1. Kushner traveled to Saudi Arabia last week — probably to consult the Orb.
2. Earlier today, Trump’s weird tweet:
Would very much appreciate Saudi Arabia doing their IPO of Aramco with the New York Stock Exchange. Important to the United States!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2017
3. Later today, Saudi officials cleared the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, then arrested a bunch of princes (including Alwaleed bin Talal, an actual billionaire who has been critical of Trump) and is holding them at the Ritz.
Anyone got a clue to spare?
ETA: And now this:
Trump: “A shot was just taken by Iran, at my opinion, at Saudi Arabia. You know about that, right? You saw the missile that went out?”
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) November 5, 2017
WTF?
JPL
Where is Adam when you need him? It does look like a Trump approved purge.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: I’m right here.
Hunter Gathers
It seems that the House of Saud outbid Gazprom for ownership of the United States.
NotMax
And the Prime Minister of Lebanon suddenly announced his resignation today – from an undisclosed location in Riyadh.
Ten Bears
Iran encouraging Russia to drop the dollar?
Corner Stone
This is going to be seriously interesting.
Corner Stone
@NotMax: Hmmm…wonder who he is related to?
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Please to weigh in. I’m about to crash but expect to wake up in 3 or 4 hours and will check thread updates. This all seems scary.
Corner Stone
@Ten Bears: A good way to get nuked off the planet, IMO.
Starfish
I read some tweets saying that there was a failed coup in Saudi Arabia. I don’t have any more details though.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: How about some insight, since these folks own major stakes in our companies.
Yutsano
@Starfish: That night explain the round up, but even so nothing is making sense right now.
And Yemen just took a pot shot at Riyadh. Something very weird is afoot.
NotMax
As a certain S. Holmes might say, the game is afoot.
JPL
@Starfish: That appears to be false, it seems like it was more to consolidate powers.
the Conster
Is there any good non-Arabic twitter feed? We don’t have a State Department.
Villago Delenda Est
Crown Prince is purging those he fears will interfere with his absolute rule. This is an internal reshuffling of corrupt assholes, basically. The Bandit House of Saud has been corrupt for centuries. The only thing that IS new about it is that it took over the Holy Cities about a century ago, before they were under Ottoman rule.
Adam L Silverman
This appears to be an attempt by the 32 year old crown prince to consolidate power. His father is ill and he’s trying to eliminate as many powerful rivals from within the royal family, especially among the princes descended from the Sudairi Seven as possible. Think of it as coup proofing. Especially given that King Salman replaced the head of the Saudi National Guard a couple of hours before the arrests. The Saudi National Guard are basically the descendants of Ibn Saud’s desert brothers, the Ikhwan, who were early, fanatical adopters of Abdul Wahhab’s teachings of tawheed (the radical unity of the Deity). They are really the only effective military/paramilitary force in the Kingdom and are sort of a cross between a praetorian guard, a special force, and the retainers of the Saudi royal family.
The outstanding questions is going to be who else Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman had arrested, how many other of his fellow princes and their retainers he’s seeking to arrest, and whether the other princes band together against the 32 year old crown prince. There really is no US analogy, but imagine if Jared fired all the other senior White House staff replacing them with people loyal to him, had the entire cabinet and the Vice President arrested, and replaced the heads of each military Service with people loyal to him.
I want to know what Prince Bandar is going to do. And where he is…
p.a.
I can’t imagine the Saudis doing anything controversial at tRump’s prompting: what’s he gonna do, start supporting Iran and its surrogates? They have to know he’s a moran and paper billionaire too. Probably domestic and dynastic issues. But all the above is from a knowledge base of pretty much 0. Is it irresponsible to speculate…?
Will be asleep when Adam weighs in with some fact based analysis.
ETA: well I’m not asleep yet! Maybe Bandar is in Kennebunkport
Adam L Silverman
For those wondering what the Sudairi Seven is, here’s a link:
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/saudi-arabias-royal-overhaul-signals-riyadhs-assertive-foreign-policy/article24178168/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: There was an assassination attempt against his life
earlier today.a couple of days ago.TBF
Yemen taking a potshot is not surprising. There is a (civil) war in Yemen with the Saudis backing the rebel side, and Saudi (& with American support unfortunately) planes have been bombing Yemen. A side effect of this is a famine and cholera in Yemen.
