8 ms·

Trump is ostensibly using the 9/11 play card to justify banning few muslim countries [0]. This is obviously a lie, since most of 911 hijackers were Saudis and

Trump is ostensibly using the 9/11 play card to justify banning few muslim countries [0]. This is obviously a lie, since most of 911 hijackers were Saudis and his executive order is not banning the Saudis. I'm guessing on the strength of the Saudi lobby in DC [1] AND/OR Trump's potential business conflict in Saudi Arabia [2]. [0] https://www.scribd.com/document/337545704/Draft-Executive-Order-To-Limit-Entry-of-Muslim-Refugees-and-Immigrants https://www.scribd.com/document/337545704/Draft-Executive-Or... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_lobby_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_lobby_in_the_Unit... [2] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interests/508382/#Saudi-Arabia http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/donald-t...

devoply 10y ago
Can't mess with the Saudis. But we sure can ban the people they are bombing to hell, you know the Yemenis with British made bombs no less. And ban all the other people whose countries we helped destroy, you know just to add insult to injury. Really the best way to make people think we the vanguards of freedom. I am sure though Trump has some business dealing with the Saudis, I think there is a Trump hotel in Dubai. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/306990-trump-appeared-to-register-eight-companies-in-saudi-arabia http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/306990-trum...
- inopinatus 10y ago
  Dubai is not in Saudi Arabia. It's in the UAE. However his family have expressed interest in building hotels in Saudi Arabia. My guess though was the omission has more to do with energy price stability and/or arms exports.
  - tritosomal 10y ago
    Yeah, as this fiasco unfolds, the last thing we need is people lumping countries together while complaining about other people lumping countries together. Dubai is a city in a different country. Same peninsula, but there's like seven countries dividing up that chunk of land.
- Animats 10y ago
  The US gets only 8.1% of its oil from Saudi Arabia now, and that's dropping each year. The US is at last in a position to tell Saudi Arabia where to get off.
  - devoply 10y ago
    US and Britain sell the Saudis over 100 billion dollars in arms. You can't get Saudis off your back with just no longer needing their oil. They still got money. And the military industrial complex needs to eat.
  - zyxzkz 10y ago
    It's a political thing. Oil is a fungible resource. Saudi Arabia helps control the market. US doesn't want to lose that power by pissing them off. As oil goes, so goes the world.
    - refurb 10y ago
      US fracking pissed Saudi Arabia off big time. The gov't didn't seem to mind.
  - eva1984 10y ago
    Saudi is a big buyer of US weapons. Considering how hard Trump tries to please and borrow influence from military, I doubt he is going to do anything about it. Race and religion matters, if you are not in the league, you better make sure you have power or money, or something to offer. At least to me, that is what Trump believes.
    - devoply 10y ago
      Race and religion are for the masses. It's a tool to divide and conquer them. The elite only speak the language of power and money. The Saudis make their people follow archaic Islamic laws with sexual repression while their princes are sexually abusing Americans in America and their royals have harems filled with Americans prostitutes. It's ridiculous.
    - 10y ago
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations. But as long as Saudis are omitted from this regulation, it's pretty ineffective. Then again, how much of "terrorism legislation" is actually preventing terrorism, as opposed to extending the powers of police and prosecution, or just being populist "I'm doing something"?
- coldtea 10y ago
  >It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations. Saudis have a looooong history of funding all kinds of terrorist groups across the whole muslim world.
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    Sure. They basically created and funded al Qaida in the 1980s to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Then bin Laden came back to Saudi Arabia and offered to help against Saddam when he invaded Kuwait, and the Saudis told him to go away. After that they became more enemies than friends, but with the weird twist that the Saudi government wants to appear ideologically relatively aligned with al Qaida, such that al Qaida has little support for overthrowing the house of Saud.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      It's not just Qaida though, they sponsor all kinds of Sunni extremists all over the globe.
- tiatia 10y ago
  "It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations." I think that Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest problem in the world. In fact, I wish Trump would have banned them too or even suggested a regime change: 1. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/02/isis-isnt-the-problem-saudi-arabia-is.html http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/02... 2. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01/the-wahhabi-wet-dream.html http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01... For Iran I have high hopes. They started the fundamentalist bullshit and I have the impression they may be the first to get rid of it. In fact, there are first signs (German link, try google translate): https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Firanjournal.org%2Fgesellschaft%2Firan-islam-schiitentum&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
tiatia 10y ago
So he is banning, among others, Syrians and Somalians? Need a passport? Just pick up a Somali passport on the street for a few bucks. They are not biometric: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3704127.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3704127.stm Syrian passports, real and fake, are for Sale in Syria. The ISIS has its hands on real documents in occupied countries. Sounds like a very reasonable decision for me. Should have banned Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Wahabist terrorism. too. Not everybody has to go nuts like Merkel and open the borders for millions of illegal (by law!) immigrants.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Merkel was acting on what she believed to be a moral imperative: that those fleeing danger have a right to asylum. All her decisions follow logically if you accept that premise. I. e. it would make no sense to make such a right dependent on the total number of refugees. In the specific moment you're alluding to she made the decision to suspend the Dublin rules because they were clearly failing (i. e. refugees were clearly being mistreated by the Hungary regime, and the situation in Greece was deteriorating to the point where both the country and the refugees urgently needed relief). At that point, the basic right outlined above and the Dublin rules were in conflict, and human rights generally trump implementation specifics such as Dublin in these circumstances. In any case, the Dublin convention governs the burden-sharing between nations and does not impact an individual's relation with these states, or their basic rights. That's comparable to, for example, medical care in an emergency: your insurance company may have all sorts of debt with the hospital, but the doctors are still required to treat your compound fracture.
  - tiatia 10y ago
    "In the specific moment you're alluding to she made the decision to suspend the Dublin rules because they were clearly failing" The problem with "making the decision" is that there is no executive order for the German chancellor, as apposed to the US president in the German constitution. Ruling by chancellor decree had fallen out of favor in Germany in the last 70 years. Ms. Merkel with her dubious past with East German state security ("IM Erika") does not need to be re-elected. She needs to stand in front of a judge!

