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Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince

264 points by room505 4y ago

room505 4y ago
https://archive.ph/JrvlQ https://archive.ph/JrvlQ
credit_guy 4y ago
Well, they are free people, not slaves. If they want to take a job in the private sector, they should have the freedom to do it, including working for a sovereign state that is not an enemy. Of course, they have knowledge of classified stuff, but I'm sure there are protocols around that, and they are aware of it. It would be more scandalous if they were to take jobs with Russia, or Iran. But Saudi Arable is a US ally, so what's the problem?
- sschueller 4y ago
  I would not count of SA being an ally for ever. I find this highly inappropriate especially for someone with sich high rank. Very very dangerous territory that could end up with a treason charge.
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Non-competes should include compensation commensurate for the non-compete period. In the case of these individuals is the retirement package not sufficient to guard national secrets?
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      The security agreements they signed are sufficient to guard national secrets. It has nothing to do with whether they go to work for Raytheon, the Saudi Defense Ministry, or Goodwill in their retirement, their compensation packages, etc.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        I'm not seeing how 'security agreements' can guard against them deciding to just stay in Saudi Arabia with the patronage of the princes.
        thrill 4y ago
        Expatriates would still be subject to not disclosing national secrets. It's not like they're former second-rate steak salesmen.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Subject by whom? The Saudi Arabian government has their own agenda. And obviously the U.S. government cannot enforce laws or policies in Riyadh.
        aerostable_slug 4y ago
        You honestly think an American flag officer would defect to Saudi Arabia? Really? Russia, China, or Iran would be a far "better" choice for a number of reasons, chiefly the fact that the Saudis might turn the turncoat back over to the US for any number of reasons — like pulling American maintenance contractors out of KSA, which would ground their air force in a matter of days and leave them very vulnerable to Iranian aggression. Hell, without contractor representatives giving them cues I wonder if they can really run some of the gear we've sold them. Besides, if I'm going to be stuck in one dictatorship for the rest of my life (because you could never safely travel again), I'd pick somewhere like Iran over KSA in a second.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        I was originally responding to your comment that: 'The security agreements they signed are sufficient to guard national secrets.' High ranking officers can just as much buy plane tickets as anyone else. Yes, including to countries that may not have entirely harmless intentions. Signatures on a piece of paper are not the final arbiter of disputes between countries, as demonstrated by the previous administration. Even if they were, not everyone can be trusted 100% just because they made promises to that effect, actions speak louder than words after all.
    - mek6800d2 4y ago
      Your comment reminds me of a scene in the Rolling Stones' Altamont Concert film: Keith Richards is hanging out of his dressing room door and he answers a queston, "Yeah, we sold out, but it was for the money so that's okay! (laughter)" From Keith Richards, it was funny. A retired general claiming the military did not provide enough incentive to guard national secrets would also be laughable, but in a different sense. Unrelated to the topic of this discussion and elsewhere in the film, Mick Jagger answers another question, "Am I satisfied? Sexually, yes. Philosophically, no." (Working from hazy memories here -- I last saw the movie in the 1970s, I think.)
  - maxbond 4y ago
    In the United States, the charge of treason only has meaning within the context of a declared war (due to it's specific definition within the constitution). Given that wars are no longer declared, I don't foresee even literal traitors being charged with treason until either a law is passed creating a different charge with different criteria, or Congress decides to check the Executive regarding the declaration of war. No reason to believe either are on the horizon; it's entirely possible no one will ever be charged with treason in the United States ever again.
- Guy2020 4y ago
  Wow, I can't believe the "free market" argument is being used to justify top military leaders serving other countries. I guess we aren't a country anymore. Just one big (free) market. Truly late stage capitalism here.
- basementcat 4y ago
  This sort of thing isn’t all that unusual. John Paul Jones, whom many regard as the "father" of the United States Navy, served as a rear admiral for the Imperial Russian Navy after he retired from the US Navy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Back the day Napoleon, from Corsica, actually whantedbto join the British Army before he settled to become an Artillery Officer in the French Army. The rest is, quite literally, history. We don't live in the 19th century anymore so.
    - basementcat 4y ago
      Fidel Castro wanted to play for the Washington Senators baseball team but wasn’t signed due to an underwhelming tryout. https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/fidel-castro-and-baseball/ https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/fidel-castro-and-baseball/
      - lern_too_spel 4y ago
        TLDR; he didn't try out for the Senators. The story is a myth.
    - neaden 4y ago
      Do you have a citation for that? My understanding is he went to boarding school in France at the age of 9 and then directly entered the French military academy. The hero of his youth, Pasquale Paoli, was in exile in England for much of that time and so maybe he wanted to join him until the revolution happened and Napoleon no longer supported Corsican independence.
  - edgefield 4y ago
    Perhaps not unusual, but ethical? That’s a different matter. A former US general working for a theocratic, monarchy with a deeply concerning history on human rights raises some serious red flags in my mind.
- idontpost 4y ago
- Dawnyhf5 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- marshray 4y ago
  My dim understanding is that once you are enrolled in General- and Admiral-level security clearances, you are not quite free free to freelance your experience globally without significant limitations. The key questions raised would seem to be: did they in fact obtain the required signoffs, and are the current requirements sufficient or do they need some adjustment?
  - google234123 4y ago
    The saudis are allies and we sell them many of our top weapon systems.
    - marshray 4y ago
      Yes, and there are a lot of signoffs involved.
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
      It seems the ethics and wisdom of that is the debate.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >did they in fact obtain the required signoffs, You don't get official "signoff" when you're at that level. You get plausibly deniable permission with the understanding that the powers that be reserve the right to pull the rug out from under you should doing so be politically expedient.
