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What an absolute human rights disaster Saudi Arabia is. That the U.S. government continues to engage with and support that regime is all the evidence you need

What an absolute human rights disaster Saudi Arabia is. That the U.S. government continues to engage with and support that regime is all the evidence you need of our hypocrisy on the issue.

ProAm 4y ago
There is no hypocrisy there, like everything in life, including startup life, everything comes down to money. And money is power. The US created the Saudi Arabian powerhouse we see today. We need them to keep our economic inertia moving forward at a pace acceptable for the populace. Is it a travesty? 100% But we made this bed.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  Americans like to pretend that we fight for higher ideals than naked self interest or national interest.
  - whiddershins 4y ago
    Americans fight for ideals all the time. Individual Americans do, and this includes individuals in government. It is true to say that much that is represented as being about ideals is really something else in disguise. And there is rampant corruption and so forth. But it takes cynicism too far to say that ideals never factor in. There are many principled people with ideals having impact in the world every day, and there is nothing enlightened about deriding their efforts or pretending they don't exist.
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      I believe the thread was about the behaviour of governments, not individuals. Principled and idealistic individuals exist everywhere, including Saudi Arabia as the article shows.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - random314 4y ago
      > Americans fight for ideals all the time The US government, post ww2, fights for Corporations in the NATO axis that benefit from a particular regime being in power in a particular country. Sometimes these regimes are democratic, other times they are not. The ideals are kool aid to sell to the public to garner support for war. For eg, US has toppled democracies in Haiti and Iran to support corporate interests. It supported dictatorship in Haiti, Saudi, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran etc to promote the interests of NATO corporations.
      - zeraynor 4y ago
        It's neither all "freedom and democracy" nor all "ruthless greed". Your post feels like kool aid in "ruthless greed" direction. Government decisions are made by human beings in positions of power. Being in a position of power, such as the president of the United States, is a balancing of owns personal beliefs/morality and the interests of the United States. The composition of those components and the position of the pendulum in that balance varies depending on who you are. Your position supposes nobody with ideals becomes members of government or that members of government somehow compartmentalize American cultural ideals/identity. Plenty of hypocrisy abounds, no doubt, but your take is overly cynical.
        random314 4y ago
        > Your post feels like kool aid in "ruthless greed" direction. I have cited several examples, you cant call it kool aid because it disagrees with your beliefs. Feel free to offer counter examples. Counter examples I am looking for 1. American support for a democracy that is not conditioned on alignment with NATO. 2. Or equivalently displacement of a dictatorial regime that is aligned with NATO, with a democratic regime that is less or equally aligned with NATO. I can easily predict with 100% accuracy which faction the US government and media will support from this simple principle of NATO alignment. The most hilarious example of this was when US fought against ISIS in Iraq, while supporting ISIS in Syria - because they were fighting against Assad(who aligned with Russia). To prevent Americans from cognitive dissonance, ISIS factions in Syria were referred to in US media as "rebels". With US media highlighting and magnifying tweets from Syrian ISIS accounts, when Assad wrested control of Aleppo from ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliated "rebels" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleppo_offensive_(October%E2%80%93November_2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleppo_offensive_(October%E2%8... Check out the composition and history of the "rebel" groups. Army of Conquest Fatah Halab Ansar al-Islam Jabhat Ansar al-Din https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-girl-idCAKBN13J1LZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-alep... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-twitter-girl-syria.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-t... https://www.wired.com/2016/12/powerless-people-aleppo-tweeting-help/ https://www.wired.com/2016/12/powerless-people-aleppo-tweeti... Here US media amplifies and propagates evidence free ISIS propaganda in Syria. If these "rebels" were such great humanitarians, why weren't they welcome in Iraq? https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/12/last-rebels-in-aleppo-say-assad-forces-are-burning-people-alive https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/12/last-rebel... However, when civilians fled the fled to "regime" (read Assad) controlled areas. "Yesterday, some residents who couldn’t take the bombardment anymore fled toward regime controlled areas, according to Othman." Amnesty internationals report directly contradicts US media reporting which blamed civilian casualties on Assad. "Amnesty International stated that the "armed opposition groups have displayed a shocking disregard for civilian lives", deploying weapons "whose use in the vicinity of densely populated civilian areas flagrantly violates international humanitarian law". The organization called the rebel groups to "end all attacks that fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians"." More honest reporting outside US media, where Obama and Kerry squirm at the optics of supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS against Assad. https://www.mei.edu/publications/under-pressure-syrias-rebels-face-al-nusra-quandary https://www.mei.edu/publications/under-pressure-syrias-rebel... Non US media reports that Kerry acknowledged that US has been supporting "terrorists" "As the unthinkable was becoming a reality in Aleppo, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a day of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow and agreed to a series of undetermined terms for bilateral cooperation against terrorism in Syria"
