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Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It
- smegel 11y agoAnd when the oil runs out, just another ISIS.
- newjersey 11y agoI was under the impression that the House of Saud supports fundamentalism just so they can stay in power.
- darkr 11y agoSo they get ousted (and potentially executed by a baying mob) and suddenly the Sauds they become socially liberal?
- notliketherest 11y agoThis. The oil that turns the crank of industry and provides the energy that produces so much of every comfort we hold dear in the west finances the very evil that seeks to destroy it. Until we end our reliance of oil, the middle east and Islam will continue to threaten the West's existence. It's a horrible irony.
- llamataboot 11y agoIslam is not threatening the West's existence.
- raverbashing 11y agoNo, of course not We just have "Sharia Law" areas in the UK, honour killings in Canada, people getting shot in France and elsewhere because of drawings, etc And if someone disagrees I'd like to hear your opinion.
- nova 11y ago> And if someone disagrees I'd like to hear your opinion. No opinions, only censorship.
- gnaritas 11y agoGangs and crime aren't new, none of those things threaten our existence or the western way of life.
- jon-wood 11y agoWe do not have Sharia Law areas in the UK. I have no idea where that story came from, but its not based on fact. Particularly amusing was the Fox News coverage of areas of Birmingham where apparently white people can't go - my white friends who've lived there for decades would like to dispute that.
- raverbashing 11y agoYes, but I think the Fox News thing was with Paris However: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/3tkbpf/man_assaulted_with_pickaxe_in_britain_over/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/3tkbpf/man_assaulted_...
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoI can also name a couple of Christian women who have drowned their children to inhibit alleged Satanic forces. Pointing out stories without confirming real trends is useless.
- programmernews3 11y agohttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3325273/CCTV-catches-terrifying-moment-father-six-brutally-set-hooded-thugs-pickaxe-handle-targeted-blasphemer-converted-Islam-Christianity.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3325273/CCTV-catches...
- criley2 11y agoWe also have Christians murdering abortion doctors, setting bombs and fires at clinics, Christian Sovereign Citizens murdering police on a near monthly basis, advocating for a theocracy in America (God above Country or Establishment of a national religion), advocation of Christian Law above secular law, etc, and we manage to keep our society from becoming a theocracy. Frankly, if a few evangelical Muslims are capable of destroying the secular foundation of your systems, those systems were weak in the first place.
- adrr 11y ago@raverbashing since i can't reply to the child We also have abortion clinic bombings, shootings and arsons done by christians. There was one recently in Pullman, WA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence#United_...
- lemevi 11y agoJust FYI, whenever you don't see a reply link, just go directly to the comment via its link and reply there.
- smegel 11y agoNot when every nuclear armed state except Pakistan and North Korea are lined up to give it a good whipping.
- fukusa 11y agoAs I have said before: (Islamist) extremism is mostly reactionary. The cause is not Islam.
- falsestprophet 11y ago>And when the oil runs out, just another ISIS. Or when the demand for oil diminishes (holding supply constant) as battery-electric transport becomes widespread. Not only are batteries becoming less expensive every year, but the deployment of autonomous vehicle networks (self driving Ubers) will make battery-electric transport more cost competitive by distributing the high fixed cost of the battery between many users.
- gohrt 11y agoAwkardly written, either by Kamel Daoud, or the translation by John Cullen from the French. I don't know which parts were literal and which were metaphor.
- doktrin 11y agolike what?
- zeeshanm 11y agoThis is the French way of writing. See "Simulacra and Simulation" by Baudrillard for more examples of this writing style.
- maldusiecle 11y agoBaudrillard is fun every once in a while, but it's certainly not accurate to describe a controversial, notoriously abstruse poststructuralist philosopher as typical of "the French way of writing."
