It’s Time for the United States to Start Worrying About a Saudi Collapse

[The Minsky Moment]

You guys are selectively quoting like the publishers of a book you know is shit.  This is not a wacko statement.

While the United States may be severely limited in terms of what it can do in the short term to help the kingdom address its mounting challenges internally, it still has significant capability to alleviate some of the rising external threats and pressures that the Saudis face. That is surely America's comparative advantage: the ability to reassure key strategic partners of our commitment to their security, and our determination to maintain a regional correlation of forces that favors the United States and its friends while deterring our common adversaries.

But that is precisely the role that the Obama administration has so disastrously failed — or, more accurately, refused — to perform over the past several years, in the process undermining the morale and confidence of already fragile friends while super-charging the ambitions and aggression of their worst enemies.

Not for the first time, I see a lot of verbiage and a shortage of any concrete alternatives. 

Unless there was literally a sign somewhere in the Middle East that said "Pax Americana" and some jerk took it down. 

[mongers]

Video has emerge of Saudi 'justice' in action, it shows a screaming woman being held down by other men, as a large man with a sword attempts to line up a strike to behead her, eventually he drags her to the ground by the hair, before striking one or more blows at her neck. This all takes place on a traffic isle on a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a public road.

Is this so far removed from what ISIS are doing in Syria and Iraq?

[Berkut]

Video has emerge of Saudi 'justice' in action, it shows a screaming woman being held down by other men, as a large man with a sword attempts to line up a strike to behead her, eventually he drags her to the ground by the hair, before striking one or more blows at her neck. This all takes place on a traffic isle on a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a public road.

Is this so far removed from what ISIS are doing in Syria and Iraq?

That depends on a lot of things you have not shared with us.

[mongers]

Video has emerge of Saudi 'justice' in action, it shows a screaming woman being held down by other men, as a large man with a sword attempts to line up a strike to behead her, eventually he drags her to the ground by the hair, before striking one or more blows at her neck. This all takes place on a traffic isle on a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a public road.

Is this so far removed from what ISIS are doing in Syria and Iraq?

That depends on a lot of things you have not shared with us.

You think I was attempting to deceive you by holding back information?

[DGuller]

Video has emerge of Saudi 'justice' in action, it shows a screaming woman being held down by other men, as a large man with a sword attempts to line up a strike to behead her, eventually he drags her to the ground by the hair, before striking one or more blows at her neck. This all takes place on a traffic isle on a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a public road.

Is this so far removed from what ISIS are doing in Syria and Iraq?

Was that the foreign woman that was executed for sodomizing her infant with a wooden stick?

[Berkut]

Video has emerge of Saudi 'justice' in action, it shows a screaming woman being held down by other men, as a large man with a sword attempts to line up a strike to behead her, eventually he drags her to the ground by the hair, before striking one or more blows at her neck. This all takes place on a traffic isle on a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a public road.

Is this so far removed from what ISIS are doing in Syria and Iraq?

That depends on a lot of things you have not shared with us.

You think I was attempting to deceive you by holding back information?

No, I think we cannot answer your question given the information provided.

[mongers]

Video has emerge of Saudi 'justice' in action, it shows a screaming woman being held down by other men, as a large man with a sword attempts to line up a strike to behead her, eventually he drags her to the ground by the hair, before striking one or more blows at her neck. This all takes place on a traffic isle on a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a public road.

Is this so far removed from what ISIS are doing in Syria and Iraq?

That depends on a lot of things you have not shared with us.

You think I was attempting to deceive you by holding back information?

No, I think we cannot answer your question given the information provided.

I was part of item about standards of justice in Saudi Arabia, I'll see if I can find a link to an article. The thrust of the tv report was Saudis also execute people for note just murders/killing, like the family one this woman was accused of, but for things most other countries wouldn't even consider crimes and that standards of justice couldn't be relied upon. 

edit:
no doubt one could find the execution video on youtube, but I'm not going there as it was enough to see the video frame-stopped before the first blow was struck.

[The Brain]

The Other cannot be trusted to dispense justice. Gotcha.

[Berkut]

Video has emerge of Saudi 'justice' in action, it shows a screaming woman being held down by other men, as a large man with a sword attempts to line up a strike to behead her, eventually he drags her to the ground by the hair, before striking one or more blows at her neck. This all takes place on a traffic isle on a pedestrian crossing in the middle of a public road.

Is this so far removed from what ISIS are doing in Syria and Iraq?

That depends on a lot of things you have not shared with us.

You think I was attempting to deceive you by holding back information?

No, I think we cannot answer your question given the information provided.

I was part of item about standards of justice in Saudi Arabia, I'll see if I can find a link to an article. The thrust of the tv report was Saudis also execute people for note just murders/killing, like the family one this woman was accused of, but for things most other countries wouldn't even consider crimes and that standards of justice couldn't be relied upon. 

edit:
no doubt one could find the execution video on youtube, but I'm not going there as it was enough to see the video frame-stopped before the first blow was struck.

