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Comment by ProAm | Hacker News Reader

> there’s growing outrage over the week-long disappearance of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who Turkish officials say was murdered last week in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on orders from the Saudi Royal family, then cut into pieces with a bone saw and removed from the building.

Wow, that's crazy.

>Silicon Valley big wheels as Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman and Travis Kalanick are advisors to a $500 billion megacity project being built by the country, which has pitched it as a model of what future cities will look like.

Has Sam Altman commented on this project at all, or is it not associated with YC?

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> >there’s growing outrage over the week-long disappearance of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who Turkish officials say was murdered last week in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on orders from the Saudi Royal family, then cut into pieces with a bone saw and removed from the building.

It's litearally medieval, which is par on course for what this odious country (regime, to be more clear). It's pretty much what Saudi Arabia is: a medieval regime in 2018.

Of course, they just had to have trillions of dollars of oil under their feet, hence we are accustomed to seeing our elected representatives, our leaders, bowing and kissing the hands of that scum. Repugnant.

MBS may be more liberal than his precursors (mostly because a majority of people in the country want that, and because it's the only way for KSA to lessen its dependency on oil), but he is in now way less of a monarch and if anything he clamps down on journalism and critics harder than ever, especially since he's one of few who ruled the kingdom holding power over all intelligence services and police/military/secret police forces (previously they were more "distributed" in terms of power).

Right. Forget about global warming.. there should be bipartisan support for clean energy because we can stop dealing with countries like this.

Energy has little to do with it. US support for Saudi Arabia is based on an irrational opposition to Iran.

It's hardly irrational. You can argue the merits of their reasoning, but not that they have reasons. Don't dismiss viewpoints you don't agree with as irrational - that shuts down any attempt at a real dialogue or understanding.

I'm failing to find out why the US would find Iran to be a threat -- to the point where they would support extremist Islamists in Syria and smile when mentioning Saudi Arabia. This is excluding the sanctions that have crippled the country for years, backtracking on the nuclear deal and various other pointless actions.

It is most definitely irrational, because there is no rational reason why the US has that position.

The rational reason is due to an irrational relationship with Israel.

I think Iran's posture toward Israel has much to do with the antagonistic relationship between Iran and the U.S. The U.S. allied with Egypt and Saudi Arabia long before those countries recognized Israel's so-called right to exist, and even during times when those countries actively supported militant groups hostile to Israel.

Egypt's and Saudi Arabia's stance toward Israel has softened partly because of their relationship to the U.S., and partly because of the bifurcation of regional interests--the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Turkey, notably, has recently vacillated between strong support of Israel (including bilateral--U.S. not involved--strategic security cooperation) to being passive-aggressive (i.e. ignoring arms shipments). Not coincidentally, Turkey has had a similar relationship with Iran. And through all of this Turkey has remained a NATO member.

So... it's complex. The U.S. is perfectly capable of normalizing relationships with a country hostile to Israel, as long as that hostility isn't openly flouted. The degree to which Iran openly flouts its hostility to Israel, and to which the U.S. stylizes itself as Israel's protector, is context dependent and self-serving and really not about Israel, per se.

All of which is to say, the U.S. is antagonistic to Iran not because of Israel, but because of the U.S. And vice-versa. And it all quite clearly started with the Iranian Revolution.

Not to mention that Israel secretly supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq war [1]. It's only since the 1990s that Iran has been actively hostile towards Israel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_role_in_the_Iran%E2...

> I'm failing to find out why the US would find Iran to be a threat

They have money and influence. They have a stated and record of trying to harm the USA and the US allies. It's a threat and wouldn't take long to become a nuclear power (see pakistan).

What's hard to understand about the last 75 years? The speed of technology transfer is less than a change in Iranian regime.

Not implying Pakistan is a threat, SMH

I think your criticism of the USA's trenchant hostility towards Iran is well made. I would posit that the reason for the hostility is that the USA (in its imperialist form) wants to have influence and control across the globe. Iran is a naturally stable power in that part of the world that has existed in some form or other for thousands of years but one over which the USA has currently no influence or control. The USA hates such a situation and will be hostile to any political entity that shows such independence.

