John F. Kerry

U.S.-Saudi Arabia rivalry intensifies - latimes.com



This is a pretty complicated issue. And heres my take.

Its almost like America is the old father who is now getting so old and senile that the children want to still help him but they think he doesn't even know whats best for himself.

And how can this result in a , perhaps unspoken, Saudi -Israel alliace?

Simple- Israel isnt opposing Saudi Arabia getting 60 billion of Us arms and f16s. Why? Because Israel recognizes that Saudi Arabia is not really that bad towards it. The funding for hamas and hezbollah comes from the Shiites not the saudis. Iran and syria, etc... So from the Israeli point of view, the saudis having good , us weapons and planes (but not As good as there f35s)... is a good thing... It means that a moderate, at least in terms of its relations with israel, arab state, can be a power broker and source of stability in the world, and that having saudis with that tech and in that position is actually pretty good for israel, because, since they both are "children" of america, they both have similar interests in a lot of ways.

Now the 2nd part- Saudi , for its part, is watching what Obama is doing (and to an extent what bush did, in iraq) and saying- "these stupid american politicians are talking out of there asses- they say they want peace and stability, but they also throw out hosni mubarak because the radical muslim street wanted a new islamic calaphate"... so Saudi is like watching, and seeing that as America stands by the "self determination" and "freedom" bulshit... that whats happening is , under there nose, the radical religions groups that were stifled under autocrats are comming out and basically turning the region into africa in the 1960s- a bunch of corrupt crazy people whose only good part is that they arent the previous guy. tourism in egypt is down 60%, the economy of most of these places in the "Arab spring" is in the toilet...and no new investment is comming.... but still... obama , like that proverbial senile uncle, is just crowing about "the need for democracy and to let those [crazy radical street people] have their murderous way"....


So the saudis want to check that, and so does israel, but they both want to do it, strangely, in what seems to me to be americas long term interest as well. Its like they are saying...."what are you doing america?" you are doing this shit that will set up your country to have worse outcomes in the future.... we have to help you, despite you.


And thats why i think china could get in on this as well. it would help israel and saudi to have another powerful ally like china.... and they should imo do all they can to "cozy up" to china and get any benefits they can from that. Because at the end of the day, they will still be on our side, and the key is that china, us, saudi, and israel, are all naturally, on the same side... it just takes finesse to get us to where we want to be.


So israel and saudi can act as americas proxies- even doing things directly against the "official Obama line" which they actually think will end up helping the grand alliance between us all in the long run. if saudi and israel can cozy up to russia and china, and by doing so, get some help from them in the security council to deal with other issues , like the palestinian statehood bid, or north korea, or anything else.... if they can get those countries to help "our" side, but actually be helping the little guys in the group, and so can save face that they arent actually acting like america puppets.

this is realpolitik 2011.

thoughts? (waits for one sentence bulshit comments from the same 3 people, but hopes for something else).

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Nasa under Obama

SageTree

Here is to hoping I'm one of the three.
I'll reply tomorrow when I get some more time.

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Terry

How very not vague and simplistic a view Roach...

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I don't know but I've been told,
If you never die you'll never grow old

stoneric

israel doesn't care about outdated shit being sold to the saudis, their complete domination of military strength in the region continues.

By all means lets continue the oppression of the people in the name of "peace and stability". And of course any uprising has to be because the "radical muslim street" wants an islamic caliphate although by all accounts the Egytian uprising wasn't religous in nature.

And finally we have israel and saudi arabia scratching their collective nuts wondering how the US could not understand that continued support of the autocrats is the only way to go. Shame on us.

By the way, china will never form an alliance with that parasite.

Terry

Globalization and "Americanization" are two very different things. Might I suggest an encyclopedia before you spout nonsense? I hear the internet offers a number of them for free.

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I don't know but I've been told,
If you never die you'll never grow old

John F. Kerry

i like those comments roach . they made me think !

nice distinction between whether american = globalization.


i kinda agree with u , the problem seems like, people call other things globalization... like it makes me think of how al qaida uses the internet and youtube to promote their terrorist stuff.... to pakistanis the distinction must be pretty confusing- osama used western modern tech to preach a return to a non western tech laden world.... its like almost an oxymoron.

but on the other hand, i think if globalization has a chance it has to have a variety of flavors... or maybe, its like a transition... you cant just transition from traditional society to globalized modern society over night- you maybe have to go thru several steps to get there- like how saudi is actually pretty progressive on a lot of issues but people still get stoned to death and women cant drive.

good point, i like questions that only bring more questions

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Nasa under Obama

John F. Kerry

stoneric u make me intensely curious sometimes.... would u mind saying if your arab, asian or white or other ? just for curiosity sake. i think u know im as white as the driven snow


china could get a lot out of israel too u know, it would hardly be a parasite to them. seriously its almost shocking to me that china isnt trying to get israel to partner with it at least in some areas. israel could give them engineering and science expertise it would take them decades to develop without help. and thats even without giving up us secrets.

