Saudi Government: Friend or Foe?

P1234567890 · Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 1:43 pm Post subject:

Ha! Qutb hated Darwin!

There's one more argument in favor of old Chuckie!
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Trinity1 · Emperor of the World Joined: 02 Apr 2006 Posts: 3123

Tiptronic · Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 5:21 pm Post subject:

Trinity1 · Emperor of the World Joined: 02 Apr 2006 Posts: 3123

45degreeN · Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 9:41 am Post subject:

Actually Wahabism is the subgrouping of Muslim the Leaders of Saudi Arabia have not representative of the whole country. When I lived there 1980-81 all of the Muslims I knew were Sunni.

In fact the most common sentiment expressed by the ordinary people is their desire to return to their old tribal way and return to the desert. The invasion of the oil people with their dirty business, did more to ruin Saudi Society than anything our culture might have done. Just give anyone $1 million per year without anything to do and guess what happens?

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1387

45degreeN · Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 6:54 am Post subject:

Pondering: your understanding of Saudi Society lacks much.

I cant claim I understand it fully but like American society there are big gaps of income and control between the royals and the "common" people.

For the most part, the higher income Saudis would rather fly off to Europe to gamble and drink. They refuse to do any physical labor of any kind (they hire foreigners to all of that). Fully 1/3 of all the people in Saudi Arabia were foreigners. Sounds to me like they had been corrupted by all of that money.

I was there as a contractor working at the Ryadh air traffic control station. Part of our contract was to hire and train Saudis to take over our jobs. Well as a computer technician there were no Saudis who would stoop so low as to actually work as a technician. Some were willing to sit at the controller positions and tell the various pilots where to go but that was it.

Like it or not the many Saudis who I talked to, actually mentioned their desire to return to the desert, to throw away all of the advances of twentieth century life away, most of which they didn't have anyway (not being the rich kind of Saudis). This is what modern American culture has done for/to them.

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1387

45degreeN · Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:42 am Post subject:

The only revelant state of Saudi Arabia starts in 1938 with the discovery of oil. Prior to that this little dirt poor country had little significance to the world outside of Islam. Afterward with multiple millions thrust upon and I mean thrust upon it huge changes took place. Most of the modern reaction of Muslims in the middle East is because of the effect of this riches and the oil that caused it.

The West's insatiable appetite for this oil has been the grist between our two wheels that drives their anger and resentment. OBL himself has written extensively on this subject. Without this irritant I can imagine there being much more peaceful relationships between the West/America and Muslims.

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1387

Wow....

So what you seem to be saying is "This poor people achieved huge economic success and they can't handle it."

I think that is damning by faint praise.

Personally, and for very different reasons, I think we need to invest in alternative energy sources....depreciate the value of oil, they loose their revenue stream and go back to being goat herders (and lose the source of terrorist/extremist funding)....

BTW, the US only receives about 12% of it's oil needs from the Middle East. The other 88% comes from Mexico, Canada, Venezuela or domestic oil. Europe and Asia though, receive a much larger percentage of their oil from the Mid East. Given the global economy, it's kind of a moot point, but thought it was worth putting out there.
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Ryck · Lion King Joined: 05 Dec 2002 Posts: 1078

45degreeN · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:01 am Post subject:

This world would be a much better place if we had developed our oil independence early on, but there were no believable reason to do it. It is possible the OBL might have some other issue but given the world stage he occupies because of the oil issue why would he give it up?

Give up the Oil you must be joking.

Actually the area of Saudi Arabia that is where the oil is drilled from is the Eastern section where there are plenty of towns and such, not in the open desert where it might be hidden well. At the time of its discovery the oil people thought it might go on forever. Now of course they have come to understand that it is a limited resource and they value it more highly.

Pondering: you're right about the percentages, but the media makes it out to be something else that most of us hold as true.

Pondering · Lion King Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 1387

45degreeN · Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:22 am Post subject:

Just last night heard a report on the news about a new Oil reserve in the gulf of Mexico by Chevron. This one though is at about 9,000 below the surface about 5,000 ft of water and 4,000 ft of rock and mud. Several hundred million barrels worth, they claim that it will last about 30 years if all goes well.

Unlike the doom and gloom people, I think we will continue to find oil in pockets at greater and greater depths but quite enough to sustain our world needs for a long time, far more than they currently think. Remember Malthus' failure in his doom and gloom prediction?

Given the massive amounts of Methane in the solar system and some of the paradigms of how the earth was created, there might just still be huge amounts of undiscovered oil. It will take additional technology to get at it, but that is my guess for now.

admin · Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 1:30 am Post subject:

Here's info on Thomas Malthus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malthus
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