- krmmalik 11y agoI'm sorry but i find that article rather myopic. Most of the claims in that article seem more opinion than good research. For those that are interested in getting a balanced view can get their own research on what life is actually like in Saudi Arabia by talking to a large community of expats there that would rather not return to home soil. That said, Saudi arabia enjoys healthy support from the west and has done so right from its inception. The country is barely 100yrs old and Britain played an instrumental role in creating the country as well as shaping most of the middle east. That has striking parallels to what is going on with ISIS right now. Here is a well researched lecture on the subject by Dr Yasir Qadhi: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=659f5wuTgzY http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=659f5wuTgzY You'll need to watch part 2 as well to get the full picture and if you have time might also want to watch the video on the creation of Israel which is equally damning. And regards ISIS here's Putin's statement -- that interestingly was not covered by western media -- but is congruent with the lecture and my point above. http://youtu.be/t1qHORKKLls http://youtu.be/t1qHORKKLls Please feel free to do your own independent, balanced research.
- tosseraccount 11y ago"more opinion than good research"? The page says "The Opinion Pages" MSM is full of opinion; I'm just happy when they label it opinion and not "news".
- NiftyFifty 11y agoPraise be to Allah.
- phil248 11y agoIf I want an accurate view of life in a foreign country, the last people I would ask are ex-patriots.
- turar 11y agohttp://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2015/01/20150123_saudi.jpg http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dorfsmay 11y agoThis make sense, both follow the same book, both are considred ultra-orthodox movement, which does give credence to the OP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Abd_al-Wahhab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Abd_al-Wahhab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 0xFFC 11y agoI commented this in a post 3 days ago.it is completely applicable here,I know maybe this is not right thing to do -copying my old cm- but those point I think closely related to the topic.( there will be Isis like groups until West's ally in middle East is most corrupted regime maybe in world.how do you want people to not be terrorist when Saudi Arabia is one of the closest society in planet . how do you expect people to change to secular ,atheist people -like people in Scandinavian,I don't remember where but there was measurement which stated 2/3 of Saudi Arabia people likes Isis and supports it.maybe it is not correct number.but the was is almost indisputable, there is huge support base for Isis in Saudi Arabia ,both government and people- when the government does not allow women to drive?.imagine the level of dictatorship. And the worst part is Saudi Arabia is us closest ally after Israel,what was the last time us puts hard sanction against Saudi Arabia because of their human right issue.what was last time us decrease relationship because of human right.as Iranian I only can say this to west politicians: go fuck yourself. This was my old cm: Am pretty angry about what is going on in world , so if you felt insulted , I am so sorry , and You should understand I don't want to insult you or any other person specifically,But I want insult Ideologies pretty badly. As person who LIVES in heart of middle east (Iran) and I have seen shia militant from very close(I know people who works in IRGC),You are completely and pure wrong , do you know what would generate another generation of terrorist ? another invasion. I am atheist and liberal with a little being gay,I am not gay , but sometime things go wrong - and believe me these are pretty dangerous thing to be in Iran and would get me killed, without doubt - but I can realize the only thing will give terrorist another opportunity is invasion of a country in middle east. This is not your fucking war.This was not west fucking war at all. They shouldn't come here in any circumstance.You know what ? because Paris like terrorism act will happen again and again and again. West should understand they were wrong all the time. What the fuck are you doing in middle east ? You know what ? no body more than me would be glad to live in secular community with secular government, but it seems politician in west do not realize , being in middle east is equal to raising radical movement against them. YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND , MIDDLE EAST SHOULD FIGHT FOR ITSELF, EVEN IF ISIS KILL ALL OF US, this is not your fucking war.I do not remember reading if any alien did help west during the renaissance. Society should grow. PLEASE , do for humanity a favor , understand militarism is equal to