- europeanguy 4y ago
  Saudi Arabia hasn't really been a us ally since about 2016 when Saudi Arabia tried dumping oil price to ruin the us shale industry. Ever since the USA has been preparing to strike back. Look up the NOPEC bill. It looks like the USA plan is to charge Saudi Arabia with manipulating oil prices (being a cartel is literally the stated goal of OPEC). SA knows this and they're aligning themselves with Russia and China (with whom they're ideologically closer anyway). Also just a comment, the dichotomy "they are free not slaves" is entirely useless to this discussion. There are countless examples from elsewhere in society of where a person isn't a slave but still has constraints on how they can earn money.
  - exhilaration 4y ago
    Aren't there literally American military bases in Saudi Arabia? https://militarybases.com/overseas/saudi-arabia/ https://militarybases.com/overseas/saudi-arabia/ How much more allied can you get?
    - europeanguy 4y ago
      Like I said, this is a story in development now. Yes, there are bases in SA, and the US has threatened to pull them out. [1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/06/oil-dispute-prompts-call-remove-us-troops-saudi-arabia-uae.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/06/oil-dispute-p... [2] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-democrats-slam-opec-cuts-threaten-pull-missile-systems-saudi-arabia-uae https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-democrats-slam-opec-cu...
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > Saudi Arabia hasn't really been a us ally since But then who has "really" been an ally since whenever? All sovereign nations have national interests, and they are not 100% allied with the US interests. Still, in the case of Saudi Arabia, their most important security concern is Iran. And there, they are aligned with the US. Also, the US is the most important security partner of Israel, and, according to wikipedia [1], Saudi Arabia has quite a good working relationship with Israel reports have surfaced in recent years indicating extensive behind-the-scenes diplomatic, intelligence, and security cooperation between the two as part of a larger Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran (see Iran–Israel proxy conflict and Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict) and, more recently, Turkey under Erdoğan. At the same time, the Saudi relationship with the Palestinian National Authority is deteriorating. A former general working for Saudi Arabia is in no way traitorous. It absolutely makes sense, both in their personal interest, but also in the general US national interest. Yes, I know about Kashogi. But those guys are not going there to tell MBS to kill more disidents. They are going there to give security advice. And that security advice will benefit the US, not hinder it, because it will result in a stronger ally, not a stronger enemy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_re...
- bigbacaloa 4y ago
  Sure, no one has any responsibility for what his employer does or where the cash comes from. Mafia mentality has taken over the tech world apparently.
- yucky 4y ago
  Russia and Iran weren't behind 9/11, Saudi Arabia (or at least key parts of the current ruling royal family) was.
miles 4y ago
On a related note: Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
whywhywhydude 4y ago
Money wins. The admirals probably couldn’t resist the million dollar paychecks. I bet they would happily divulge all they know - mo matter how top secret-for the right price.
Maursault 4y ago
Chances are good these US ex-military are not loyal to Saudi Arabia. They're only doing it for the money, not fanatical idealisms. We have the Logan Act and Espionage Act to protect us, and we benefit from these activities through income taxes.
- olliej 4y ago
  Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case. I’m not saying that there’s going to be a bunch of treasoning or anything, just that the laws you’re citing wouldn’t be particularly useful if said treasoning did happen.
  - vsareto 4y ago
    Doing anything remotely perceived as treasonous seems dumb. More than likely they are acting closer to spies for the US (against SA) in these positions.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    > Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case. I wouldn't be so sure. SA depends on the US for a significant amount of military equipment and training. They might turn over a US traitor if they got even a whiff of that help being threatened.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  It's not uncommon for ex-military to take such jobs as a way to insulate the Pentagon (or your favourite government) even though they in fact still 'work'for them. This was (still is?) a classic of French influence in Africa, for instance. Here my interpretation is that the US keep a close watch on the Saudis...
  - atlasunshrugged 4y ago
    That's an interesting interpretation and I hope you're right. I read it and just assumed it was people finally cashing out after public service and going to the highest bidder.
TechBro8615 4y ago
How else will they retire? It's not like CNN and MSNBC can hire all of them!
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  Yeah, and Ollie North ruined it for military people at Fox /s
  - pjc50 4y ago
    He was pardoned for his crimes!
- JasonFruit 4y ago
  I don't know, they seem pretty determined to. I'm surprised at the complete breakdown of journalistic independence, right when news outlets are in a financial position where they should be trumpeting that sort of justification for their existence.
tksiden 4y ago
Apparently British officers are taking positions with the Chinese too.
- stainablesteel 4y ago
  it might sound weird, but if they're allowing it they're probably using it to gain intel while not giving away any valuable info
- hnfong 4y ago
  Just in case you need another data point. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hong-kong-protesters-turn-ire-on-british-officers-after-clashes-with-police-over-china-extradition-bill-frg8b3hg3 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hong-kong-protesters-turn... Having lived through this, it's a bit funny to me that most people aren't aware the Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong protests was led by British officers on the field. Inconvenient truths I guess.
sammyteee 4y ago
https://archive.ph/vGVcP https://archive.ph/vGVcP
adolph 4y ago
Even awesomer is heading up Washington "institutions" like Brookings while taking a foreign paycheck. https://www.vox.com/23166516/scandal-john-allen-brookings-think-tank-qatar-lobbying https://www.vox.com/23166516/scandal-john-allen-brookings-th... The court filing alleges that Allen had been tapped by two unregistered representatives of Qatar — a business executive named Imaad Zuberi and a former US ambassador to the UAE, Richard Olson — to advocate on Qatar’s behalf. (That Olson used the email address rickscafedxb@yahoo.com, a reference to the seedy Rick’s Cafe in the film Casablanca and the airport code for Dubai, might have been a tip-off that no one should be shocked that something was awry.)