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Nasa under Obama

John F. Kerry

its pretty similar to the way the germans were. i mean for shit sake, u want to hear about the ultimate pragmatic partnership - america and the ussr gave nazi scientists huge kickbacks and benefits to come join there side after ww2. and they totally brushed under the rug all the shit they did for that... and even a lot of american jews were somewhat ok with that because of the need to get pragmatic answers and to get every good person you could.... and the german dudes were such pragmatists... first they didnt care what moral terrors they had to do under hitler...as long as they got funding....next they went to america, and helped it....and people joked that wehrner von braun was "learning chinese" because they were the next superpower on the horizon.... germans were like the most pragmatic fucking people ever- and look what they got for it- there country that should have been ruined for centuries came back and was reunited and today aside from the jew killing they might have won the war for how well they have it. pragmatism is a valuable skill that every person and country should learn.

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Nasa under Obama

stoneric

I take it as a compliment that you don't know what race I am. And yes, I do know you're white, which isn't a compliment.

By parasite I meant the give and take "special relationship" we have with israel. We give, they take. China wouldn't put up with that bullshit. And yes israel could help China with their engineering expertise without giving up stolen us secrets, unless of course the price is right.

Captain Cannabis

please tell me more about pragmatism

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fuck the monkeys

OldMan&TheWeed

American influence had its high water mark at the time of Desert Storm. Meanwhile, China's influence has been on the rise. Many countries I dear say see the obvious advantages to an alliance with China:

• Historically China is not an imperialistic nation. While willing to resort to violence to get its way, as it has with Vietnam, it has shown little interest in annexing other countries to its territory (Tibet being a special case).
  
• Irregardless if the partner in question is in Asia, Europe, Africa, or the Americas, China does not involve itself very much in how other countries conduct their internal affairs (i.e. human rights). It's just as likely to have relations with a despot as it does a democracy.
  
• Pakistan and Afghanistan both share permanent borders with China, whereas the fickle US is on the other side of the planet.

Why would any country not hedge their bets and go with China?

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John F. Kerry

well. there are a lot of problems on the horizon with china too.

the fact that they will "Grow older before they grow richer" seems like a pretty huge one to me.


another one is simply that the communist party being a one party state and no freedom of thought and expression - that just wont work in the long run- the soviet union was pretty powerful at one point too. as history changes something that looked great today looks like shit tommorow...and america was able to adapt because we could keep changing what we are- whether a kennedy-esque bear any burden to fight commies or a nixon-esque peace and detente thru strength and triangulation...

if china doesnt become a free society at some point.... with all the technocrats in the world, they wont be able to make all their people happy... because as america is seeing now- beureaucrats in charge of shit just pisses a lot of people off, and doesnt do what they actually want to be done... like, the communist politburo has been doing well for 30 years because it has adopted mostly liberal economic and to at least some extent social policies.... but the only guarantee that it will always do that- or more accurately, the only guarentee that what they do will result in good outcomes for their people- is if the people can have some way of expressing what they want....even slowly as time changes.... otherwise they might look at the people in the big cities and say "damn people seem pretty happy" but thats ignoring the other people the 80% who live in abject poverty.

how is china gonna deal with the fact that they have no literally NO pension system or wellfare or medicare system? america is having trouble keeping its system solvent, and we dont have anywhere near the demographic problems china will... a free system like ours, means lots of arguing and thru the arguing people can see the problems, and the potential solutions, and just kinda get an instinct for what must be done to fix the problems.... if its all done by some communist party heads in a back room.... the people who get screwed will be angry like the tea party was...but on a much more intense scale because they dont have a chance to boil off their anger in a new election every few years.

also, china has been doing so well for the past 30 years because they were riding a wave of demographics and economic facts.... they had the society and the vast numbers of poor and a relationship with the us for trade.... that all enabled them to trade grinding soul crushing labor for a steady improvement in their status.... that cycle has been shifting for years now... and places like vietnam and latin america have been taking over the cheapest labor work because china isnt as desperately poor as it used to be.... that sgood in some ways.... but america has its strong economy because 2/3s of economic activity comes from private people buying goods and services.... china doesnt have that kind of domestic demand , altho its growing... but their numbers mean that even if their gdp surpasses ours- that each person can still only buy like 1/10th of the average stuff that an american buys.... they can afford to have nice cities, but for every nice city there is 10 rural shitholes... now china is better than many places in the world.... but still no where near the bottomless strength not just of economy but of abstract ideas as america. we may not always have the most of everything, or the best of everything... but we have enough to acomplish what we want to acomplish for all or most of our people.... whereas china doesnt have anywhere near enough of what it needs to acomplish most or all of what it wants for its people...

and without a political system that is free to divide it up fairly, or at least to give people a say.... the people who must , structurally, be screwed, will get angrier and angrier.... and even tho it seems like a new tianeman (sp) square would be smashed by the army.... the fact is that soviet union was quite powerful in its day as well... but when enough people wanted to vote for Yeltzin, and when the army lost its will to wholesale slaughter its people, the house of cards collapsed.

I think you might be right about americas high water mark being desert storm... but thats not to say that eventually some other country will be at an even higher mark... the world is becomming (by our design) multipolar.... so even tho china may get quite powerful, its never gonna be a hegemon, like we were.... as long as the international community doesnt just implode.

wow. i kinda just wrote and wrote there. but i dont feel like deleting that so if any part tickles your fancy feel free to disregard the rest

ps irregardless is not a word... i know with my like 40 spelling mistakes in this post i should really talk, but i love telling people that because i always used to say it until someone told me.

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Nasa under Obama

Bad dog

We have the best medical services within 1000 miles in Israel. Some of the best in the world. There are many Suadi arabians in our top private hospitals (especially Cancer treatment). There are rumored to be several Saudi sheiks among them.

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