terrorism. I was talking with one idiot yesterday , and he mentioned I do not believe France invade Iraq. Yes your are right idiot . France did not . but west did . These fucking killers in middle east , do not see countries , they see Islam against West. Do you know who fights in Iran against mullah's ? Christians ? Are you kidding me, mujaheddin khalgh ? Those fucking traitors, no way. Academia fights against mullah's, science fights, liberal people fighting against mullah's more effective than any other person in whole revolution history.This regime is almost unbeatable in political sense- because they have money and manpower and oil- but do you know they are seeing liberals in their nightmare. They even don't care about West invasion against Iran(some stupid person like G.W Bush may even consider that option).Because at the end they know the can manage harm West military pretty badly. Worse than maybe Vietnam war.BUT THEY CANNOT FIGHT WITH INTERNET, WITH TOR, WITH STUDENTS who USE TOR. Give them internet , provide them satellite , Facebook/twitter/YouTube/porn , Show them fucking beautiful women in Texas(with respect to women, I just want show sexual incentives), show them there is no need to kill so many people to get those woman , you can fuck like heaven in earth without killing people. And BOOOOOM this is the sound of explosion of foundation of religion. Ruin their stupid culture , and then you are going to see middle is will revive. and turn to into secular place. and Do you know who is supporting ISIS ? Which countries? I would suspect Saudi Arabia ( the US closest ally after Israel in middle east).Can you fucking believe it ? This is not double standard. This is fucking fraud against humanity.At the end we all know , non of the west's politician's give fucking flying shit about terrorism in middle east. If they did , They weren't this double standard'ed against corrupted (I would say most corrupted regime in whole world) regime in Saudi Arabia.What was last time you checked women condition in Saudi Arabia.And why the hell us have this much relation ship with country which behead people like candy. This is what I mean when I am saying double standard. p.s. if you felt I insult you , I am so sorry , I was talking broadly than talking with you.I hope respectively, you understand there was something HUGE wrong with west policy in middle east.
- Animats 11y agoThe author has a point. Most of the 9/11 attackers were Saudis. Bin Laden was a Saudi. Saudi Arabia is a dysfunctional country propped up by oil money. It's even more insular than it used to be. Saudis used to send their kids to the US to go to college, with Government funding. Now Saudi Arabia has enough educational institutions that they don't do that. Years ago, I met a Saudi girl finishing Stanford who mentioned she was going to drive to New Orleans. That route meant a long drive through the boring part of the US. She said it was the only time in her life she'd be allowed to drive on a long car trip. That was decades ago, and Saudi Arabia still doesn't let women drive. Here's a good set of articles by a Saudi expat in Britain: http://muttawa.blogspot.com/ http://muttawa.blogspot.com/
- jsprogrammer 11y ago>That route meant a long drive through the boring part of the US. The US southwest is the boring part? You don't get those desert views anywhere else. Virtual drive: http://www.brianfolts.com/driver/#origin=stanford&destination=new+orleans&advanced=on&fps=60&travelmode=DRIVING&rn= http://www.brianfolts.com/driver/#origin=stanford&destinatio...
- pavel_lishin 11y agoI would imagine that a Saudi Arabian exchange student wouldn't have "desert views" high on their list of sight-seeing priorities.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoI guess you are imagining wrong then. Either way, the US southwest desert is quite a bit different than the Saudi Arabian desert.
- WildUtah 11y agoWatching Lawrence of Arabia I kept trying to identify the geologic layers in the familiar rock formations. Then I realized that it was actually filmed in Arabia. It only looked like Arizona. So no, I don't expect that a non-geologist would find the American southwest so very novel compared to Saudi. But I've never, ever been bored in the American southwest in tens of thousands of hours of travel there.
- raspasov 11y agoThis is so on point. A prime example of the hypocrisy of western governments. Until we have leaders that truly do what they claim to believe, we deserve everything that comes upon us.
- api 11y agoThat hypocrisy is one of the legitimate reasons we are often hated around the world. We talk about freedom and justice but we work behind the scenes to prop up tyrannies that are every bit as bad as the "enemies of freedom." We've been doing this for decades and it's destroyed any moral authority we might have once had in the world. That sort of trust, once destroyed, is hard to earn back.