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  Agh, and he probably thought he was just so clever with that email too. Ex-military officials should stick to joining the boards of defense conglomerates that their former friends and colleagues are going to spend billions of dollars with.
  - adolph 4y ago
    My guess is that the military is only the tip of the State iceberg. Shortly after Olson left the State Department, several Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, launched a blockade against Qatar that sparked a massive spending spree in Washington on lobbying and other efforts to influence the US policy. Olson, Zuberi and retired Marine four-star Gen John Allen traveled to Doha early in the diplomatic crisis to meet with top Qatari officials and discuss ways of resolving the issue, according to court records and a statement Allen’s spokesman provided to the wire service last year. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/954208-ex-us-ambassador-to-pakistan-richard-olson-to-plead-guilty-for-helping-qatar https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/954208-ex-us-ambassador-to-...
bell-cot 4y ago
Bad optics, certainly. Both for the U.S. and for the DoD retirees working for not-so-savory governments. OTOH - certain foreign governments paying top dollar to employ a bunch of military big shots from the U.S. does not say good things about their local talent pools. And the situation may look less-than-inspired to what talented young locals there are.
- hnfong 4y ago
  > paying top dollar to employ a bunch of military big shots from the U.S. does not say good things about their local talent pools It depends. If it's just "talent" they're after, then sure. If they're after things that can only come from a US military big shot, then it's a different issue.
markvdb 4y ago
Working for the butcher prince. We don't need that kind of people near any NATO army. Let's hope they stay in Saudi Arabia. In other news, this is just another symptom of a shrinking US empire. Pax americana is starting to crumble.
- whywhywhydude 4y ago
  - dendrite9 4y ago
    Like this? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/technology/twitter-saudi-arabia-spying-ahmad-abouammo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/technology/twitter-saudi-... A former Twitter employee was convicted on Tuesday by a jury in federal court of six charges related to accusations that he spied on the company’s users for Saudi Arabia. While at Twitter, Ahmad Abouammo, 44, managed media partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa. He developed relationships with prominent individuals in the region, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars and a luxury watch from a top adviser to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. In return, prosecutors said, he shared the personal user information of dissidents with Saudi officials. The jury convicted Mr. Abouammo of two counts of wire fraud or conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, one count of falsifying records and one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without properly disclosing that work. It found Mr. Abouammo not guilty on five counts of wire fraud or conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
    - whywhywhydude 4y ago
      That is really scary. They probably have insiders in their payroll in every major tech company.
      - lesuorac 4y ago
        Why wouldn't they? If you had a budget of ~1T for several decades how would you (acting as MBS) spend it all?
rlewkov 4y ago
Follow the money.
nosianu 4y ago
Also just today: BBC headline "Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says" https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582 With more background info: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/is-china-really-using-ex-uk-military-pilots-for-tactics-insights-sure-seems-like-it https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/is-china-really-using-... Some highlights from the BBC article: > Former British military pilots are being lured to China with large sums of money to pass on their expertise to the Chinese military, it is claimed. > Up to 30 former UK military pilots are thought to have gone to train members of China's People's Liberation Army. > The retired British pilots are being used to help understand the way in which Western planes and pilots operate, information which could be vital in the event of any conflict, such as over Taiwan. > "They are a very attractive body of people to then pass on that knowledge," a Western official said. "It's taking Western pilots of great experience to help develop Chinese military air force tactics and capabilities." The disclaimer sentence > There is no evidence that any pilots have broken the Official Secrets Act or that they have committed any crime. is funny - how would they gather that evidence without confessions from the pilots involved or from the Chinese? Even if they don't tell them any secrets, there remains the fact that they train them at all. With the next big conflict where this might be used being Taiwan, where the West has already taken the opposite side. From the second link: > The MOD also said that the United Kingdom is only one of several Western countries whose aircrew (and likely other sources of military expertise) are currently being targeted in this way. No details were provided of other nations involved. Personally, reading this, I think the news is getting more ridiculous by the day. I think this is much worse, I don't think Saudi Arabia is likely to end up as a direct adversary, and even if it did it would not matter much. But China...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- alexfromapex 4y ago
  Saudi Arabia is not as worthy of an adversary as China but they still are a dangerous country to underestimate. They were possibly behind 9/11, after all: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/11/september-11-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/11/september-11-saudi-arabi... .
stormbrew 4y ago
a lot of people in this comment section seem kind of confused about the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia? This isn't at all surprising, why wouldn't you hire American military to go with your American military hardware?
- sschueller 4y ago
  Because the United States should not be involved in invoking terror on the Yemenese population.
  - BrandoElFollito 4y ago
    Why selling them weapons then? Except if they were intended for gardening and what we have here - an obvious breach of TOS.
  - stormbrew 4y ago
    I mean, I agree! But it is, and this specific thing is only part of that.
  - josefresco 4y ago
    > invoking terror on the Yemenese population To clarify the US is invoking terror on the Yemeni Iranian proxy forces and therefore the population.
- warner25 4y ago