ETA: The US has also been dropping bombs directly:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/09/trumps-ramped-up-bombing-in-yemen-signals-more-aggressive-use-of-military/
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I wouldn’t make too much of bumbling Jared’s trip. They just had a big conference of international investors.
He’s been begging left and right for refinancing of his failed manhattan building. I’m sure he was there with his tin cup.
NotMax
Also in the region today –
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
Whenever I hear about “anti corruption campaigns” in authoritarian nations, which is how this is being justified, I generally assume it’s something like that. Putin making a big show of cracking down on
politically unfriendly“corrupt” oligarchs, Xi’s campaign against corruption in the CCP.NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
A “couple of days ago.” Was there another since?
Adam L Silverman
@the Conster: Laura Rozen:
https://twitter.com/lrozen
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon:
https://twitter.com/gaylelemmon
Liz Sly:
https://twitter.com/LizSly?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
It’s sounding more like Debbie Wasserman Schultz is behind this.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Sorry, forgot what day it was.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Yutsano:
Well, they have been trying to glass Yemen for two years. And we’ve been supplying arms for this because…correct me if I’m wrong, but because of informal appeasement of the Saudi regime.
Cheryl Rofer
Adam is more of a regional expert for this than I am, but this is my current understanding from experts in my Twitter feed and my own thinking. So – totally speculative. I think that any commentary is in that category at this point.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, resigned earlier today, citing concern about Iran’s influence and his personal safety. His father was assassinated.
Then a missile was shot from Yemen toward Riyad, and apparently another missile was fired back at Yemen. Iran is active in Yemen, supporting the groups that oppose the groups supported by Saudi Arabia.
Then the news came of arrests and resignations. The Riyad airport was shut down to prevent people from leaving. Eleven arrests so far.
Jared Kushner made a secret trip last week, as Betty notes. Not clear whether he gave an explicit go-ahead or tripped into an April Glaspie moment.
Not clear how Lebanon and Yemen work into this, but Saudi Arabia’s big enemy in the region is Iran, which is involved in both. There’s already a war in Yemen, and Lebanon has had more than its share of war, but would not be surprising if it fell into it again, with the help of Saudi Arabia.
ETA: I see Adam has checked in.
Yutsano
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): That’s about the only happening that makes sense. If I didn’t know any better I’d think this was laying the groundwork for the Saudis to convince Dolt45 to act on Iran.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
It makes sense if you realize that the US has been defanged as a potential counterweight and now the internal issues of Saudi Arabia that have been held in check by the past 30+ years of US policy are going to come pouring out because they know the US has no way to stop them.
But I may be too much of a pessimist.
NotMax
While on the topic of the Middle East, Robert Fisk on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
I know what my automatic assumption is. Jared is not nearly as bright as he thinks he is.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m assuming it’s not a coincidence that this happened as soon as Dolt 45 left for Asia and was well out of reach of Washington DC.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
When I was studying this two years ago, the vibe was that Saudi Arabia, already disappointed by Bush and Obama’s presidencies, wasn’t planning to abandon the American alliance, but was definitely no longer relying on it to guarantee its interests and was becoming much more assertive in regional policy. That, of course, was before Trump…
Cheryl Rofer
@Mnemosyne: It was when they let him touch the glowing globe. He couldn’t help himself.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Yutsano: Supplying arms to the Saudis started in 2015, though, so their using this to force Trump’s hand is more a “fortuitous” consequence.
p.a.
I would like to have, as a yearly income, what I imagine Tillerson’s yearly scotch budget is since he took the gig at state working for the child-president.
Corner Stone
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Wow. Pull the other one. It’s got bells on.
GregB
Let’s not forget it was how many Trump years ago where he was talking about the calm before the storm after meeting with his military muckity mucks.
The only time he got universal praise in recent memory was when he lobbed a few cruise missiles into Syria.
The far right Israeli press is hitting the Iran/Hezbollah/Syria axis story hard.
A person who’s opinion in the region I consider pretty accurate now pegs an Israeli strike into Lebanon at 50%.
President Little Hands wants to use the powers at his little fingertips in a bad way.
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Left out of the reporting was the orb announcing “Half a quatloo on the newcomer.”