    - kodah 4y ago
      I like to think of it as, collectively our ideals are a compass. We keep heading North but it doesn't mean we don't get lost walking in circles. It also doesn't preclude that sometimes when we think we're heading North we're actually heading South. Making a mockery of our ideals is like making fun of someone for carrying a compass or dating to shoot an azimuth. Unfortunately a good amount of people inside the US and out like to do that.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Political independence is desirable. Absolute independence is unlikely and possibly unwise as well in a multi party system. However more choices means less power consolidated by any small number of potentially disagreeable actors. Say Yes to all sorts of energy. Solar, Wind, even modern Nuclear designed to be safe and with 'waste reduction' steps in mind for partly spent fuel that needs to be processed again at carefully controlled military guarded sites (since these processes can also make weapons).
haliskerbas 4y ago
- chitowneats 4y ago
  We don't throw people in prison for 3 decades over social media posts.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    We do if they would contain magic words that make them run afoul of the plainly unconstitutional Espionage Act
    - zeraynor 4y ago
      It does seem difficult balancing an open and free society with mechanisms for protecting and maintaining government secrets, and punishing those who betray those secrets. Do you believe it is plainly unconstitutional simply because it posting to twitter involves words?
      - phpisthebest 4y ago
        Democratic governments where the premise is "of the people by the people" I believe it is be highly undemocratic and corrupting to allow government to hold secrets from the very people that granted them power and are suppose to hold them to account via the ballot box Democracy can only work when the citizens are informed about what their government is doing The 1st amendment clearly states the Congress can not pass any law abridging speech. The espionage act clearly prevents whistleblowers and others from coming forward with information the government does not desire to be public which today is more often to be documents and evidence of crimes and embarrassing actions by government
        zeraynor 4y ago
        I do understand the dangers of a government that can arbitrarily declare something a "state secret" and subsequently stifle speech on some arbitrary grounds.. but at the same time, can you recognize that there may be legitimate grounds to forbid dissemination of particular information on the grounds that it is advantageous to hostile entities, and thus a detriment to the US as a whole?
emmab 4y ago
- mminer237 4y ago
  Every country on earth has diplomatic relations with Saudia Arabia except Belize, the Holy See, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Nepal, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Taiwan, Western Sahara, and a few Pacific micronations. Obviously the House of Saud is evil, but it's largely impossible to have a modern society without their oil.
  - kennedywm 4y ago
    "It's largely impossible to have a modern society without their oil." Not true. They produce less oil than the US and Russia and were only responsible for 12% of global oil production in 2021.
  - emmab 4y ago
    So? I didn't say there were any good countries on earth.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    We can buy their oil without fist-bumping their overlord.
quantified 4y ago
If you drive a car, fly on a plane, have trucks in your supply chain, use plastic anywhere in your life- you support that engagement. Sucks but they're built in now.
- random314 4y ago
  We seem to be able to be hostile to Russia and China while depending om them for oil and manufacturing. Extending the same courtesy to Saudi Arabia should be straightforward. Except, of course, Saudis align with NATO, Russia and China don't.
- robotnikman 4y ago
  They also contribute a lot to VC funds iirc
  - quantified 4y ago
    Bunch of that is our money coming back under their ownership, though.
- njarboe 4y ago
  The US, due to fracking, is now a net exporter of oil most years. Hopefully with more electric cars in the fleet each year oil use will also decline dramatically. We should use that opportunity to distance ourselves from Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately I think one factor driving US engagement that is not often discussed is the tens of billions Saudi Arabia spends on US weapon systems each year, not just oil interest.
  - darkarmani 4y ago
    > is now a net exporter of oil most years There are different kinds of oil and they aren't equivalent.
HL33tibCe7 4y ago
Hypocrisy or realpolitik, depending on how nuanced your worldview is.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  It is realpolitik. Absolutely. We ruthlessly engage in it, but whenever anyone else on Earth tries it, we whip out the "freedom, democracy, human rights" rhetoric. We shouldn't be surprised when that rings hollow elsewhere in the world.