  Not only that, we have active duty American service members stationed in Saudi Arabia working as instructors and advisors on how to maintain and employ that hardware. Saudi pilots are routinely trained at American military flight schools like Fort Rucker and NAS Pensacola. The performance of these Saudi student pilots is usually terrible[1], by the way, to the point that it's a running joke in the American military aviation community. This is probably because their officers are selected based on having royal blood, not based on merit, whereas getting into flight school is highly competitive for Americans. I'm told that Saudi Arabia pays a lot of money to send these guys for training, so instructors aren't allowed to fail them. Basically, the instructors pencil-whip their progress and let them graduate, but then Saudi Arabia seems to really need some experienced Americans on-hand to keep things from going off the rails. [1] I was paired with a Saudi during flight school. For example, all students had to score 100% on a written test on aircraft limits and emergency procedures before ever getting into the cockpit. American students would get a second chance if they got one or two questions wrong, but that was rare and embarrassing, and there would be no third chance. My Saudi partner, on the other hand, scored something like 16% on his first attempt and then received five or six more chances. When we actually got into the air, he wasn't much better. During the first week, I approached my commander and told him that I was uncomfortable flying with this guy, but he assured me that our instructors dealt with this situation all the time and knew how to manage it safely. Later in my career, I saw a bit of what happens behind the scenes and learned that cheating among Saudi students was also rampant and effectively allowed to continue.
bigbacaloa 4y ago
Traitors united.
hunglee2 4y ago
this is an example of something which was entirely uncontroversial becoming a scandal only after changes in the relationship. Two weeks ago, a non story.
photochemsyn 4y ago
This has been going on for years, but now it's news? Here's a blurb from some random 2009 blog post on how this works (more about Iraq, but Vinnell has been training Saudi forces for years, and probably is involved with Yemen as well): > "The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard. The Fairfax, VA-based company, a subsidiary of the US aerospace firm Northrup Grumman, said on its website it was hiring former US army and marine officers to train infantry battalions and combat support units for the new Iraqi army. The Vinnell Corp. of Alexandria, Va., owned by politically connected Northrop-Grumman." More on that: https://www.corpwatch.org/article/iraq-vinnells-army-defensive https://www.corpwatch.org/article/iraq-vinnells-army-defensi... It's just so painfully obvious that these kind of articles wouldn't be getting published right now if the US government wasn't angry with Saudi Arabia about crude oil production.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard. Were similar contracts in place for training Afghani Army? Maybe we should get a refund? I found shocking how western media just declared Afghani army as incapable and closed the chapter. Someone was in charge of this program for 20 years. Someone had oversight of billions spend. Were western contractor facilitating corruption? Was this a shocking failure of western management? The results are worse than Russian army procurement where millions of uniforms just go missing!
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Nobody wants to talk about training the Afghans for 20 years and having them decide to be citizens or Taliban the moment we left. Training went well, but why would they bother once we're gone?
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      have youread nothing about the fact that government was paying salaries of soldiers that did not actually exist, and in fact their commanders were pocketing it. This whole 'afghans decided not to fight' is really convenient. Like blaming a plane crash on pilot error - nothing to investigate, no defects to correct, the only one at fault is already dead.
thermalsauce 4y ago
This is not as bad as it reads. Understand that the top brass in the DoD are extremely loyal to the country, loyalty and trust is crucial in the officer corps (in the US at least). Once you get that star (or whatever the equivalent is for the navy) you are basically a US officer for life. Retired Generals and Admirals can and do get called upon by the government when they are needed. They are considered highly experienced professionals that the government can trust. They are not "in" the system, they are the system. I would expect that the DoD keeps tabs on these officers. While the oil money may be nice, make no mistake, the US government is the wealthiest organization on the planet. These officers understand who the real provider is.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  I see you and raise you one Flynn.
- yucky 4y ago
  They're so loyal that they're working for the guys who planned 9/11, and not just working for them, but giving them expertise.
boomskats 4y ago
How is this different to the Saudi crown prince hiring MPRI, DynCorp, or any other US private military company that largely employs retired US army personnel?
- P_I_Staker 4y ago
  This is much worse
  - boomskats 4y ago
    > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1-6 4y ago
More reason why veterans need more protection in the USA.
panny 4y ago
This is spam. It doesn't matter that there is a news article behind that pay wall.
imgabe 4y ago
If they're an ally, it's to our benefit that their military is strong. If they become an enemy, it doesn't hurt that we built their military and know everything about it inside out. If the US could make every other country's military a subsidiary of the US military, they would.
- FredPret 4y ago
  > If they become an enemy, it doesn't hurt that we built their military and know everything about it inside out. What if you know it inside out and all it benefits you is that you now know they have a competent and robust organization, whereas before they were bungling idiots and you only kind-of knew the extent of it?
  - imgabe 4y ago
    You will know exactly how competent and how robust as well as exactly what their limitations and weaknesses are. You'll also know all their internal procedures, what decisions they'll make in a given situation before they make them (because you taught them what to do), the exact capabilities of their weapons, where they deploy their forces, it's information the military would literally kill for against any enemy. Maybe they would have otherwise been bungling and inept, but that is pretty poor planning to to just hope that your enemy is incompetent. The more likely scenario is they would be competent and you just wouldn't know anything about them. A competent enemy you can predict is probably better than an incompetent one you can't. Better to know in advance exactly what competent thing they will do so you can anticipate it. Incompetent people can still get lucky and can hurt you when they act in ways you don't expect.
edmcnulty101 4y ago
US tax dollars spent training these mercenaries!
gigatexal 4y ago
I know they’re ostensibly an ally of the US but I find this hella suspect and not at all cool on their part. Sure they’re likely doing it for the money. But MBS is a bad dude, he killed an American journalist, and the Saudis would sell us out to the highest bidder if they could.
anjel 4y ago
For background not found in this article, a US general's retirement pension is north of $200,000 a year plus zero-cost "Cadillac" healthcare coverage and other benefits as well.
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
"We all have to eat" [0], including retired US generals. [0]: https://simone.substack.com/p/we-all-have-to-eat https://simone.substack.com/p/we-all-have-to-eat