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Doubtful that it was timed that way. More likely Prince Al Waleed was either planning a coup and word got out or actually had begun one and he got his wings clipped pretty hard.
You have to remember that there are around 1,000 or so princes and they’re all funding stuff they shouldn’t, involved with stuff they shouldn’t be, etc. They’ll say and do one thing inside the Kingdom, tell the US something else, and then do the opposite within the region. They’ve been prosecuting a proxy war against Iran and to a certain extent Turkey for over 5 years to become the regional hegemon. Part of the rise of ISIS in Syria, as well as the Syrian Civil War is the result of Saudi meddling. Specifically under an intelligence driven proxy war via funding coordinated by Bandar until he had his authority to do this stuff taken away.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Cheryl Rofer: “What he didn’t know was that by activating the orbs he had unwittingly summoned a 300 foot-tall, 2000-feet-long scorpion kaiju, which rising from the UAE coastline, set through the Persian Gulf to lay fiery waste to Tehran.”
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Corner Stone: I don’t get it.
Tomanjeri
@GregB: Trumps “calm before the storm” comment was the uranium non-story. He eats up the “Trump is a marketing genius” and thought he could resell a debunked conspiracy and like everything else, he failed.
Cheryl Rofer
Apparently one of the princes taken into custody bailed out Jared two or three times and had mocked him about it on Twitter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Air Force One has rather sophisticated communications systems these days. Also, not all events in the world involve the US. The Saudi prince who did this probably acted according to his own timetable – not that of the US President.
NotMax
@NotMax
Totally OT, this packs damn cute plus funny into about 10 seconds.
Yutsano
@GregB:
I assume by this you mean harder than normal.
Aleta
The NYT article on the power consolidation led with the arrest of billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, maybe because of the expected financial shock.
Mr Wu's Pigs
@NotMax: We’re still watching Star Trek (ToS) You made my night!!
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Here’s my quick take: everyone should actually read the whole declaration. Jews, Israelis, and Zionists – Jewish or otherwise – only read the first clause. The Palestinians, other Arabs, Muslims, and supporters of the Palestinians only read the second clause. No one reads the third clause, which was the most important of the three. Basically the Balfour Declaration is the 2nd Amendment of international politics.
Adam L Silverman
This may also just be a shakedown:
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
We never seem to hear about an aristocracy in Saudi Arabia, only kings and princes. To my knowledge monarchies usually have that ruling/social hierarchy between royals and common folk. One would expect an aristocracy in an absolute monarchy like Saudi Arabia to have some power at the provincial level, with the bluest bloods being players at the national level. Where are they?
Adam L Silverman
Oy vey…
Corner Stone
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I know.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
Sounds more like hostage-taking to me. Or kidnapping for ransom.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
At the moment, keeping their heads down while overstuffing their safe deposit boxes.
;)
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Corner Stone: …so could you please explain the joke/reference?
Omnes Omnibus
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Do you really believe that we first started supplying arms to the Saudis in 2015? In 1988, I was assigned as a sponsor officer to a Saudi artillery officer at the artillery school. I was, by far, not the first. Just saying.
GregB
What kind of message is being sent that the Ritz-Carlton is being used as a detention facility?
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: He said something like that except used “warrior” instead of “samurai” before he left. Bad idea. His visit with Xi should be interesting.
Amir Khalid
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Just for you, one time only, a clue: The US has been selling arms to Saudi Arabia for a lot longer than two years,
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: There isn’t one. Saudi functions as a kinship/familial system. The King, or Crown Prince acting as regent as is often the case because a lot of the more recent Saudi monarchs have been infirm, rules the country. All the other members of the royal family answer to him and everyone in Saudi is considered to be distant kin that must follow the head of the households rule. There’s no mediating layer of nobility similar to what developed in feudal Europe or Japan or imperial China. There is a layer of wealthy and privileged retainers, but they’re not really an equivalent for what you’re talking about.
NotMax
@GregB
“Ptooie. Let the warden drink these so-called martinis!”
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Like Prime Minister Abe was going to jump real high and cut the missile in half with a katana or something.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Omnes Omnibus: Of course I know we’ve been selling arms to Saudi Arabia for s long time, but IIRC we’ve been specifically involved in the Yemen campaign since 2015. Sorry if that was unclear.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Heroboy!