It doesn't take much to convince me that Saudi standards of justice are likely appalling to me.

But equating that with ISIS routine executions of masses of people as a matter of course does require a bit more than a story that I hear and do not even find surprising given what I already knew about Saudi ideas around justice.

There is a difference, a big difference, between justice that is incredibly harsh, often unfair, and inflicted in a brutal manner.

And "justice" that has nothing to do with justice at all, but is simply mass murder. Seeing ISIS line up 50 young men in a ditch and machine gun them has nothing to do with justice or the law - that is just murder.

I might find Saudi justice barbaric, but it isn't murder.

[Grinning_Colossus]

If ISIS had decided to make it illegal to be those men, and then immediately found them guilty of that crime and had a judge order their execution, would that have been justice?

[Razgovory]

Would be nice to have bad things happen to very bad people, but let's not celebrate just yet.

This is true, but a lot of decent people will get hurt.  There are millions of foreign workers there who would be trapped and I imagine that what ever government replaced the Saudis it would be even nastier then the Saudi Kingdom.  Think ISIS with millions non-Muslim victims for the their slave markets.  The Saudi government will fall one day, and there's nothing the US can do to prevent this rotten anachronism from collapsing on itself, but when it does it will require the US military interventions to save the millions of innocents.  I honestly don't care for the average Saudis themselves, they deserve their government and their government deserves them, but a million Indian shouldn't have to suffer because of it.

[DGuller]

Would be nice to have bad things happen to very bad people, but let's not celebrate just yet.

This is true, but a lot of decent people will get hurt.  There are millions of foreign workers there who would be trapped and I imagine that what ever government replaced the Saudis it would be even nastier then the Saudi Kingdom.  Think ISIS with millions non-Muslim victims for the their slave markets.  The Saudi government will fall one day, and there's nothing the US can do to prevent this rotten anachronism from collapsing on itself, but when it does it will require the US military interventions to save the millions of innocents.  I honestly don't care for the average Saudis themselves, they deserve their government and their government deserves them, but a million Indian shouldn't have to suffer because of it.

I'm sure such caveats apply to many bad entities.  Collateral damage is inevitable.  So what's the solution?  Stop wishing bad things on bad people?

[Valmy]

Wishing things doesn't do anything. If it did the Cubs would be 20 time world champions.

[Razgovory]

Would be nice to have bad things happen to very bad people, but let's not celebrate just yet.

This is true, but a lot of decent people will get hurt.  There are millions of foreign workers there who would be trapped and I imagine that what ever government replaced the Saudis it would be even nastier then the Saudi Kingdom.  Think ISIS with millions non-Muslim victims for the their slave markets.  The Saudi government will fall one day, and there's nothing the US can do to prevent this rotten anachronism from collapsing on itself, but when it does it will require the US military interventions to save the millions of innocents.  I honestly don't care for the average Saudis themselves, they deserve their government and their government deserves them, but a million Indian shouldn't have to suffer because of it.

I'm sure such caveats apply to many bad entities.  Collateral damage is inevitable.  So what's the solution?  Stop wishing bad things on bad people?

When I say a lot of foreigners in the country, I mean a lot.  There's 20 million Saudi nationals.  There are 9 million foreign workers.  That alone should tell you the country is really fucked up.  I wish there was a solution.  There is an incompetent tyrannical Monarchy keeping the lid on country of vicious, bigoted, lazy jackasses.  We see right now how bad things are in Syria without Baathist control, and the Baathists are mass murdering fascists.  When the people of Syria are out of Baathist control they actually manage to be worse.  Just remember, no matter how bad things are, they can get worse.  And the in the Middle East it probably will.

[viper37]

This is true, but a lot of decent people will get hurt.  There are millions of foreign workers there who would be trapped and I imagine that what ever government replaced the Saudis it would be even nastier then the Saudi Kingdom.  Think ISIS with millions non-Muslim victims for the their slave markets.  The Saudi government will fall one day, and there's nothing the US can do to prevent this rotten anachronism from collapsing on itself, but when it does it will require the US military interventions to save the millions of innocents.  I honestly don't care for the average Saudis themselves, they deserve their government and their government deserves them, but a million Indian shouldn't have to suffer because of it.

If Saudi Arabia was to fall, the US would move to repatriate some of its allies in the government and royal family.   The US would not move to same millions of innocents, nor would any other country, simply because we would be seen as Infidels soiling the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia and that might enrage millions of muslims in the world.  A democratic transition under chaos would be impossible, so committing soldiers to quell the rebellion, de-Saudiize the government and install a secular democracy would require a long term commitment of hundreds of thousands of soldiers from all of NATO, plus Russia, if they don't try any interference of their own.

Besides, we don't know exactly how the other monarchies would react.  Some members of the Saudi royal family would likely support and finance ISIS, some other Sheiks of neighbouring countries would to.  Some others would ask US help.  It would be a repeat of the Syrian civil war, and I don't see many countries with the stomach to send boots on the grounds to fight islamists + syria + russia to save civilians.