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Comment by mafribe | Hacker News Reader

   Houthis have long been accused of being 
   proxies for Iran

Since when is it illegal to have allies, and to receive weapons from allies?

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Saudi Arabia might export an extremist and hateful variant of their religion, but they don't advocate terror (you don't rock the boat when you're on top of the world).

Iran is probably the world's largest terror exporter (Pakistan might be worse?) and militarily expansionist. I think they even (internally) argue for their goal of controlling the muslim holy places, etc.

So Iran actively destabilizes Middle East countries. The only good thing with this is that it gave Israel and the Arab countries a common enemy.

   Saudi Arabia might export an extremist [...] 
   but they don't advocate terror

Some contradiction right there.

   Iran is probably the world's largest [...] 
   militarily expansionist.

Iran has invaded which countries in the last 2000 years, and how does this compare with e.g. the Soviet Union, the US, the UK, the Mongols, the Incas?

   Iran is probably the world's largest terror exporter

Reference needed. Which large scale terror attacks in the last few decades (e.g. 9/11 or the attacks in Paris/Nice) were supported by Iran?

I saw this much later. This is a misquote of what I said:

  >> Iran is probably the world's largest [...] 
  >>   militarily expansionist.

(But, as I noted, even the Iran priests talk about "emancipating" the Islam holy places from Saudi Arabia -- that even scared the Gulf States and SA to work with Israel.)

>> Some contradiction right there.

So just because someone is politically/religiously extreme they are violent?

>> Iran has invaded which countries in the last 2000 years

2 minutes with Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_dynasty#Recovery_of_te...

"The Ottoman Turks and Safavids fought over the fertile plains of Iraq for more than 150 years"

(But I understand -- it was _really_ Iranian to start with. Iran's empires have been the only non-expansionist ones in human history. :-) )

>> Iranian terror.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...

(Edit: Wikipedia for terror is simpler than referencing e.g. the South American stuff, because then you will quote the Iranian priests' declarations of innocence. IIRC, once the Iranian leadership even denied supplying Hamas with weapons at the same time Hamas went out and thanked them. Bad coordination. :-) )

   2 minutes with Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is not a credible source in such matters. Many of the claims are clearly dubious, e.g. "Bahraini security forces [...] arrested a number of suspects linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards" Oh yes, Bahraini security forces, that fountain of truth, and model of just democracy.

>> Wikipedia is not a credible source in such matters. Many of the claims are clearly dubious

So....

Are you claiming that the content of Wikipedia is a USA conspiracy or a Jewish one? Or both?

(Edit: I really have seen people make those conspiracy claims, it is not totally a joke. They also didn't have any references, unlike wikipedia.)

Neither the Bahraini security forces nor Wikipedia is a credible source. As a Wikipedia editor I've seen enough edit wars.

It is also well documented that all sides in the middle eastern conflicts invest heavily in propaganda. Here is but one example: The U.S. military payed over $540 millions to the British public relation firm Bell Pottinger [2] to create 'al-Qaeda' videos [2]. $540M buys you a lot of willing propagandeers. Are you being paid, or are you working for free?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Pottinger

[2] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/01/pentagon-pa...

So you argue against references in a Wikipedia article -- with a reference to Wikipedia(!). You link to something else in a neighboring country, that basically claim that propaganda is done in an active war?

You can literally argue that the Earth is flat like that, using a reference to My Little Pony.

Your position needs that all the news are a conspiracy -- e.g. that the Gulf countries are lying about being threatened by Iran and just wasting tens of billions of dollars in weapon buys for no reason.

Extraordinary claims needs extraordinary support, you don't even have a coherent conspiracy theory -- just claims that anything that contradicts the Iranian priests could maybe be a plant.

Enough.

You still have not explained why anyone should trust the Bahraini security forces.