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: You have to admit, that would be really cool.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: My assigned student was a cousin nine times removed (approximated) from the king.
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Don’t discount yet his saying he expects the Japanese to nip an attack in the bud.
Petorado
It’s not lost on Arabic twitter that this is all taking place on Guy Fawkes Day … “Remember, remember the 5th of November.”
Aleta
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Amir Khalid: I meant that the US had been backing Saudi Arabia’s anti-Houthi initiative. I’ve heard “so they’ll stay on board with the Iran deal/against ISIS,” but not much in the way of hard confirmation.
GregB
@Yutsano:
Point indeed taken.
Here’s a quick headline rundown from Isreali Times.
*With Hariri’s Resignation Lebanon is Now a Full-on Iranian Proxy for All to See.
*Lebanon PM resigns, says he fears for his life. Slams Iran, Hezbollah.
*Netanyahu: Hariri resignation a wake up call on Iran threat to region
*Iran blames Hariri resignation on Trump, Saudi Prince.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax:
Cheryl Rofer
@Aleta: More at the New York Times, and the transcript of Page’s six hours with the House Intel Committee should be out next week.
NotMax
BTW Adam, Stephen Miller will be accompanying Dolt 45 for the entirety of the overseas sojourn.
(Unlike Melania, who returns after the stop in China.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Petorado: So it is a Catholic thing?
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: True. Probably freak the South Koreans, the Chinese, the Indonesians, and the Malaysians out though.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
They can do it in the movies. So Abe could definitely have done it, if he had the willpower to deal with North Korea like a strong leader. Sad!
Jeffro
@Aleta: “He” who – Sessions or Page?
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Speechwriting duties. He’s got no foreign policy knowledge at all other than brown people and Muslims are bad. My guess is this is also a hardliners attempt to keep someone with the President during the trip so that he’s not seduced to the dark side by McMaster and Dina Powell.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
This Malaysian would be quite impressed, though. Our own Malaysian Official One, Najib, could never jump that high. Not that he hasn’t tried to kiss up to Trump, maybe because he’d like Trump to call off the FBI.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Will see your Ultraman and raise you a Johnny Sokko.
Still laugh remembering a scene of young Johnny hopping into a passing cab and breathlessly saying “Take me to secret headquarters!”
Cabbie responds, “Right away!”
Aleta
@Jeffro: I thought the tweet means Page.
But as you point out, could mean Sessions since he’s in trouble.
Cheryl Rofer
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Not surprising. I was the research supervisor for a Saudi National Guard colonel my last year at USAWC.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
My understanding is that Saudi Arabia has over 1000 princes, which is what they call basically any male descendant of ibn Saud who doesn’t have some more exalted title. That means the upper level of the aristocracy is basically made up of princes.
NotMax
Comment moderated for FYWP knows why. Please to liberate.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I think Murphy is largely correct. This is Muhammad bin Salman consolidating power. He’s either fitting his relatives for metaphorical collars with short leashes or he’s going to have them dropped in a dark hole. It would not surprise me if his father doesn’t either abdicate soon or die suddenly leaving the 32 year old Muhammad bin Salman as the youngest Saudi monarch in at least 100 years.
Aleta
So, is Putin somehow involved in Saudi maneuver ?
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I checked. WP says it is being detained at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Now that thet rip has been extended to include the ASEAN conference on the 14th, Miller will be concocting poisonous prose overtime.
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yeah, in case I wasn’t clear, I don’t think this is in any way directed or otherwise organized by Trump and his dudes. My only thought was that it might make the plan easier to pull off if Trump was traveling and thus distracted. Less potential for interference even if the US wanted to.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
https://mobile.twitter.com/DPRK_News/status/927029873335586816/photo/1
Roger Moore
@Aleta:
He’s not going down. He’s going to sing like a
canarylyrebird. The man can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life.Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: That is unclear at this time. King Salman recently (about three weeks ago) met with Putin. Xi is also looking to make major inroads into Saudi. They recognize that the President is diminishing the US’s standing within the global system and are moving to embrace opportunities they either didn’t expect to have at all (Russia) or for years to come (the PRC).
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Most likely.
Cheryl Rofer
@Mnemosyne: The US has been giving friendly signs to Saudi Arabia since Trump came into office. Part of the unthinking opposition to Iran. Probably not a big part of this, just makes the calculation a little easier.