264 points by room505 4y ago

https://archive.ph/JrvlQ https://archive.ph/JrvlQ

Well, they are free people, not slaves. If they want to take a job in the private sector, they should have the freedom to do it, including working for a sovereign state that is not an enemy. Of course, they have knowledge of classified stuff, but I'm sure there are protocols around that, and they are aware of it. It would be more scandalous if they were to take jobs with Russia, or Iran. But Saudi Arable is a US ally, so what's the problem?

sschueller 4y ago
I would not count of SA being an ally for ever. I find this highly inappropriate especially for someone with sich high rank. Very very dangerous territory that could end up with a treason charge.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Non-competes should include compensation commensurate for the non-compete period. In the case of these individuals is the retirement package not sufficient to guard national secrets?
  - aerostable_slug 4y ago
    The security agreements they signed are sufficient to guard national secrets. It has nothing to do with whether they go to work for Raytheon, the Saudi Defense Ministry, or Goodwill in their retirement, their compensation packages, etc.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      I'm not seeing how 'security agreements' can guard against them deciding to just stay in Saudi Arabia with the patronage of the princes.
      - thrill 4y ago
        Expatriates would still be subject to not disclosing national secrets. It's not like they're former second-rate steak salesmen.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Subject by whom? The Saudi Arabian government has their own agenda. And obviously the U.S. government cannot enforce laws or policies in Riyadh.
        aerostable_slug 4y ago
        You honestly think an American flag officer would defect to Saudi Arabia? Really? Russia, China, or Iran would be a far "better" choice for a number of reasons, chiefly the fact that the Saudis might turn the turncoat back over to the US for any number of reasons — like pulling American maintenance contractors out of KSA, which would ground their air force in a matter of days and leave them very vulnerable to Iranian aggression. Hell, without contractor representatives giving them cues I wonder if they can really run some of the gear we've sold them. Besides, if I'm going to be stuck in one dictatorship for the rest of my life (because you could never safely travel again), I'd pick somewhere like Iran over KSA in a second.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        I was originally responding to your comment that: 'The security agreements they signed are sufficient to guard national secrets.' High ranking officers can just as much buy plane tickets as anyone else. Yes, including to countries that may not have entirely harmless intentions. Signatures on a piece of paper are not the final arbiter of disputes between countries, as demonstrated by the previous administration. Even if they were, not everyone can be trusted 100% just because they made promises to that effect, actions speak louder than words after all.
  - mek6800d2 4y ago
    Your comment reminds me of a scene in the Rolling Stones' Altamont Concert film: Keith Richards is hanging out of his dressing room door and he answers a queston, "Yeah, we sold out, but it was for the money so that's okay! (laughter)" From Keith Richards, it was funny. A retired general claiming the military did not provide enough incentive to guard national secrets would also be laughable, but in a different sense. Unrelated to the topic of this discussion and elsewhere in the film, Mick Jagger answers another question, "Am I satisfied? Sexually, yes. Philosophically, no." (Working from hazy memories here -- I last saw the movie in the 1970s, I think.)
- maxbond 4y ago
  In the United States, the charge of treason only has meaning within the context of a declared war (due to it's specific definition within the constitution). Given that wars are no longer declared, I don't foresee even literal traitors being charged with treason until either a law is passed creating a different charge with different criteria, or Congress decides to check the Executive regarding the declaration of war. No reason to believe either are on the horizon; it's entirely possible no one will ever be charged with treason in the United States ever again.
Guy2020 4y ago
Wow, I can't believe the "free market" argument is being used to justify top military leaders serving other countries. I guess we aren't a country anymore. Just one big (free) market. Truly late stage capitalism here.
basementcat 4y ago
This sort of thing isn’t all that unusual. John Paul Jones, whom many regard as the "father" of the United States Navy, served as a rear admiral for the Imperial Russian Navy after he retired from the US Navy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones
- hef19898 4y ago
  Back the day Napoleon, from Corsica, actually whantedbto join the British Army before he settled to become an Artillery Officer in the French Army. The rest is, quite literally, history. We don't live in the 19th century anymore so.
  - basementcat 4y ago
    Fidel Castro wanted to play for the Washington Senators baseball team but wasn’t signed due to an underwhelming tryout. https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/fidel-castro-and-baseball/ https://sabr.org/bioproj/topic/fidel-castro-and-baseball/
    - lern_too_spel 4y ago
      TLDR; he didn't try out for the Senators. The story is a myth.
  - neaden 4y ago
    Do you have a citation for that? My understanding is he went to boarding school in France at the age of 9 and then directly entered the French military academy. The hero of his youth, Pasquale Paoli, was in exile in England for much of that time and so maybe he wanted to join him until the revolution happened and Napoleon no longer supported Corsican independence.
- edgefield 4y ago
  Perhaps not unusual, but ethical? That’s a different matter. A former US general working for a theocratic, monarchy with a deeply concerning history on human rights raises some serious red flags in my mind.
idontpost 4y ago
Dawnyhf5 4y ago
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marshray 4y ago
My dim understanding is that once you are enrolled in General- and Admiral-level security clearances, you are not quite free free to freelance your experience globally without significant limitations. The key questions raised would seem to be: did they in fact obtain the required signoffs, and are the current requirements sufficient or do they need some adjustment?
- google234123 4y ago
  The saudis are allies and we sell them many of our top weapon systems.
  - marshray 4y ago
    Yes, and there are a lot of signoffs involved.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    It seems the ethics and wisdom of that is the debate.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >did they in fact obtain the required signoffs, You don't get official "signoff" when you're at that level. You get plausibly deniable permission with the understanding that the powers that be reserve the right to pull the rug out from under you should doing so be politically expedient.
europeanguy 4y ago
Saudi Arabia hasn't really been a us ally since about 2016 when Saudi Arabia tried dumping oil price to ruin the us shale industry. Ever since the USA has been preparing to strike back. Look up the NOPEC bill. It looks like the USA plan is to charge Saudi Arabia with manipulating oil prices (being a cartel is literally the stated goal of OPEC). SA knows this and they're aligning themselves with Russia and China (with whom they're ideologically closer anyway). Also just a comment, the dichotomy "they are free not slaves" is entirely useless to this discussion. There are countless examples from elsewhere in society of where a person isn't a slave but still has constraints on how they can earn money.
- exhilaration 4y ago
  Aren't there literally American military bases in Saudi Arabia? https://militarybases.com/overseas/saudi-arabia/ https://militarybases.com/overseas/saudi-arabia/ How much more allied can you get?
  - europeanguy 4y ago
    Like I said, this is a story in development now. Yes, there are bases in SA, and the US has threatened to pull them out. [1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/06/oil-dispute-prompts-call-remove-us-troops-saudi-arabia-uae.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/06/oil-dispute-p... [2] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-democrats-slam-opec-cuts-threaten-pull-missile-systems-saudi-arabia-uae https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-democrats-slam-opec-cu...
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > Saudi Arabia hasn't really been a us ally since But then who has "really" been an ally since whenever? All sovereign nations have national interests, and they are not 100% allied with the US interests. Still, in the case of Saudi Arabia, their most important security concern is Iran. And there, they are aligned with the US. Also, the US is the most important security partner of Israel, and, according to wikipedia [1], Saudi Arabia has quite a good working relationship with Israel reports have surfaced in recent years indicating extensive behind-the-scenes diplomatic, intelligence, and security cooperation between the two as part of a larger Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran (see Iran–Israel proxy conflict and Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict) and, more recently, Turkey under Erdoğan. At the same time, the Saudi relationship with the Palestinian National Authority is deteriorating. A former general working for Saudi Arabia is in no way traitorous. It absolutely makes sense, both in their personal interest, but also in the general US national interest. Yes, I know about Kashogi. But those guys are not going there to tell MBS to kill more disidents. They are going there to give security advice. And that security advice will benefit the US, not hinder it, because it will result in a stronger ally, not a stronger enemy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_re...
bigbacaloa 4y ago
Sure, no one has any responsibility for what his employer does or where the cash comes from. Mafia mentality has taken over the tech world apparently.
yucky 4y ago
Russia and Iran weren't behind 9/11, Saudi Arabia (or at least key parts of the current ruling royal family) was.