Some Wikipedia articles are more trustworthy than others. I certainly trust the Wikipedia articles I have written. The Bell Pottinger article was presumably launched by Bell Pottinger itself, so it's probably the most positive spin on Bell Pottinger. The Iranian article was probably launched by a PR agency paid to make Iran look bad.

That's the reality of mass media: essentially all articles of consequence are paid for by somebody. Yes, that makes it difficult to see what the truth is. Such is life. One still needs to try.

And now tell me why the Bahraini security forces are a trustworthy source of information.

So you argue: Iran don't do terror.

For that to be true, you claim there is a conspiracy that control all the news and Wikipedia. (And e.g. that the Gulf countries pay tens of billions of dollars for defense -- just to make Iran look aggressive!)

I assume that the terror stamping of Quds force is part of the conspiracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Force

All this without any references. Of course.

[Edit: All the dictatorships on the planet insist that all the bad news about torture, oppression and terror are just a conspiracy by USA and western media. These are done for no other reason than that we hate the juntas for being good people.

As a Westerner, I don't understand how I have time to sleep; all of us must be working 80+ hours a week on all these conspiracies! :-) ]

> all of us must be working 80+ hours a week on all these conspiracies

This is of course not true, but the various forms of propaganda are actually organized and financed, just an example of some very recent title presented here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12622216

And there are other possibilities of distorting the truth, this one caught:

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/video-wh-censors-reference-islamis...

If you wonder why it is deleted, it's because White House decided that it won't allow any material originating from them to contain such terms, but when editing got the media attention avoided to admit they do this. What's the origin of that? I wish I have something better, the only public source I can find is Obama's 2009 speech:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-presiden...

Obama: "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

It was of course never the part of his responsibilities, as the US is not there to service any specific religion.

mafribe already had (another) link to the first case. I answered by noting that I have never contradicted that propaganda for the combatants is done in an active war.

And for the second "point" -- political correctness is part of a giant conspiracy theory for lying about all the Iranian terror support?!

:-)

Of course not, it's just an example of how the political decisions once made and applied distort the whole public perception of some issues for years to come.

The claim of "Iran funding terrorism" is in fact due to its recent (as in decades) support of Sunni Hammas, which is the most direct threat to Israel, and which started as a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot financed also by the Saudis.

Fascinatingly, Islamic Hammas was also once seen by Israel as the "potentially better" than less religious PLO and Israel even indirectly supported it, almost like the "moderate" Islamic rebels are still supported by the US.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847

Time and again it turns out that every "Islamic" group will eventually turn against the West. Those that support them don't understand the basic tenets of the religion behind.

>> The claim of "Iran funding terrorism" is in fact due to its recent (as in decades) support of Sunni Hammas

Uh, not only Hamas. There are lots of other cases.

You even commented on where I gave this link to the terror stamped Quds force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quds_Force

I posted this link previously too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro...

And so on.

(I have no clue about Islam in itself, but there were peaceful and modern Muslims in Yugoslavia. That is at least one modern example. It might also be noted that the upper classes in Iran seem to be about as West oriented as the Scots or the Irish.)

> not only Hamas

I agree with that, I'm surely not the one who's considering Iran harmless. But I consider Saudis not less dangerous. It's just that the Saudis confront less directly with Israel and are "official" allies of the US.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/18/what-we-know-about-saudi...

Regarding the Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, I guess you refer to the Muslims currently in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then these "peaceful and modern Muslims" were by necessity "peaceful" during the peaceful periods there as they were a minority since 1878 when Austria got the control over Bosnia. Even in B&H they were under 50% until the last polls. So a lot of them simply grew up secular and didn't care about the Islam books, it's not that the Islam books were different. It seems that the leader of Muslims in the last war was actually advocating for the Islamic state ans Sharia there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Declaration

And his government gave the passport to Osama bin Laden too, and brought the Islamic fighters just like in Afghanistan or Syria.

The reason the Saudis work with Israel seems to be a common and aggressive enemy -- Iran.

But yes, SA is a brutal dictatorship that for political reasons have to be more religious and fanatic than everyone else. Sounds quite like Iran, really.