What an absolute human rights disaster Saudi Arabia is. That the U.S. government continues to engage with and support that regime is all the evidence you need of our hypocrisy on the issue.

ProAm 4y ago

There is no hypocrisy there, like everything in life, including startup life, everything comes down to money. And money is power. The US created the Saudi Arabian powerhouse we see today. We need them to keep our economic inertia moving forward at a pace acceptable for the populace. Is it a travesty? 100% But we made this bed.

chitowneats 4y ago
Americans like to pretend that we fight for higher ideals than naked self interest or national interest.
- whiddershins 4y ago
  Americans fight for ideals all the time. Individual Americans do, and this includes individuals in government. It is true to say that much that is represented as being about ideals is really something else in disguise. And there is rampant corruption and so forth. But it takes cynicism too far to say that ideals never factor in. There are many principled people with ideals having impact in the world every day, and there is nothing enlightened about deriding their efforts or pretending they don't exist.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    I believe the thread was about the behaviour of governments, not individuals. Principled and idealistic individuals exist everywhere, including Saudi Arabia as the article shows.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - random314 4y ago
    > Americans fight for ideals all the time The US government, post ww2, fights for Corporations in the NATO axis that benefit from a particular regime being in power in a particular country. Sometimes these regimes are democratic, other times they are not. The ideals are kool aid to sell to the public to garner support for war. For eg, US has toppled democracies in Haiti and Iran to support corporate interests. It supported dictatorship in Haiti, Saudi, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran etc to promote the interests of NATO corporations.
    - zeraynor 4y ago
      It's neither all "freedom and democracy" nor all "ruthless greed". Your post feels like kool aid in "ruthless greed" direction. Government decisions are made by human beings in positions of power. Being in a position of power, such as the president of the United States, is a balancing of owns personal beliefs/morality and the interests of the United States. The composition of those components and the position of the pendulum in that balance varies depending on who you are. Your position supposes nobody with ideals becomes members of government or that members of government somehow compartmentalize American cultural ideals/identity. Plenty of hypocrisy abounds, no doubt, but your take is overly cynical.
      - random314 4y ago
        > Your post feels like kool aid in "ruthless greed" direction. I have cited several examples, you cant call it kool aid because it disagrees with your beliefs. Feel free to offer counter examples. Counter examples I am looking for 1. American support for a democracy that is not conditioned on alignment with NATO. 2. Or equivalently displacement of a dictatorial regime that is aligned with NATO, with a democratic regime that is less or equally aligned with NATO. I can easily predict with 100% accuracy which faction the US government and media will support from this simple principle of NATO alignment. The most hilarious example of this was when US fought against ISIS in Iraq, while supporting ISIS in Syria - because they were fighting against Assad(who aligned with Russia). To prevent Americans from cognitive dissonance, ISIS factions in Syria were referred to in US media as "rebels". With US media highlighting and magnifying tweets from Syrian ISIS accounts, when Assad wrested control of Aleppo from ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliated "rebels" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleppo_offensive_(October%E2%80%93November_2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleppo_offensive_(October%E2%8... Check out the composition and history of the "rebel" groups. Army of Conquest Fatah Halab Ansar al-Islam Jabhat Ansar al-Din https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-aleppo-girl-idCAKBN13J1LZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-alep... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-twitter-girl-syria.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/world/middleeast/aleppo-t... https://www.wired.com/2016/12/powerless-people-aleppo-tweeting-help/ https://www.wired.com/2016/12/powerless-people-aleppo-tweeti... Here US media amplifies and propagates evidence free ISIS propaganda in Syria. If these "rebels" were such great humanitarians, why weren't they welcome in Iraq? https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/12/last-rebels-in-aleppo-say-assad-forces-are-burning-people-alive https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/12/last-rebel... However, when civilians fled the fled to "regime" (read Assad) controlled areas. "Yesterday, some residents who couldn’t take the bombardment anymore fled toward regime controlled areas, according to Othman." Amnesty internationals report directly contradicts US media reporting which blamed civilian casualties on Assad. "Amnesty International stated that the "armed opposition groups have displayed a shocking disregard for civilian lives", deploying weapons "whose use in the vicinity of densely populated civilian areas flagrantly violates international humanitarian law". The organization called the rebel groups to "end all attacks that fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians"." More honest reporting outside US media, where Obama and Kerry squirm at the optics of supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS against Assad. https://www.mei.edu/publications/under-pressure-syrias-rebels-face-al-nusra-quandary https://www.mei.edu/publications/under-pressure-syrias-rebel... Non US media reports that Kerry acknowledged that US has been supporting "terrorists" "As the unthinkable was becoming a reality in Aleppo, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a day of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow and agreed to a series of undetermined terms for bilateral cooperation against terrorism in Syria"
  - kodah 4y ago
    I like to think of it as, collectively our ideals are a compass. We keep heading North but it doesn't mean we don't get lost walking in circles. It also doesn't preclude that sometimes when we think we're heading North we're actually heading South. Making a mockery of our ideals is like making fun of someone for carrying a compass or dating to shoot an azimuth. Unfortunately a good amount of people inside the US and out like to do that.
mjevans 4y ago
Political independence is desirable. Absolute independence is unlikely and possibly unwise as well in a multi party system. However more choices means less power consolidated by any small number of potentially disagreeable actors. Say Yes to all sorts of energy. Solar, Wind, even modern Nuclear designed to be safe and with 'waste reduction' steps in mind for partly spent fuel that needs to be processed again at carefully controlled military guarded sites (since these processes can also make weapons).