miles 4y ago

On a related note: Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582

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whywhywhydude 4y ago

Money wins. The admirals probably couldn’t resist the million dollar paychecks. I bet they would happily divulge all they know - mo matter how top secret-for the right price.

Maursault 4y ago

Chances are good these US ex-military are not loyal to Saudi Arabia. They're only doing it for the money, not fanatical idealisms. We have the Logan Act and Espionage Act to protect us, and we benefit from these activities through income taxes.

olliej 4y ago
Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case. I’m not saying that there’s going to be a bunch of treasoning or anything, just that the laws you’re citing wouldn’t be particularly useful if said treasoning did happen.
- vsareto 4y ago
  Doing anything remotely perceived as treasonous seems dumb. More than likely they are acting closer to spies for the US (against SA) in these positions.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case. I wouldn't be so sure. SA depends on the US for a significant amount of military equipment and training. They might turn over a US traitor if they got even a whiff of that help being threatened.
mytailorisrich 4y ago
It's not uncommon for ex-military to take such jobs as a way to insulate the Pentagon (or your favourite government) even though they in fact still 'work'for them. This was (still is?) a classic of French influence in Africa, for instance. Here my interpretation is that the US keep a close watch on the Saudis...
- atlasunshrugged 4y ago
  That's an interesting interpretation and I hope you're right. I read it and just assumed it was people finally cashing out after public service and going to the highest bidder.

TechBro8615 4y ago

How else will they retire? It's not like CNN and MSNBC can hire all of them!

atlasunshrugged 4y ago
Yeah, and Ollie North ruined it for military people at Fox /s
- pjc50 4y ago
  He was pardoned for his crimes!
JasonFruit 4y ago
I don't know, they seem pretty determined to. I'm surprised at the complete breakdown of journalistic independence, right when news outlets are in a financial position where they should be trumpeting that sort of justification for their existence.

tksiden 4y ago

Apparently British officers are taking positions with the Chinese too.

stainablesteel 4y ago
it might sound weird, but if they're allowing it they're probably using it to gain intel while not giving away any valuable info
hnfong 4y ago
Just in case you need another data point. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hong-kong-protesters-turn-ire-on-british-officers-after-clashes-with-police-over-china-extradition-bill-frg8b3hg3 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hong-kong-protesters-turn... Having lived through this, it's a bit funny to me that most people aren't aware the Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong protests was led by British officers on the field. Inconvenient truths I guess.

sammyteee 4y ago

https://archive.ph/vGVcP https://archive.ph/vGVcP

adolph 4y ago

Even awesomer is heading up Washington "institutions" like Brookings while taking a foreign paycheck. https://www.vox.com/23166516/scandal-john-allen-brookings-think-tank-qatar-lobbying https://www.vox.com/23166516/scandal-john-allen-brookings-th... The court filing alleges that Allen had been tapped by two unregistered representatives of Qatar — a business executive named Imaad Zuberi and a former US ambassador to the UAE, Richard Olson — to advocate on Qatar’s behalf. (That Olson used the email address rickscafedxb@yahoo.com, a reference to the seedy Rick’s Cafe in the film Casablanca and the airport code for Dubai, might have been a tip-off that no one should be shocked that something was awry.)