Maintaining hegemony over the middle East has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy since the end of World War 2. It used to be about oil, and still very much about the pertrodollar, but is also based largely on the belief that should America lose control of the Middle East, the balance of world power will shift to Russia and China, and America's global economoic supremacy will be lost. Iran has long been a thorn in America's side, but Israel and Saudi Arabia are key allies in keeping the Middle east too fucked up to make their own decisions, because if they could they would align with their traditional economic partners in the east.

> I'm failing to find out why the US would find Iran to be a threat

I can see Iran being a regional threat, and whoever has power in that region controls a major portion of the world's energy supply. However, I don't see why an Iranian-dominated region is worse than a Saudi-dominated region. Iran seems more democratic and stable than Saudi Arabia, at a first approximation, but both are brutal, anti-democratic, oppressive regimes. And IIRC the Saudis have been the primary supporters of extremist Sunnis worldwide.

How is Saudi Arabia better for the U.S. than Iran?

Well, for one, Iran is the only major ME country that is pushing for the complete destruction of Israel.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, on the other hand, all work closely with Israel.

Our policymakers have a rationale for that opposition though.

Now that rationale is probably foolish in the extreme.

But they do have a rationale.

And ummm, money...

AIPAC money.

>In 1997, Fortune magazine named AIPAC the second-most powerful influence group in Washington, D. C.[46] According to journalist Connie Bruck, AIPAC has been able to "deliver the support of Congress"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Israel_Public_Affai...

Around the time that more Russia election meddling stories were breaking, a friend (probably now identified as a Russian bot for his views) sent me a link to a video put out by AIPAC on the importance of bipartisanship for ensuring that the US maintains a favourable stance. [0]

Of course, this is a fully legal way to influence the US political system. Sure, it costs a fair bit, but it doesn't matter who's in power. I was impressed by how unobfuscated the video's message was.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvFYn9RbYlc

A century ago the Middle East was sliced and diced with various powers getting part of the pie. Iran (Persia) was supposed to have been 'shared' between Britain and Russia, but the Russians had their own difficulties so the Tsar wasn't around to take on 'his share' of Iran. Nonetheless 'British Petroleum' got in there for a while.

It was Roosevelt that did the deal with the Saudis. The deal was as follows: sell us your oil in perpetuity and we will make sure that nothing threatens the 'royal' family.

Note the naming of the Saudi Aramco state oil business. 'Aramco' has the letters 'am' in it and that is because it is the 'Arab American Company'.

You are correct that the U.S. has 'irrational' opposition to Iran. This is because the U.S. has irrational opposition to any country that does not care about the dollar. The only truly sovereign nations are the ones that the U.S. has 'irrational' opposition to, everything else is a vassal state.

Believe it or not, US support has made KSA extremely weak, especially militarily. So its more like keep your enemies close, or in this case, oil targets. US could topple KSA in a matter of months.

Especially since we've sold them their entire military, and it's likely we know where (at least some of) the cyber-security holes are in that.

SA is one of the largest arms purchasers in the world. They spend 10% of the gdp on their military. If the US spent that much, we would be spending 3x what we are currently -- or almost $2T/year.

They are about as strong as they can possibly be.

But at the end of the day, they're 32m people. 1/10th the US population or about the same as Texas or New York.

The US didn't "make ksa extremely weak"... they're weak because they're small.

Opposition to the Iranian regime is pretty straight forward. Which is a shame, because had history played out slightly differently, the huge, progressive middle class of Iran could have been in power and a natural ally of the US instead of the religious zealots.

Oil is traded in USD. This props the value of US companies. It is why the US is friends with SA. https://internationalman.com/articles/the-secret-reason-trum...

The alternative to the monarchy in Saudi Arabia is not a liberal democracy, but rule by the clerics, who are even worse and, from my understanding, have the support of the populace.

Maybe that's their choice to make?