- raspasov 11y agoYes. At best we're the better evil. Our government is driven by money - the military industrial complex , big pharmaceuticals, private interest. All stuff that Lawrence Lessig talks about. Just look at our political debates. All of the talk is dumbed down, feel-good, wishy-washy moral statements about religion, God, pretentious ideologies about "freedom", "being the beacon of the world", etc. Our leaders came from society. All of this is our collective fault. We all can and need to do better. Don't get me wrong. I am sure Saudi Arabia is much worse. They don't even allow women to vote and treat them like objects. Well, we were there not that long ago. So like I said, we're most likely better, but not angels.
- happyscrappy 11y agoSo hypocrisy justifies spraying random Frenchmen with machine guns? Think harder.
- laotzu 11y agoTorture and murder doesn't justify more torture and murder but it often creates it.
- api 11y agoIt doesn't justify it, but what it does do is undermine our moral authority. "Why do you condemn the Paris terror attacks and at the same time help prop up regimes that chop peoples' heads off in public? Isn't that almost the same thing?"
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- vinceguidry 11y agoI have to say, the quality of mainstream media coverage of the Middle East has gone up remarkably since 9-11. I think perhaps in the next fifty years or so we'll finally figure out how to handle the problems of the region with grace and magnanimity rather than hatred and endless warfare.
- user_0001 11y ago1) stop interfering 2) goto 1 Pretty much covers it I reckon
- Elizer0x0309 11y agoStop arming groups and practice diplomacy.
- bayesianhorse 11y agoLuckily IS/ISIS doesn't show any signs of becoming a functioning state. Their income is big for a "terrorist" organization, but small for a state. And with the kind of international "attention" it's getting lately, this won't change soon.
- happyscrappy 11y agoYou can handle female genital mutilation with grace and magnanimity?
- vinceguidry 11y agoYou can try to understand the conditions that beget such practices and work to alleviate them.
- jqm 11y agoWhat if the conditions that beget such practices are a religion? Then what do we do?
- vinceguidry 11y agoDo Muslims in the West practice female genital mutilation? I was unaware.
- jqm 11y agoI'm not an expert on the subject, but according to Wikipedia... yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Dist...
- vinceguidry 11y agoWell, there's an easy answer for that case. There are laws against it. Not a perfect answer, but we don't have perfect answers for anything.
- vox_mollis 11y agoMuslims in the West are bound by Western jurisprudence. If Muslims in the West got the legal system they* sought (polls indicate the majority support lawful recognition and enforcement of sharia law), it's a good bet that they* would start. * = note, I know I am generalizing millions of people here, and a sizable proportion of the Muslim population is not applicable here.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pearjuice 11y agoThis is a friendly reminder that the United States have sponsored ISIS when they were still considered freedom fighters against Assad. The United States also happily still do business with ISIS in that they are buying extremely cheap, under market value, oil and capital goods from Iraq exported by ISIS. Of course, none of this is officially documented, just like how not a dollar its whereabouts, of the 40 billion dollar cash the United States sent to Iraq circa 2004, is documented. It is no secret the United States have selectively supported "freedom fighters" and militant groups when they deemed that would be more productive for the petrodollar and their Zionist friends than putting their own boots on the ground. Saddam, Osama Bin Laden, Gadaffi, ISIS and countless of others have all been supported by the United States and their removal has always been justified either because they turned their back on the United States and their allies (with Zionists being the most prominent) - or because they could be replaced by a better/cheaper/more productive puppet. --edit: if you are downvoting this reply, consider offering substantial content to the discussion instead of trying to cloak statements which do not strike well with your opinion or observation of geopolitics. Thanks in advance.
- idibidiart 11y agoWell stated.
- ptaipale 11y ago> This is a friendly reminder that the United States have sponsored ISIS when they were still considered freedom fighters against Assad. Not really. United States sponsored other opponents to Assad, which were then sufficiently marginalized as to be either annihilated or convert to Daesh, but they clearly weren't Daesh at the time.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pearjuice 11y agoJust because that at that point in time they didn't have the "brand" or association yet, it doesn't mean they don't belong to the same group of people. Or do you also think that during the Eighty Years' War people already knew they were at the half when forty years passed?
