Comment by salimmadjd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by salimmadjd | Hacker News Reader

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IMO, this article is designed to get readers attention with a technical bent, but is used to reinforce the Saudi Lobby position.

An interest research that shows the number of times in the past 70 years the NY Times has depicted various Saudi dictator as reformist [0]

Indeed, M.B.S. instructed me is the most bizarre choice word by Thomas Friedman in his op-ed [1]. As a writer, I'm so surprised he would even use such a word or the NY Times op-ed editors would actually allow that.

BTW, there seem to be an orchestrated media Blitzkrieg to show the new Saudi Ruler. Who is basically follow the same playbook as Saddam Hossein did (eliminating all possible opposition) or Stalin for that matter as a moderate person or country. Saudi Arabia, and other moderate Arab states would also welcome a more engaged U.S. into their backyard [2] Calling Saudi Arabia a "moderate" country is a bit of stretch

[0] http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/34727/Seventy-Years-of-the-...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-...

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/11/28/how-obama-a...

This confuses me a bit, is he not more moderate than his predecessors? They've had some movement on women's rights with ability to drive and run for office.

Yes they're still terrible with human rights and they're still killing people in Yemen, but they were doing that before without the current improvement.

The NYT article about M.B.S did sound like a general improvement in direction.

He is an improvement on some social issues, but Friedman credits him for his anti corruption drive, which is a joke. M.B.S is every bit as corrupt as those he’s arrested.

Genocide is bad even if you allow women to contribute to some of the killing.

> Yes they're still terrible with human rights and they're still killing people in Yemen, but they were doing that before without the current improvement.

Apparently MBS was been behind the devastating involvement of KSA in Yemen from well before his taking power.

And Booze Allen Hamilton has been providing guidance along the way - at least there appears to be hope for some social issues and a reduction of religious extremism.

Not all problems are going to be solved quickly at least this appears to be trending a better direction.

I’m not dismissing the terrible things the country does, but it does seem like MBS is at least better about social issues and religious extremism.

If it’s true he is behind their Yemen policy (which I haven’t heard), then letting women drive doesn’t really make up for targeted genocide.

“Mussolini made the trains run on time”

I'm not claiming that it does.

The alternative framing for this article is "Maybe we should think twice about war with North Korea, since missile defense isn't as reliable as people are claiming"

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