My response is to someone saying we should stop supporting the regime because of how awful it is. I’m just pointing out that the alternative is probably worse.

> The alternative to the monarchy in Saudi Arabia is not a liberal democracy, but rule by the clerics, who are even worse and, from my understanding, have the support of the populace

That excuse has long been used to justify support of brutal, oppressive regimes. It often leads to 'blowback', resulting in brutal, oppressive, anti-Western successors, such as in Iran.

Also, nobody can say how things would turn out, and whether the result is better or worse is a judgment for the Saudi people to make. If given the power in a democracy, they can always elect someone else.

To expand on "literally medieval", it's not just about their legal system and lack of proper rule of law or due process, or about being an absolute monarchy. It's also because the country is literally owned by the royal family, in the same sense as royals in Europe used to own their respective kingdoms, with everyone else getting any property grants from them. Europe still has many vestiges of that in form of "crown lands" etc - but in practice it's the government that is the actual owner there, and monarch doesn't have direct control over it. In Saudi Arabia, he does! So you could also say that, in a sense, all Saudi laws (other than Sharia) are really just rules that the owning family chooses to set for people who live on their property.

Or how about clarification on the past relationship between YC and DST Global which has ties to the Russian government?

If you don't think anything that billionaires (and their ilk) do is suspicious, then people are not looking hard enough. Just because they made their billions via tech doesn't make them any more benevolent.

Likewise, YC's move into China was brought up by people on HN concerned about the censorship practices of the Chinese government.

To be fair, China disappears dissidents too.

And movie stars and international police chiefs, apparently.

Hollywood, YC, Google and anyone else whom collaborates with and enables the Chinese regime has such a level of moral turpitude that they're either fools or sociopaths.

Censorship is one thing, but luring a person to be whacked like the mafia is entirely another. As a-moral as the US' foreign policy can be, we don't do outright assassinations anymore (Bin-Laden notwithstanding). What Saudi Arabia did here is just abhorrent, and akin to something out of the Sopranos or Goodfellas.

How about concentration camps for Muslims in China? Not enough attention being brought to that.

Ok look, Yes. There are camps in China.

Yes, there are genocidal Rwandan warlords stealing resources in the Congo.

Yes, Aung San Suu Kyi and her boys are doing a pretty brutal number on the Rohingya right now.

Yes, there are murderous cartels operating in Mexico.

Yes, the United States is holding children in camps in deserts.

Etc etc etc.

What I'm trying to say is, YES, there is a lot of misery in the world. But right now we're talking about the fact that you've taken a chainsaw to a reporter for saying that he thinks you might be too brutal. Can we stop with the what aboutism for a moment and just kind of let that sink in for a second?

"Misery" is not the word you're looking for.

I'm surprised this isn't being talked about more, given hostility to China from the current US administration.

My best guess is that the administration doesn't care because the people being "disappeared" are Muslim.

Censorship would potentially block one from knowing a person was lured and whacked. Not sure how you can say assassinations don't happen anymore with any certainty. Russia does it via open poisoning. There are other ways to kill people subtly though without raising much or as much attention - or even making it look accidental. The countries where it's blatant are just because they have nothing to lose because they're safe in the areas they're in, however if targeting people outside that area - unless they're trying to make a point - they can be discreet, it's an illusion of safety otherwise.

>we don't do outright assassinations anymore

Are you familiar with drones?

>What Saudi Arabia did here is just abhorrent, and akin to something out of the Sopranos or Goodfellas.

Funny that you mention this. Surely this violent act is shocking and catches the eye. But, the thing is that it can be argued that things like their financing of terrorism, or to be more direct their ongoing bombing of Yemen and funding of civil war is much more harmful than this one assassination -- much like Tony Soprano's asbestos dumping and HUD scams probably ended up causing more harm than the handful of people he "whacked"...

Less overtly brutal, not necessarily less harmful.

>Are you familiar with drones?

when was the last time an opposition journalist was targeted for a drone strike by the us?