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- vowelless 11y agoArticle rings true for me. Growing up in the Khaleej, I saw an increasing influence of the Salafi mindset around me. Maybe as a child I didn't pay attention to it, but in my teens and certainly visiting now after a decade, I see a very different, more conservative region. As an aside, The Mersault Investigation by Kamel Daoud (author of this article) is a very interesting book. I recommend it to people who have liked The Stranger.
- paki123 11y agoMohammed married a girl when she was 6, slept with her when she was 9.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- she_moves_on 11y agoOne frustrating thing that the author gets wrong is labelling Iran the "Gray Daesh." Iran has geopolitical conflict with the West, but it's a false equivalent of Saudi Arabia. Iran is a theocracy trying to control a population that growingly wants to be secular. Women in Iran go to university at higher rates than men, can drive, hold office, and vote. Life in Iran for a women is not perfect but is heaven compared to Saudi Arabia. Iranian sponsored militias like hezbollah are in geopolitical conflicts as Iran wants more regional influence. They want regional islam. They are not trying to establish a global Shiite islamic state. Like most things it comes down to money and power. Saudi plays ball with America economic hegemony and Iran does not. So rather than allying with the more moderate/educated nation with huge potential to be progressive, we ally with the one that is best for big business and willing to cede military control of the region to us. The Iranian theocracy is fucked, don't get me wrong. But we really have our priorities in a mess.
- amalag 11y agoAmazing how one theocracy, Saudi Arabia, is ok, but the other theocracy, Iran, is bad.
- dragontamer 11y agoNot really. The US shot a missile at Iranian Airliner (killing all civilians on board) and coup'd Iran's Democracy in the 1960s. Iran held US personnel as hostages for a year and imprisons our visitors. They are also sworn enemies to US Allies like Israel. Iran is "bad" because they are our enemy. And they see the US as "bad" because we've been their enemy in the past. There is absolutely nothing strange about the hate-filled relationship between Iran and the US. It is simple politics and history.
- pstuart 11y ago> It is simple politics and history American was at war with Japan and Germany not to long before as well. Now we are best buddies. Things can change if the money's right.
- davidw 11y agoSignificant portions of the commentary here are 'Exhibit A' for why politics should be banned from HN. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10602313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10602313
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- idibidiart 11y agohttps://www.facebook.com/UniversalFreePress/videos/1109286879117550/?pnref=story https://www.facebook.com/UniversalFreePress/videos/110928687... US and Saudis are both funding ISIS, and the latter cannot do it without the permission of the former.
- idibidiart 11y agoThis feels like it could have come out of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. The xenophobic S.O.B.s of America.
- justboxing 11y agoSaudi Arabia is also the biggest exporter of Radical Islam " Indian intelligence says that in India alone, from 2011 to 2013, some 25,000 Saudi clerics arrived bearing more than $250 million to build mosques and universities and hold seminars. "We are talking about thousands and thousands of activist organizations and preachers who are in the Saudi sphere of influence," said Usama Hasan, a researcher in Islamic studies. These institutions and clerics preach the specifically Saudi version of Sunni Islam, the extreme fundamentalist strain known as Wahhabism or Salafism." Source: http://theweek.com/articles/570297/how-saudi-arabia-exports-radical-islam http://theweek.com/articles/570297/how-saudi-arabia-exports-...
- sharanAntenna 11y agoWith polygamy being legal, they take underage Muslim girls from cities like Hyderabad on their return journey to Middle East after "buying" them from their parents.
- justboxing 11y agoUnbelievable. I didn't think this was true, but you are right. There are 100s of stories of how Women in Hyderabad are being sold to Arab Sheiks. Very disturbing. Found a news item of a Gang busted too => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0eNGDcBoGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0eNGDcBoGM
- calbear81 11y agoSeems like the scene from taken with the Sheiks buying young drug addicted women from underground auctions was not that far off from the truth.