Omnes Omnibus
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Fuck you. I will never trust you again. Die in a fire.
Aleta
@Roger Moore: I hope he goes ‘down’ like a mid-point domino.
Cheryl Rofer
What Adam said with the complicating factor that Putin is making nice to Iran too. Would be nice if he could make peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but that’s a long way away, if ever.
Felonius Monk
Slightly O/T, but it is now November 5th. Did I miss the Antifa Apocalypse yesterday? Who won?
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Putin anxious to inveigle the Saudis into ‘rebuilding’ Syria while he foots the bill.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: Isn’t it pretty to think so.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
The men of the House of Saud are, shall we say, prolific fathers. And since King Abdul Rahman Al Saud died in 1953, the kings succeeding him have all been his sons. That’s why the current king is in his 80s.
Suzanne
Is there a good primer or Twitter thread detailing the events of the day? I’ve been mostly disconnected today and need to catch up.
Mnemosyne
@Felonius Monk:
It’s like the FEMA camps and Jade Helm — it happened, but the MSM refuses to report on it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to add some tinfoil to my hat.
divF
@Omnes Omnibus: Ronald Reagan sold AWACS aircraft to the Saudis in 1986-1987.
Emma
@Adam L Silverman: The sound you just heard is my very best imitation of an eldritch scream heard from the mouth of one of Yog-Sothoth’s many followers.
Cheryl Rofer
@Suzanne: Everybody, including the reporters, is still scrambling to figure it out. For now, the best is probably at the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Aleta
@Cheryl Rofer: (uninformed speculating) Then there’s Trump, believing he can be in alliance with Putin, while mostly seeing Saudis in terms of money-making deals for himself.
Felonius Monk
@Mnemosyne:
Perhaps this instructional video will help. :)
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
Is this real life?
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Ought to be quite interesting to check the Qatar-based press reports tomorrow.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Reuters is good. Also, there’s a short thread of news links every morning at BlueVirginia.us
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@Felonius Monk:
That there is some righteous extraction of the Michael.
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
The impression I was under was that as disappointed as they’ve gotten with us, the Saudis were unlikely to look for great power patronage in Russia or China simply because all the problems they have with us would still be there and probably even more so (i.e. if we’re not slapping Iran enough for them, Iran’s patrons aren’t likely to).
Think that’s changing? Or simply that they’re doing the traditional third world country game of playing the major powers off of each other?
Aleta
@Felonius Monk: What if the aliens mistake our seemingly inert heads for baked potatoes?
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
Is it just fantasy?
ThresherK
@MomSense: I’d say Trump’s been watching too much Kurosawa or Studio Ghibli, but let’s not kid ourselves.
NotMax
@Aleta
After they butter us up, we all succumb to the predations of the chive mind.
Aleta
@ThresherK: He imagines they have bows that shooti swords into the air?
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: And Azerbaijan and Turkey and India. And providing the DPRK with its new high speed internet access.
Adam L Silverman
@Suzanne: The Laura Rozen link I posted in a previous comment has some good stuff.
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
Caught in a landslide …
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Unfortunately.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/11/05/national/politics-diplomacy/trump-said-japan-shot-overflying-north-korea-missiles/
More at the link.
Adam L Silverman
@Chris: I honestly don’t know what they’re doing because the decision making appears to be coming from a 32 year old neophyte with delusions of grandeur (a lot of that going around – Jared, Miller…). Saudi politics, especially those focused around the royal family, is like watching a bucket filled with crabs all trying to climb out on the backs of the others and all trying to pull those climbing out down so as to take their place.
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: That’s why I was late getting to the Saudi post. I was part of a team of neutral observers sent by the Elders of Zion, the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the British Royal Family, the Carter Presidential Center, the Girl Scouts, and the United Nations to observe the battle to ensure it conformed to the Geneva Conventions and prevent another Bowling Green massacre.//
Aleta
@NotMax: Hope they don’t go bacon our hearts.
ETA Had to:
https://www.vevo.com/watch/elton-john/dont-go-breaking-my-heart-(with-kiki-dee)/GBJ330300068
Felonius Monk
@Aleta:
It will be ok as long as they don’t try to squirt butter and sour cream in our ears.