Right, they just bomb foreigners, not nationals.

I'm going to just bring up Anwar Al Awlaki. A prominent contributor to Al Qaeda's "Inspire" magazine, and a preacher of that radical sect.

I personally do believe the official US story that he was actively recruiting and actively participating in Al Qaeda. but a lot of people have debated with me otherwise.

Clearly, he was "in" the Al Qaeda culture, but publicly at least... some believed him to only be a preacher.

War is messy, to say the least. I'm not sure if the truth will ever come out. Nevertheless, I'm personally in the belief that Anwar Al Awlaki was too personally connected to a number of attackers, so he almost certainly was an operative.

Nevertheless, I bring up this example to demonstrate that the line between "operative", "journalist", and "preacher" can very well be blurred during wartime. Regardless, the US certainly ordered an assassination through our Drone technology.

Much of the evidence to his Al Qaeda "operative" connections is classified unfortunately. So the US Documents at least, won't be released for many years to come. In any case, even with only the public information, its clear that there's a "Lot of Smoke" as they say, and where there is smoke, there's probably a fire. But nothing really proves him to be an operative publicly (just a lot of corroborating evidence and close personal-connections to attackers).

There's a lot to be discussed about Al Awlaki, including his teenage son also killed in the strike, but he was a general in a war, on a battlefield.

Drones target fighters, and they sometimes kill civilians. They don't target civilians. If you don't think there is a difference there fine, but many lose sight of it.

> he was a general in a war, on a battlefield.

While I personally agree with you, I know people who will vehemently disagree with you on this factoid.

I wouldn't necessarily call him a "general", but perhaps an "operative". He had way too many connections with prominent attackers, so surely he was related to them. But once again, US-evidence of his operations remain classified and thus force me to only speculate on the matter.

At bare minimum, Anwar Al Awlaki was a publisher and prominent writer to the Al Qaeda magazines. So yes, he was an "enemy journalist" in some regards. The US alleges he did more than just write however, and that's why President Obama ordered the drone strike.

----------

My ultimate point is that the line between "journalism" and "operative" is incredibly blurry, even to US Officials.

This year, according to this article by the Washington Post...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/judge-all...

> we don't do outright assassinations anymore

Well, your country (probably) doesn't chop up people in your embassies, but your country most certainly does assassinations and abductions in foreign countries world wide. It's proven fact.

Sure we do. We just do it away from the American Embassy & with more collateral damage. Those Predator and Reaper drones in Afghanistan (Syria?, Iraq?) aren't just for surveillance. We track target cellphones and then drop a Hellfire on their car often enough that it doesn't even make the news.

>As a-moral as the US' foreign policy can be, we don't do outright assassinations anymore

That's incredibly untrue. The drone assassination program was making ~2 strikes a week under Obama in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and other places. After Trump took over that pace has accelerated and safety controls have been removed.

What would you call these if not assassinations? I mean, nothing as barbaric as sawing a guy's body - but we're blowing up someone who we hope is our target and everyone near by. I'm not sure that's better.

One difference is that the US isn't killing Western Journalists. The US does kill people, and coincidentally their children, for saying things they don't like though. Anwar al-Awlaki was an Islamic preacher, and US citizen, who preached in favor of jihad against the US. He was killed by drone strikes. Later, his teenage son, also an American citizen, was killed when the US "accidentally" blew up a restaurant where he was eating with friends. Still later, in another bit of bad luck, his eight year old daughter was killed by US forces in a commando raid.

The US absolutely commits assassinations.

>As a-moral as the US' foreign policy can be, we don't do outright assassinations anymore

Your government kills people with drones, often with many innocent people as casualties along with it, without any form of process and even US citizens.

he resigned

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/11/some-silicon-valley-supe...

That's not a resignation. He "suspended his involvement until the facts are known", which means he can & will "unsuspend it" later. If he had resigned he would use the word "resigned" instead of "suspend involvement".

Sounds like he is “suspending his involvement ... until the facts are known”, which is a bit different. But appropriate enough.

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