- NiftyFifty 11y agoThe major problem I have with this opinion piece is not the perspective, but the writer - Kamel Daoud. One of his major influences is a cross-section of experience between living in Algeria and being bifurcated with the west. His bleed out on the screen, seems more jaded than informative. At the very least he's sloppy in respecting certain parts of the Saudi national, with terms like Wahhabi which by all accounts is derogatory. Which through admission, I'm a white middle class IT professional living in the Rust Best, and the subtle nature of his cantor is a bit tasteless in my opinion. However, Saudi Arabia is by all measures secular and demands it be, because of its place in the world - it's the holder of the great sites of Islam, playing host to the yearly travel of millions of pilgrims of the Islamic faith. Regardless, it's just a bit slap-stick on journalism to be provocative from my perspective.
- cap_theorem 11y ago> Saudi Arabia is by all measures secular Come again?
- pge 11y agoWorth noting that the article was translated from its original French, so the word choice that appears in English is not the choice of the original author.
- chappi42 11y ago> Saudi Arabia is by all measures secular and demands it be hu, secular??? It seems very plausible to me, that he is spot on with the article. Should be plastered all over the billboards and newspapers. Good to read some 'straight talk'.
- fukusa 11y agoDaesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books. The attacks in Paris have exposed this contradiction again, but as happened after 9/11, it risks being erased from our analyses and our consciences. The best summary I have read so far.
- tallerholler 11y agothe guy nailed it.. great read
- lotux 11y agoHave you ever noticed that All these countries that have members in ISIS Army, are the same one were fighting Iran along with SADDAM?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- johansch 11y agoSo why doesn't US take Saudi Arabia, like it took (and then abandoned) Iraq?
- gwbas1c 11y agoFrom: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." Is this article really appropriate for Hacker News?
- cloakandswagger 11y agoThose guidelines are pretty silly. The site's content should be controlled only by the voting system (i.e., its users), not some mandated list of approved topics.
- rchaud 11y agoAgreed. I come to HN to read about technology, not geopolitics. Some related issues like electronic surveillance, encryption etc. seem relevant, but a discussion about geopolitical roles of two Middle East regimes seems pretty off-topic. The controversial nature of these topics also unfortunately attracts people who aren't HN's target demographic, and dilutes the excellent content of the site.
- tptacek 11y agoNot even a little bit. I flagged the article, as did many others.
- kawera 11y agoI deeply regret posting this article. Somehow I thought it was interesting and in tune with many other articles we've discussed this week but seeing what happened here, oh my... I'm really sorry, won't happen again.
- tptacek 11y agoIf you're not one of the people who makes it their mission to post political stories to the front page --- and those people definitely exist --- then never apologize for submitting things. It's the disproportionate upvotes that are the problem.
- jackreichert 11y ago> "One has to live in the Muslim world to understand the immense transformative influence of religious television channels on society" Ahem, Fox News
- tdkl 11y agoFair to add that the large amount of funding came from the USA in eagerness to overthrow Assad. [1] So, if we have the mother and father: shall we call the USA a dumb rich uncle ? [1] https://www.facebook.com/UniversalFreePress/videos/1109286879117550/?pnref=story https://www.facebook.com/UniversalFreePress/videos/110928687...
- idibidiart 11y agoMore like the Godfather, definitely not a dumb participant.
- findyoucef 11y agoIt's worth noting that Kamel Daoud is an ex-islamist. He was allied with the Islamist that nearly destroyed our country (Algeria) in the 90s. It's just an interesting footnote.
- idibidiart 11y agoYup, and now he has internalized racism toward Muslims. Psychology 101.