For the rest, I am no real expert. I would note the similarities with the Shia/Sunni problems and the European religious wars of the 17th century. Then you would answer that those wars were in a more violent and barbaric time. And then we would both sigh, depressed for the state of the Middle East.

> Iran has invaded which countries in the last 2000 years

Iraq?

When has that been the case?

The Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s was started by Iraq.

Oops. Never mind, then.

Are you sure? Saudi Arabia is the creator of ISIS and its main sponsor. Also Saudi Arabia is the homeland of Bin Laden and the one country a lot of sources say is implicated in the 9/11 terror attack.

"Creator" and "sponsor" are very odd words to use to describe that relationship. By this logic the UK is the "creator" and "sponsor" of the IRA.

In a sense it's true; the folks who wanted to violently revolt against the UK government were, in fact, UK citizens. Similarly, the folks who want to topple the house of Saud and impose their own government on Saudi Arabia are mostly Saudi citizens.

But I think it's a stretch to call that relationship "creator" and "sponsor". The UK government, as an organization, is staunchly opposed to the IRA. And similarly for the Saudi government.

IRA is irrelevant for this discussion, let's stay on the topic:

At the moment ISIS does promote regime change in Saudi Arabia, so the regime there really don't like them related to that, but the former history is very different.

They also don't complain to ISIS' application of Sharia (punishments, like decapitations and outlawing homosexuals and atheists) as they are anyway prescribed by the same Sharia understanding, in big part common to Saudis and ISIS. They also don't condemn fighting against Shias, as both consider them "unbelievers" who are to be fought and killed.

Assad is also Alawite, also the enemy of both ISIS and Saudis.

Edit: I see you again try to "prove by" (for me false) "analogy with IRA" in your following reply. Please just stay on topic to ISIS. You can't prove anything, at least to me, by avoiding to discuss the relevant facts of the relevant topic.

The IRA is a perfect analogy. If the logic that calls ISIS Saudi is correct, then it's similarly valid to call the IRA a British creation.

If you are unfamiliar with the reducto ad absurdum argument, you can familiarize yourself with it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

At the moment ISIS does promote regime change in Saudi Arabia, so the regime there really don't like them related to that, but the former history is very different.

Yes, and similarly if the IRA jailed rapists and allowed Christianity in territory they controlled, I doubt the UK would object much to that.

The fact that two European groups have cultural similarities doesn't mean that one sponsors the other. The same is true for two middle eastern groups.

Fundamentally, I bring up the IRA because I'm trying to explain by analogy to something more familiar. You seem to be viewing all middle eastern organizations as being somehow monolithic and identical simply because they are more similar to each other than they are to the west. But that's simply a fallacy.

> export an extremist and hateful variant of their religion, but they don't advocate terror

How can this sentence even be written? The content of that extremist and hateful religion includes jihad, a duty of believers, which is an armed struggle against unbelievers, until the whole world is Muslim and governed by Sharia "a body of moral and religious law derived from religious prophecy, as opposed to human legislation."

Activity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrassas_in_Pakistan

1947 there were only 189 madrassas in Pakistan but "over 40,000" by 2008. Mostly financed by Saudis:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses...

"Q: So they were basically recruiting schools? A: They were recruiting, organizing schools which also use Islamic ideology as a way of creating a very efficient guerilla army" "We're dealing with the sort of unintended consequences of that"

>> How can this sentence even be written?

I answered that -- it is not in the Saudi interest to rock the boat.

It is fully possible SA is cooperating with the Pakistan government regarding terror against India. But the Saudi government don't want to destabilize the economy of their big customers in the west, at least for now.

[Edit: SA is a brutal dictatorship which spreads religious hatred for internal political reasons, quite like Iran really. I argue that it isn't in their self interest to make the Western world angry. Both as customers and because they want support against Iran. I might of course be wrong, juntas often buy their own hype.]

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