King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has died

[Welf]

15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis.

Isn't it more likely that they hate the ruling royal family and attack their closest ally? As long as the US stands behind the ruling family a change of power is very unlikely. Driving a wedge between them is the best way to enable a revolution in SA.

[Flagg]

15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis.

Isn't it more likely that they hate the ruling royal family and attack their closest ally? As long as the US stands behind the ruling family a change of power is very unlikely. Driving a wedge between them is the best way to enable a revolution in SA.

Except that's not what happened. We got even closer to them because they were afraid of revolution.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Except that's not what happened. We got even closer to them because they were afraid of revolution.

The US State department seems to have a hard on for Islamic countries which are utter basket cases when it comes to human rights, who produce Islamic militants who in turn attack the United States. See: Pakistan.

[Ralin]

None of them were ever questioned by American law enforcement to my knowledge for one, and two, there's a large gulf between letting the torch wielding hordes of irrational Americans get into their "compound" in Florida (pretty sure it was just a very secure gated community for he extremely wealthy) and torch the place after lynching the Bin Ladens. They could have easily been flown to an FBI safehouse in the middle of Bumfuck, Wyoming and been questioned.

I said compound because I didn't know what it was beyond "probably big place where rich people lived."

But yeah, I just don't see it as that glaring a mistake? I have to figure that if any of them were involved with bin Laden's terror work and had any inkling 9/11 or something like was going to go down they would have had the good sense to get the fuck out of America beforehand, or at least to shut the fuck up about it when questioned if they were caught by surprise. Maybe it was special treatment and grilling them for a few weeks would have turned up something useful, but it seems unlikely to me and there were legit political considerations. Bush didn't know what was happening next and if he decided to come down on preserving his good terms with his buddy the king I can't particularly fault him for that call.

I mean, is there any good reason why King Abdullah would want to piss off his awesome friend with the really good army who was helping keeping him in power to enjoy his vast wealth? Because I've never really heard a good one.

[Irbis]

The US State department seems to have a hard on for Islamic countries which are utter basket cases when it comes to human rights, who produce Islamic militants who in turn attack the United States. See: Pakistan.

If you changed 'Islamic' to 'religious far right wing dictature' you could also add all of Latin America, much of Africa, Asia and Europe. Not like they called about human rights, democracy, or embargoed anyone when their pupils from the US Army School of the Americas were gunning down hundreds of thousands of people left and right, eh?

I mean, is there any good reason why King Abdullah would want to piss off his awesome friend with the really good army who was helping keeping him in power to enjoy his vast wealth? Because I've never really heard a good one.

We have this saying here "to the god the candle, to the devil the stub". USA might keep him in power but pissing off the radical priests ended up with bullet to the head for one past Saudi king already so they let them run rampart in hopes the radicals will gun down someone else. Exporting them from Yemen to ISIS to Afghanistan in hopes it will make them prone to have radical ideas at home country.

[Flagg]

None of them were ever questioned by American law enforcement to my knowledge for one, and two, there's a large gulf between letting the torch wielding hordes of irrational Americans get into their "compound" in Florida (pretty sure it was just a very secure gated community for he extremely wealthy) and torch the place after lynching the Bin Ladens. They could have easily been flown to an FBI safehouse in the middle of Bumfuck, Wyoming and been questioned.

I said compound because I didn't know what it was beyond "probably big place where rich people lived."

But yeah, I just don't see it as that glaring a mistake? I have to figure that if any of them were involved with bin Laden's terror work and had any inkling 9/11 or something like was going to go down they would have had the good sense to get the fuck out of America beforehand, or at least to shut the fuck up about it when questioned if they were caught by surprise. Maybe it was special treatment and grilling them for a few weeks would have turned up something useful, but it seems unlikely to me and there were legit political considerations. Bush didn't know what was happening next and if he decided to come down on preserving his good terms with his buddy the king I can't particularly fault him for that call.

That's the problem, we will never know if they had any involvement or not because they were never questioned at all. And frankly, the only thing more suspicious than what actually happened would be leaving any time within a month or 2 before the attacks on their own.

I mean, is there any good reason why The State of Israel would want to piss off their awesome friend with the really good army who gives them shitloads in military aid never mind the fact that we spy on them and sell their secrets to the Chinese? Because I've never really heard a good one.

[Ralin]

The Saudi royal family doesn't exactly have much of an American voting bloc on their side. Meaning it would be a whole lot easier to get the country on board with regime changing them.

[Flagg]

The Saudi royal family doesn't exactly have much of an American voting bloc on their side. Meaning it would be a whole lot easier to get the country on board with regime changing them.

Yeah, US backed Coups tend to have long lasting bad effects for America, to say nothing of the country and region in which we backed the coup. See Iran.

[Ralin]

The Saudi royal family doesn't exactly have much of an American voting bloc on their side. Meaning it would be a whole lot easier to get the country on board with regime changing them.

Yeah, US backed Coups tend to have long lasting bad effects for America, to say nothing of the country and region in which we backed the coup. See Iran.

Yes, and given that George W Bush was in office I'd expect King Abdullah to have realized that giving the US a reason to get all liberation-y with his country was an extremely bad idea. I'm assuming he liked being crazy rich and the king of Saudi Arabia.