- jalammar 11y agoAs a Saudi HNer who has spent his life between Saudi and the US, I hope I can point out a few things here. I understand the point the author is trying to make. It does, however, come off to me as unnecessarily hostile and overreaching. - Saudi Arabia has 18 million nationals. The vast majority of which are sunni salafis (the nomenclature preferred to "Wahhabism"). If Wahhabism was driving motivation for ISIS, then ISIS would have been at least 1000 times the size it is now. Which is clearly not the case. - While ISIS has similar sounding rhetoric to some hardcore Saudi hardliners, it is almost uniformly reviled and regarded by almost everbody in Saudi as an extreme perversion. And not only since they blew up a number of mosques in the country (or since releasing that video of a Saudi ISIS member executing his own cousin who lay begging for mercy in the begining of that fateful video). But their gruesomeness is as repulsive to Saudis as it is to everbody else in the world. And they are seen as one of the biggest obstacles to the ouster of Bashar Al Assad in Syria (who is responsible for a civil war that has killed more than 200,000 people, mostly Sunni). - The article makes little effort to distinguish between the Saudi people and the Saudi government. It demonizes the saudi populace even though it is at times the first victim of some of the unsavory consequences of the alliance between the monarchy and the "clergy" (a rather inaccurate term since there is no real hierarchy. The closest thing there is a counsel of elder scholars and those are usually selected for being unwaveringly loyal to the government). There is a subtlty to the dynamic of the populace, monarchy, and clergy that few in the west try to understand. I can expand on this later. - None of this is to deny the existence of an activist, xenophobic, hateful, Quran-thumping segment that is a loud ultra-minority from which Alqaeda and ISIS try to recruit (with Saudi being one of the first places they often like to target). The government have clamped down HARD on the vast majority of this segment ever since the string of terrorist bombings in Riyadh in the early 2000s. - Like I try to explain Saudi here, I often try to explain the US to people in Saudi. If there's anything you'd like me to clarify about Saudi, AMA.
- throwaway_user 11y agoThere are a few important differences. People from different countries can get a visa and visit Saudi Arabia, stay and come back safely as long as one obeys their laws. (Whether we agree with these laws is a different matter). Muslims from different all sects can go for Hajj and are not executed for heresy because of their sectarian background. Saudi Arabia has diplomatic relations and is a signatory to various international agreements. One of the problems with Daesh is that they seem to be incapable of doing any of these things not because they haven't "made it", but because they are ideologically opposed to it.
- azth 11y agoISIS is not viewed as legitimate by practically the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East. Here is just one example of how we are speaking out against them (unfortunately, the captions contain spelling and grammar mistakes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2HlIYRvCM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2HlIYRvCM
- dennisgorelik 11y ago> rape of Iraq That is an interesting metaphor. So ISIS is an illegitimate child of George W Bush then.
- awalker2190 11y agoTHE ONLY DAMN THING IN ISIS IS NOTHING BUT HEAVEN BE TOLD.LISTEN TO THE BEATS GOD HAS RAISED UP. LOOK TO THY HEAVEN SKY IN THE AUDIBLE TONE. TUPAC AND BIGGY MAYBE GONE ON THIS BUT IN HEAVEAN THY R WITH THY FATHER. NO BIG BANG THEORY HERE BABY. JUST LITTLE OLE ME. AMD LET MÍ TELL YOU JESUS CHRIST IS OUR ONLY SAVIOR: TRUTH BE TOLD WE HACKERS BE HIS ANGELS TRUE BLOOD. AIN'T NO RHYME BUT IN HIM IN GODS PLAN. NEW HEAVEN. NEW EARTH. THE BLOOD MOONS=3THR33. GET IT TOGHETHER MY FRIENDS: YOU NEED STUDY UP ON THE WORD IN GODS CHRIST. KING JAMES VERSION:PHILLIPIANS:4:19;PSALMS:51 THY HOLY DAMN CHAPTER. PEACE OUT CHILLINS
- awalker2190 11y agoALSO THE NAME IS ASHLEY RENEE MONIQUE WALKER. TOP WAOMAN HERE. 416:35:1246:9376556:02:19:1990:PROPHETESS:S33R:PREACHER. I KNOW ABOUT WHAT IS REALLY IN THE BOOK OF THE REVELEAINGS. IF YOU WANT TO COMMUNICATE PRAY TO THE HEAVENS ABOVE. ADAM&3V3. NOT ADAM&ST3V3?¿9
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