haliskerbas 4y ago

chitowneats 4y ago
We don't throw people in prison for 3 decades over social media posts.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  We do if they would contain magic words that make them run afoul of the plainly unconstitutional Espionage Act
  - zeraynor 4y ago
    It does seem difficult balancing an open and free society with mechanisms for protecting and maintaining government secrets, and punishing those who betray those secrets. Do you believe it is plainly unconstitutional simply because it posting to twitter involves words?
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      Democratic governments where the premise is "of the people by the people" I believe it is be highly undemocratic and corrupting to allow government to hold secrets from the very people that granted them power and are suppose to hold them to account via the ballot box Democracy can only work when the citizens are informed about what their government is doing The 1st amendment clearly states the Congress can not pass any law abridging speech. The espionage act clearly prevents whistleblowers and others from coming forward with information the government does not desire to be public which today is more often to be documents and evidence of crimes and embarrassing actions by government
      - zeraynor 4y ago
        I do understand the dangers of a government that can arbitrarily declare something a "state secret" and subsequently stifle speech on some arbitrary grounds.. but at the same time, can you recognize that there may be legitimate grounds to forbid dissemination of particular information on the grounds that it is advantageous to hostile entities, and thus a detriment to the US as a whole?

emmab 4y ago

mminer237 4y ago
Every country on earth has diplomatic relations with Saudia Arabia except Belize, the Holy See, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Nepal, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Taiwan, Western Sahara, and a few Pacific micronations. Obviously the House of Saud is evil, but it's largely impossible to have a modern society without their oil.
- kennedywm 4y ago
  "It's largely impossible to have a modern society without their oil." Not true. They produce less oil than the US and Russia and were only responsible for 12% of global oil production in 2021.
- emmab 4y ago
  So? I didn't say there were any good countries on earth.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  We can buy their oil without fist-bumping their overlord.

quantified 4y ago

If you drive a car, fly on a plane, have trucks in your supply chain, use plastic anywhere in your life- you support that engagement. Sucks but they're built in now.

random314 4y ago
We seem to be able to be hostile to Russia and China while depending om them for oil and manufacturing. Extending the same courtesy to Saudi Arabia should be straightforward. Except, of course, Saudis align with NATO, Russia and China don't.
robotnikman 4y ago
They also contribute a lot to VC funds iirc
- quantified 4y ago
  Bunch of that is our money coming back under their ownership, though.
njarboe 4y ago
The US, due to fracking, is now a net exporter of oil most years. Hopefully with more electric cars in the fleet each year oil use will also decline dramatically. We should use that opportunity to distance ourselves from Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately I think one factor driving US engagement that is not often discussed is the tens of billions Saudi Arabia spends on US weapon systems each year, not just oil interest.
- darkarmani 4y ago
  > is now a net exporter of oil most years There are different kinds of oil and they aren't equivalent.

HL33tibCe7 4y ago

Hypocrisy or realpolitik, depending on how nuanced your worldview is.

chitowneats 4y ago
It is realpolitik. Absolutely. We ruthlessly engage in it, but whenever anyone else on Earth tries it, we whip out the "freedom, democracy, human rights" rhetoric. We shouldn't be surprised when that rings hollow elsewhere in the world.