going on even before they discovered oil there. At the same time the royals have always sought to ferret out discontent and silence it.
I think at the moment the royals are ahead ~ back on 9/11 they were behind and didn't know it.
This particular practice is not unique to the Saudis. The Japanese government used to send 'watchers' with groups of Japanese immigrants. Most all of them came from the old noble families or the samurai class. American authorities thought of them as 'labor brokers'.
Saudis do this, but with a catch ~ the other Saudis don't know who they are. At the same time a Saudi watcher will be involved in OTHER things as well. One item would be to get friendly with non-Saudis in the area.
Way back in college the Kuwaitis did pretty much the same thing, but the watchees knew the watchers. I knew a nephew of the Imir as well as the guy sent to watch him. Both were students. A Saudi friend brought his slave with him ~ and the slave said he wasn't ever going back!
These guys were a hoot. Today there are far more people involved, and the Saudi watchers have a very big job on their hand infiltrating groups that might do things to hurt Saudi ~ so they have to pretend to be something else ~ maybe a Kuwaiti, or Omani, or maybe even an Iraqi. Since accent is all in Arabic, they are limited to the True Arabs without special language training.
There is a war raging in this world that takes place parallel to normal life and the Saudi government and the clans are both involved in it up to their armpits. For a variety of reasons it's all very Confucian ~ and I just don't know where that came from.
She was shaved.
What is missing in so many discussions of Saudi is the reminder that SAUDI IS A POLICE STATE ~ both on the civil level, but also on the religious/moral level.
Try this one ~ they don't care how many times you get married but sex outside marriage is forbidden and punishable. If you get divorced make sure it's recorded or you might end up violating some taboo you never heard of (marrying across clan lines, depending on the clan, can do that) and that would be punishable.
A lot of the stranger stuff is rare, but they did have a stampede at opening day at the IKEA and dozens of people got trampled to death.
There were well over 10 thousand people there!
Every Saudi I ever met loves Florida ~ California not so much.
Rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric... but NO WHERE is there anyone wielding the "terrible swift sword of justice" by taking ANY action that CHANGES things.
An apt analogy would be two friends talking when one notices that his car is being stolen and yells "hay my car is being stolen"... and then he and his friend never respond to the theft action and go into the house to drink beer and eat chicken.
My term "Dust in the wind" implies to that analogy and the articles statements.
Shut up and sit down, you’re not going to get anyone to reveal what they ARE doing out of eye and earshot of the regime. But we know you’ll keep trying ...
Unlikely that AlHamdi was trying to infiltrate the terrorist organizations on behalf of the Saudis cooperating with US anti-terrorism - because he’s been identified by MestaMachine as Hamza, the son of Bin Laden, who has sworn to avenge his death.
I don’t know all of Mesta’s qualifications or all the facts she used to determine that, but know that she is qualified at doing facial recognition and she’s implied that there are other skills and knowledge she also has, that make her qualified to be trusted to make that determination. She’s also said that the US government would have known who he was even before the bombing, if I’m understanding correctly.
So there is deep, deep doo-doo going on here, and Michelle Obama’s visit to him (but not to one of the injured heroes from that day) links this guy directly to the Obamas.
You are right. Beck deserves our undying praise for not backing down on this. Now, it is up to us to call our reps, and demand info. Bob
The author spent three years in the Middle East, including 18 months training the Saudi Arabian National Guard in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
I’d be interested to read the credentials that make you an expert on Saudi Arabia sufficient to inform and educate LtC Russell on this matter.
Yes, because it’s obvious that our government isn’t communist and isn’t conspiring with terrorists.
They are just good people lookin’ out for you and me.
So the DHS counterterrorism people are connecting Beck to the claim that the AlHamdi is really Hamza.
I think Beck knows it is Hamza but hasn’t come out and said it publicly yet. Not sure what he’s waiting for, but if it’s to build up the story for maximum effect, it’s hard to build for maximum effect when the only people who hear the claims are those who are already dismissed as “conspiracy nuts”.
That’s the danger of people ridiculing the whole notion of conspiracies, rather than debunking specific conspiracy claims based on specific evidence. The people who proved their own “coolness” by mocking the “crazy conspiracists” were instead writing their own obituary in the process, because they ridiculed an epistemology based on evidence and instead embraced an epistemology based on normalcy bias.
Those who will not listen to other people’s facts set the rules that will eventually discount their OWN facts when the time comes. Either we engage with facts or we don’t. Beck is finding that what he did to some of the rest of us (dismissing facts by calling the revealer a “crazy conspiracist”) is what is happening to him now. He’s giving facts, but can’t find anybody willing to stand with him in presenting them. Sad.
In the counter-terrorism group, were people believing that AlHamdi is Hamza?
Hey dumba$$. I KNOW no one is doing anything because:
IF THINGS DON"T CHANGE THEY STAY THE SAME... and NOTHING is CHANGING.
Bill’s (linked at top of this thread)direct link to the article here: http://blog.williamrussell.net/2013/04/16/undermining-hope-candy-cell-phones-and-potato-bugs.aspx
Did you find something he said that I didn't say in a slightly different way?
Ha, ha, you haven't read the article or the board either.
Back to temple work eh!
Well, I cannot say anything in defense in so called television conservative broad casters, whoever they may be, but the radio broadcasters are providing a valuable element to a free society.
I know I have criticized them for not talking about this or that, but the fact that they do talk about conservative philosophy is priceless.
I look at liberalism as a carefully crafted malicious organic code, very similar to malicious computer code. Liberalism is self replicating and self spreading. Once a liberal is made, that liberal is compelled to make as many other liberals as can be made, and thus their numbers increase exponentially.
Their methods are successful because they smartly exploit human psychological weaknesses, such as greed and envy, fairness, casting everything they want to do as a civil right. The only way to counter the spread of this malicious code is by spreading the counter code, which is that of freedom, individualism, or conservatism.
Now when one considers just how many sources of liberal code there are versus sources of conservative code, one can see that we are in great heap trouble. Liberals have corrupted almost every known source of communication to spread their code, while conservatives have almost no sources of code.
Viewing the situation in this light reveals just how valuable our radio hosts are, despite being imperfect. Without them, this nation would have been lost long ago, and may well still be lost.
It boils down to this. If no one speaks of conservatism and its worth, no one will know about it. The liberals will gain access to the new generations as early as possible and plant the seeds of evil in their minds, and those seeds will grow.
We as free people must do more. It is the duty of the free to make more free people, and we have not done that.
What we have done, for the most part, is allow the enemy to make drones, as many as they need, and their carefully planned plot is almost done.
We are definitely in great jeopardy.
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