atlasunshrugged 4y ago
Agh, and he probably thought he was just so clever with that email too. Ex-military officials should stick to joining the boards of defense conglomerates that their former friends and colleagues are going to spend billions of dollars with.
- adolph 4y ago
  My guess is that the military is only the tip of the State iceberg. Shortly after Olson left the State Department, several Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, launched a blockade against Qatar that sparked a massive spending spree in Washington on lobbying and other efforts to influence the US policy. Olson, Zuberi and retired Marine four-star Gen John Allen traveled to Doha early in the diplomatic crisis to meet with top Qatari officials and discuss ways of resolving the issue, according to court records and a statement Allen’s spokesman provided to the wire service last year. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/954208-ex-us-ambassador-to-pakistan-richard-olson-to-plead-guilty-for-helping-qatar https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/954208-ex-us-ambassador-to-...

bell-cot 4y ago

Bad optics, certainly. Both for the U.S. and for the DoD retirees working for not-so-savory governments. OTOH - certain foreign governments paying top dollar to employ a bunch of military big shots from the U.S. does not say good things about their local talent pools. And the situation may look less-than-inspired to what talented young locals there are.

hnfong 4y ago
> paying top dollar to employ a bunch of military big shots from the U.S. does not say good things about their local talent pools It depends. If it's just "talent" they're after, then sure. If they're after things that can only come from a US military big shot, then it's a different issue.

markvdb 4y ago

Working for the butcher prince. We don't need that kind of people near any NATO army. Let's hope they stay in Saudi Arabia. In other news, this is just another symptom of a shrinking US empire. Pax americana is starting to crumble.

whywhywhydude 4y ago
- dendrite9 4y ago
  Like this? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/technology/twitter-saudi-arabia-spying-ahmad-abouammo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/technology/twitter-saudi-... A former Twitter employee was convicted on Tuesday by a jury in federal court of six charges related to accusations that he spied on the company’s users for Saudi Arabia. While at Twitter, Ahmad Abouammo, 44, managed media partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa. He developed relationships with prominent individuals in the region, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars and a luxury watch from a top adviser to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. In return, prosecutors said, he shared the personal user information of dissidents with Saudi officials. The jury convicted Mr. Abouammo of two counts of wire fraud or conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of money laundering, one count of falsifying records and one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government without properly disclosing that work. It found Mr. Abouammo not guilty on five counts of wire fraud or conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
  - whywhywhydude 4y ago
    That is really scary. They probably have insiders in their payroll in every major tech company.
    - lesuorac 4y ago
      Why wouldn't they? If you had a budget of ~1T for several decades how would you (acting as MBS) spend it all?

rlewkov 4y ago

Follow the money.

nosianu 4y ago

Also just today: BBC headline "Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says" https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582 With more background info: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/is-china-really-using-ex-uk-military-pilots-for-tactics-insights-sure-seems-like-it https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/is-china-really-using-... Some highlights from the BBC article: > Former British military pilots are being lured to China with large sums of money to pass on their expertise to the Chinese military, it is claimed. > Up to 30 former UK military pilots are thought to have gone to train members of China's People's Liberation Army. > The retired British pilots are being used to help understand the way in which Western planes and pilots operate, information which could be vital in the event of any conflict, such as over Taiwan. > "They are a very attractive body of people to then pass on that knowledge," a Western official said. "It's taking Western pilots of great experience to help develop Chinese military air force tactics and capabilities." The disclaimer sentence > There is no evidence that any pilots have broken the Official Secrets Act or that they have committed any crime. is funny - how would they gather that evidence without confessions from the pilots involved or from the Chinese? Even if they don't tell them any secrets, there remains the fact that they train them at all. With the next big conflict where this might be used being Taiwan, where the West has already taken the opposite side. From the second link: > The MOD also said that the United Kingdom is only one of several Western countries whose aircrew (and likely other sources of military expertise) are currently being targeted in this way. No details were provided of other nations involved. Personally, reading this, I think the news is getting more ridiculous by the day. I think this is much worse, I don't think Saudi Arabia is likely to end up as a direct adversary, and even if it did it would not matter much. But China...

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alexfromapex 4y ago
Saudi Arabia is not as worthy of an adversary as China but they still are a dangerous country to underestimate. They were possibly behind 9/11, after all: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/11/september-11-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/11/september-11-saudi-arabi... .

stormbrew 4y ago

a lot of people in this comment section seem kind of confused about the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia? This isn't at all surprising, why wouldn't you hire American military to go with your American military hardware?

sschueller 4y ago
Because the United States should not be involved in invoking terror on the Yemenese population.
- BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  Why selling them weapons then? Except if they were intended for gardening and what we have here - an obvious breach of TOS.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  I mean, I agree! But it is, and this specific thing is only part of that.
- josefresco 4y ago
  > invoking terror on the Yemenese population To clarify the US is invoking terror on the Yemeni Iranian proxy forces and therefore the population.
warner25 4y ago
Not only that, we have active duty American service members stationed in Saudi Arabia working as instructors and advisors on how to maintain and employ that hardware. Saudi pilots are routinely trained at American military flight schools like Fort Rucker and NAS Pensacola. The performance of these Saudi student pilots is usually terrible[1], by the way, to the point that it's a running joke in the American military aviation community. This is probably because their officers are selected based on having royal blood, not based on merit, whereas getting into flight school is highly competitive for Americans. I'm told that Saudi Arabia pays a lot of money to send these guys for training, so instructors aren't allowed to fail them. Basically, the instructors pencil-whip their progress and let them graduate, but then Saudi Arabia seems to really need some experienced Americans on-hand to keep things from going off the rails. [1] I was paired with a Saudi during flight school. For example, all students had to score 100% on a written test on aircraft limits and emergency procedures before ever getting into the cockpit. American students would get a second chance if they got one or two questions wrong, but that was rare and embarrassing, and there would be no third chance. My Saudi partner, on the other hand, scored something like 16% on his first attempt and then received five or six more chances. When we actually got into the air, he wasn't much better. During the first week, I approached my commander and told him that I was uncomfortable flying with this guy, but he assured me that our instructors dealt with this situation all the time and knew how to manage it safely. Later in my career, I saw a bit of what happens behind the scenes and learned that cheating among Saudi students was also rampant and effectively allowed to continue.