devoply 10y ago

Can't mess with the Saudis. But we sure can ban the people they are bombing to hell, you know the Yemenis with British made bombs no less. And ban all the other people whose countries we helped destroy, you know just to add insult to injury. Really the best way to make people think we the vanguards of freedom. I am sure though Trump has some business dealing with the Saudis, I think there is a Trump hotel in Dubai. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/306990-trump-appeared-to-register-eight-companies-in-saudi-arabia http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/306990-trum...

inopinatus 10y ago
Dubai is not in Saudi Arabia. It's in the UAE. However his family have expressed interest in building hotels in Saudi Arabia. My guess though was the omission has more to do with energy price stability and/or arms exports.
- tritosomal 10y ago
  Yeah, as this fiasco unfolds, the last thing we need is people lumping countries together while complaining about other people lumping countries together. Dubai is a city in a different country. Same peninsula, but there's like seven countries dividing up that chunk of land.
Animats 10y ago
The US gets only 8.1% of its oil from Saudi Arabia now, and that's dropping each year. The US is at last in a position to tell Saudi Arabia where to get off.
- devoply 10y ago
  US and Britain sell the Saudis over 100 billion dollars in arms. You can't get Saudis off your back with just no longer needing their oil. They still got money. And the military industrial complex needs to eat.
- zyxzkz 10y ago
  It's a political thing. Oil is a fungible resource. Saudi Arabia helps control the market. US doesn't want to lose that power by pissing them off. As oil goes, so goes the world.
  - refurb 10y ago
    US fracking pissed Saudi Arabia off big time. The gov't didn't seem to mind.
- eva1984 10y ago
  Saudi is a big buyer of US weapons. Considering how hard Trump tries to please and borrow influence from military, I doubt he is going to do anything about it. Race and religion matters, if you are not in the league, you better make sure you have power or money, or something to offer. At least to me, that is what Trump believes.
  - devoply 10y ago
    Race and religion are for the masses. It's a tool to divide and conquer them. The elite only speak the language of power and money. The Saudis make their people follow archaic Islamic laws with sexual repression while their princes are sexually abusing Americans in America and their royals have harems filled with Americans prostitutes. It's ridiculous.
  - 10y ago

semi-extrinsic 10y ago

It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations. But as long as Saudis are omitted from this regulation, it's pretty ineffective. Then again, how much of "terrorism legislation" is actually preventing terrorism, as opposed to extending the powers of police and prosecution, or just being populist "I'm doing something"?

coldtea 10y ago
>It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations. Saudis have a looooong history of funding all kinds of terrorist groups across the whole muslim world.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Sure. They basically created and funded al Qaida in the 1980s to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Then bin Laden came back to Saudi Arabia and offered to help against Saddam when he invaded Kuwait, and the Saudis told him to go away. After that they became more enemies than friends, but with the weird twist that the Saudi government wants to appear ideologically relatively aligned with al Qaida, such that al Qaida has little support for overthrowing the house of Saud.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    It's not just Qaida though, they sponsor all kinds of Sunni extremists all over the globe.
tiatia 10y ago
"It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations." I think that Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest problem in the world. In fact, I wish Trump would have banned them too or even suggested a regime change: 1. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/02/isis-isnt-the-problem-saudi-arabia-is.html http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/02... 2. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01/the-wahhabi-wet-dream.html http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01... For Iran I have high hopes. They started the fundamentalist bullshit and I have the impression they may be the first to get rid of it. In fact, there are first signs (German link, try google translate): https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Firanjournal.org%2Fgesellschaft%2Firan-islam-schiitentum&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

tiatia 10y ago

So he is banning, among others, Syrians and Somalians? Need a passport? Just pick up a Somali passport on the street for a few bucks. They are not biometric: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3704127.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3704127.stm Syrian passports, real and fake, are for Sale in Syria. The ISIS has its hands on real documents in occupied countries. Sounds like a very reasonable decision for me. Should have banned Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Wahabist terrorism. too. Not everybody has to go nuts like Merkel and open the borders for millions of illegal (by law!) immigrants.

matt4077 10y ago
Merkel was acting on what she believed to be a moral imperative: that those fleeing danger have a right to asylum. All her decisions follow logically if you accept that premise. I. e. it would make no sense to make such a right dependent on the total number of refugees. In the specific moment you're alluding to she made the decision to suspend the Dublin rules because they were clearly failing (i. e. refugees were clearly being mistreated by the Hungary regime, and the situation in Greece was deteriorating to the point where both the country and the refugees urgently needed relief). At that point, the basic right outlined above and the Dublin rules were in conflict, and human rights generally trump implementation specifics such as Dublin in these circumstances. In any case, the Dublin convention governs the burden-sharing between nations and does not impact an individual's relation with these states, or their basic rights. That's comparable to, for example, medical care in an emergency: your insurance company may have all sorts of debt with the hospital, but the doctors are still required to treat your compound fracture.
- tiatia 10y ago
  "In the specific moment you're alluding to she made the decision to suspend the Dublin rules because they were clearly failing" The problem with "making the decision" is that there is no executive order for the German chancellor, as apposed to the US president in the German constitution. Ruling by chancellor decree had fallen out of favor in Germany in the last 70 years. Ms. Merkel with her dubious past with East German state security ("IM Erika") does not need to be re-elected. She needs to stand in front of a judge!