Captain C
@Cheryl Rofer: “Great General, General Tso. Love his chicken. Great chicken, the best. Do you have a chicken dish named after you, Mr. Xi?”
Felonius Monk
@Adam L Silverman:
Looks like you failed, my friend.
(Source)
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
He’s Crown Prince to an eighty-something King. He’s a newbie at wielding power, but he’s been handed a shit-ton of it and that’s always worrisome.
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: That’s not a massacre. That’s a tackle.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: What could go wrong?
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: Sheeeeiiiit. The Girl Scouts *AND* The Bilderbergers?! In the same place?
Couldn’t pay me enough.
?BillinGlendaleCA
A post at 1:56 and then two at 1:37? My God, TIME IS GOING BACKWARDS!
ETA: I blame Steve in the ATL.
Shalimar
@Adam L Silverman: I’m not sure, but he does have an orb. It must do something.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: Fortunately I have hundreds of escapes from reality on my shelves and thousands more at my fingertips on the internet!
Aleta
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
And better-written ones, to boot. We really need someone to fire the current showrunners and bring a new one in.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: They really wrote themselves into a corner, didn’t they?
Steve in the ATL
@Aleta:
Posts like this one are exactly why the pie filter was created!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Good to see you’re on the case, Adam.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: What? No Stonecutters?
Fair Economist
@Aleta:
That is a really high level contact.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: Sure, but it doesn’t prove collusion, and anyway the Russians didn’t deliver the goods, and I mean who would be convinced by the documents they produced, and at any rate collusion isn’t illegal, so there, libtard.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Did Trump really say this? Is he really that stupid?
Oh well, I guess this may play into the Japanese prime Minister’s plan to revise the Japanese Constitution, to provide a needed up “defensive” military.
fuckwit
Meh. We live in the dumbest timeline.
Long civil war in Yemen, parties involved are proxies for Saudi and Iran, Yemen takes shot at its neighbor Saudi’s airport from short range with low-flying missile, Saudis shoot it down with Patriots when it gets within range on its way down. Twitler gets a boner and Tweets about it, and implies it came from Iran (it didn’t). Saudis then flatten city in Yemen using American ordnance.
Meanwhile in a completely unrelated incident, DPRK sends medium range missile weeks ago at high altitude way over Japan and splashes it down impotently in an ocean. Twitler remains clueless and wants Japan to travel back in time and shoot it down even though it never came anywhere near them or near anything that could have shot it down.
Finallly, the Saudi crown prince conducts a political purge. None of these things have much if anything to do with each other.
sharl
In a late 2015 report released to selected media, the German intelligence agency (“BND”) said things were starting to get weird in KSA: German spy agency warns of Saudi shift to ‘impulsive’ policies
So maybe(?) we’re seeing some of this stuff now being fully implemented.
I don’t know if the U.S. factors much into all this, except that – as noted in the Reuters article – Riyadh doesn’t consider us as reliable an ally. It should be noted that the Reuters piece was written in late 2015, when by most accounts Obama was trying to chill things out with Iran just a bit (yay from me, boo from neocons and a handful of billionaire Bibi allies). I don’t think anyone expected we’d now have President Twitler. Although he has been much friendlier and totally accommodating to Riyadh than Obama was, questions about his power and competence may have convinced Crown Prince MbS to proceed with the presumption that Washington will be of little reliable use for his own goals, at least for the near term. That’s all just speculation on my part, of course.
Amir Khalid
@Brachiator:
Japan has a pacifist post-war constitution thanks to the USA. Here’s Article 9:
Since the 1950s it’s had the Japanese Self-Defence Forces, whose mission is to defend Japan from invasion and, only since 2015, to come to the aid of allied nations if needed. I remember that even JSDF participation in international peacekeeping operations has been hotly debated. While JSDF capabilities are said to be considerable, it seems there’s not a lot of eagerness in Japan for war as an option. How much support does Abe have for his proposal?
TS
@Aleta:
Did President Obama or his senior staff have undisclosed meetings outside of the country? Is this usual for US administrations?
Zinsky
And I don’t understand why a country of cowboys didn’t lasso and hogtie that North Korean missile, since that’s all we do as cowboys. Good God, President ClownHair is such an incredible embarrassment and disgrace to this country….
Ten Bears
@Mnemosyne:
No escape from Reality.