bigbacaloa 4y ago

Traitors united.

hunglee2 4y ago

this is an example of something which was entirely uncontroversial becoming a scandal only after changes in the relationship. Two weeks ago, a non story.

photochemsyn 4y ago

This has been going on for years, but now it's news? Here's a blurb from some random 2009 blog post on how this works (more about Iraq, but Vinnell has been training Saudi forces for years, and probably is involved with Yemen as well): > "The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard. The Fairfax, VA-based company, a subsidiary of the US aerospace firm Northrup Grumman, said on its website it was hiring former US army and marine officers to train infantry battalions and combat support units for the new Iraqi army. The Vinnell Corp. of Alexandria, Va., owned by politically connected Northrop-Grumman." More on that: https://www.corpwatch.org/article/iraq-vinnells-army-defensive https://www.corpwatch.org/article/iraq-vinnells-army-defensi... It's just so painfully obvious that these kind of articles wouldn't be getting published right now if the US government wasn't angry with Saudi Arabia about crude oil production.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard. Were similar contracts in place for training Afghani Army? Maybe we should get a refund? I found shocking how western media just declared Afghani army as incapable and closed the chapter. Someone was in charge of this program for 20 years. Someone had oversight of billions spend. Were western contractor facilitating corruption? Was this a shocking failure of western management? The results are worse than Russian army procurement where millions of uniforms just go missing!
- bombcar 4y ago
  Nobody wants to talk about training the Afghans for 20 years and having them decide to be citizens or Taliban the moment we left. Training went well, but why would they bother once we're gone?
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    have youread nothing about the fact that government was paying salaries of soldiers that did not actually exist, and in fact their commanders were pocketing it. This whole 'afghans decided not to fight' is really convenient. Like blaming a plane crash on pilot error - nothing to investigate, no defects to correct, the only one at fault is already dead.

thermalsauce 4y ago

This is not as bad as it reads. Understand that the top brass in the DoD are extremely loyal to the country, loyalty and trust is crucial in the officer corps (in the US at least). Once you get that star (or whatever the equivalent is for the navy) you are basically a US officer for life. Retired Generals and Admirals can and do get called upon by the government when they are needed. They are considered highly experienced professionals that the government can trust. They are not "in" the system, they are the system. I would expect that the DoD keeps tabs on these officers. While the oil money may be nice, make no mistake, the US government is the wealthiest organization on the planet. These officers understand who the real provider is.

ncmncm 4y ago
I see you and raise you one Flynn.
yucky 4y ago
They're so loyal that they're working for the guys who planned 9/11, and not just working for them, but giving them expertise.

boomskats 4y ago

How is this different to the Saudi crown prince hiring MPRI, DynCorp, or any other US private military company that largely employs retired US army personnel?

P_I_Staker 4y ago
This is much worse
- boomskats 4y ago
  > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

1-6 4y ago

More reason why veterans need more protection in the USA.

panny 4y ago

This is spam. It doesn't matter that there is a news article behind that pay wall.

imgabe 4y ago

If they're an ally, it's to our benefit that their military is strong. If they become an enemy, it doesn't hurt that we built their military and know everything about it inside out. If the US could make every other country's military a subsidiary of the US military, they would.

FredPret 4y ago
> If they become an enemy, it doesn't hurt that we built their military and know everything about it inside out. What if you know it inside out and all it benefits you is that you now know they have a competent and robust organization, whereas before they were bungling idiots and you only kind-of knew the extent of it?
- imgabe 4y ago
  You will know exactly how competent and how robust as well as exactly what their limitations and weaknesses are. You'll also know all their internal procedures, what decisions they'll make in a given situation before they make them (because you taught them what to do), the exact capabilities of their weapons, where they deploy their forces, it's information the military would literally kill for against any enemy. Maybe they would have otherwise been bungling and inept, but that is pretty poor planning to to just hope that your enemy is incompetent. The more likely scenario is they would be competent and you just wouldn't know anything about them. A competent enemy you can predict is probably better than an incompetent one you can't. Better to know in advance exactly what competent thing they will do so you can anticipate it. Incompetent people can still get lucky and can hurt you when they act in ways you don't expect.

edmcnulty101 4y ago

US tax dollars spent training these mercenaries!

gigatexal 4y ago

I know they’re ostensibly an ally of the US but I find this hella suspect and not at all cool on their part. Sure they’re likely doing it for the money. But MBS is a bad dude, he killed an American journalist, and the Saudis would sell us out to the highest bidder if they could.

anjel 4y ago

For background not found in this article, a US general's retirement pension is north of $200,000 a year plus zero-cost "Cadillac" healthcare coverage and other benefits as well.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

"We all have to eat" [0], including retired US generals. [0]: https://simone.substack.com/p/we-all-have-to-eat https://simone.substack.com/p/we-all-have-to-eat