Xenos
I am surprised that Trump is out pushing for the NYSE to list Aramco. London is risking real problems to take them on, and this is not the sort of deal we should mind losing.
For reference, see the Economist’s brilliantly titled “My Kingdom for a bourse“.
Cheryl Rofer
@TS: It’s usual when necessary. There were secret meetings (although the secret was kept much, much better) to set up the talks that led to the Iran nuclear agreement. Pre-talks like that are often secret because countries are taking a risk and don’t want to lose face or allow opposition to build to actions that may be controversial.
So secrecy is not bad in itself. Being Jared is.
Kathleen
@Adam L Silverman: You mean to tell me the DNC was not involved as well? That’s suspicious.
The Simp in the Suit
@Adam L Silverman: Not to be (more of a snarky) asshole, but what real difference would it make if everyone read the entire three paragraphs of the Balfour Declaration?
Tenar Arha
@Adam L Silverman: This was my daily facepalm moment last night. The man is such a completely uniformed dunce.
This was me last night:
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: They were on crowd control.
Adam L Silverman
@TS: Most likely. This is what highly level, and highly experienced, special envoys are for. It is not clear why Kushner went to Saudi. It is not clear what the result of that visit was. Perhaps it was: I’ll get pop pop to ignore what you’re planning if, once you seize Prince Al Waleed’s investment fund you do what he wouldn’t and that’s bail out my underwater and upside down mortgage in Manhattan. Or, perhaps, it was: “we’re going to roll out a new Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal after the Asia trip and want you all on board”. There is, at this time, no way to know.
Adam L Silverman
@The Simp in the Suit: This is the final clause:
Adam L Silverman
@Tenar Arha: Pretty much.
debbie
And to think I slept through all of this. Trusting that Jared’s taken care of everything already.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Just as soon as Ivanka fixes him his bowl of cocoa puffs and he watches his Sunday morning cartoons.
Basically this is Muhammad bin Salman consolidating power and control. That’s pretty much all it is. There hasn’t been any major updates to the list of princes detained. No other really big names other than Al Waleed bin Talal and the couple of others already in custody. If there had been a coup the detainee/arrest list would have been different.
The key to remember right now is that Muhammad bin Salman talks a very interesting game about modernization of the kingdom, deradicalization of the type of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, diversification of the kingdom’s economy, etc. But he has no control over the second of those, limited control over the first, and apparently a fair amount over the third. But he’s also one of the few prominent princes who wasn’t educated outside of the kingdom. So no Oxford or Cambridge or Sandhurst or Harvard or Yale. By all reports he, at least as of a few months ago, could understand English, but couldn’t speak it well. This is unusual for a Saudi prince of his station. It is unclear right now if Saudi has finally found its modernizer who will remake the kingdom and pave the way for real reforms, which could of course get away with him and do away with the monarchy, or an overly ambitious, unprepared neophyte with delusions of grandeur.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I worry about Qatar. SA et al. seem to have it in for them.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Qatar has over 11,000 US military and civilian personnel stationed there at CENTCOM HQ Forward. Muhammad bin Salman may be backing his friend, the Crown Prince of Abi Dhabi’s attempt to install a member of the Qatari royal family more amenable to his whims, but it is unlikely to happen any time soon because of the US military presence in the country.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks.
Aimai
@Felonius Monk: why no second amendment solution for little rand?
J R in WV
@GregB:
The message to the royals and other billionaires is “Don’t worry too much, the Ritz is not hard time. You will be treated properly according to your station and relatinship with the King. This is being done according to the traditions of our kingdom.”
Unsaid is that many of these folks, if found to have indulged in illegal foreign adventures or actual corruption, stealing from the Kingdom (i.e. the King) may lose a shit-ton of money in penalties prior to their release to a remote desert city with nice hotels.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Oww!! My Eyes!!!
I can’t believe I clicked on that after reading Omnes’ remark!!!! I will never be able to erase that from my brain…
WASF !!! seriously, what a great photoshop!!! Sumo for the win!!!
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
10 amazing things you didn’t know about Air Force One
(Not for the gullible.)
I’m still trying to parse the Saudi Arabia moves. It is unfortunate(seriously) that the ME players involved are much better at this stuff than the current US administration.
Bill Arnold
@Roger Moore:
That’s the major part of his charm.