Criticise the Saudis and you go home in pieces

ianh

ianh

ianh

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Malevolence said:
Now we'll see if Biden is all talk when he speaks about making Saudi Arabia a pariah state.
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Every single President past, present and probably future too is full of crap if they ever say they're abandoning Saudi, cutting them off from military sales or financial support via Oil etc. Saudi is just too well located geo-politically to be left alone for the likes of China or Russia to cosy up to, so the US will stay "involved" no matter what MBS does (and it is solely MBS running the show including, IMHO, giving the approval for the Khashoggi Op).
 

ianh

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StriderX

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Every allowance just makes them more bold. Even if I understand the pragmatic nature of the decision, I think the US will come to regret it.
 

ianh

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GIBURROWS said:
Even if they had killed someone in the US I don't think they'd do anything, if they'd killed someone in the UK I'm sure our government would give them more financial aid or something!
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From my limited viewing of any sanctions effecting the whole of Saudi, the only country I know about whose actions have had any meaningful effect was the Germans, who banned military equipment sales in response to the Yemen crisis, causing the Saudi Air Force to have to modify every single Typhoon, Hawk & Tornado as they couldn't buy any spare parts that had anything German made inside them, costing the Saudis hundreds of millions at a guess (new parts to be designed, built, labour costs to swap/test etc). The same was for any German made Army equipment too as the Saudis use German machine guns, trucks, jeeps etc and Germany makes parts that are inside many other "non-German" vehicles, equipment etc which all needed replacing too.

Of course the Saudi's outwardly say "It's no issue" - https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/600301
 

Rroff

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Malevolence said:
US intelligence report is out, and it's pretty damning.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/26/jamal-khashoggi-mohammed-bin-salman-us-report

Now we'll see if Biden is all talk when he speaks about making Saudi Arabia a pariah state. Or will he just wait it out until it goes away and return to cosying up to the world's largest terrorist state.
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Interestingly the US seems to be lifting heavy equipment into the Middle East at the moment - I'm not sure for what purpose but seems more than just reverting or fixing things from how they were under Trump or routine rotating of forces. Additionally whole raft of new intel activity over Iraq and Syria - at the very least the new administration is re-evaluating the position on the ground.

Malevolence said:
Good, let 'em buy from the Russians. Will be funny when they're sat scratching their heads because half their weapons systems fail.
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I wonder how much of the recent stories about the performance of Russian equipment in the Armenia/Azerbaijan conflict is propaganda and how much truth - rumours are a lot of the missile platforms, etc. weren't performing above 20-25% reliability, etc. albeit that will be export versions rather than what the Russians use domestically and/or surplus which has seen better days.
 

Malevolence

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Rroff said:
I wonder how much of the recent stories about the performance of Russian equipment in the Armenia/Azerbaijan conflict is propaganda and how much truth - rumours are a lot of the missile platforms, etc. weren't performing above 20-25% reliability, etc. albeit that will be export versions rather than what the Russians use domestically and/or surplus which has seen better days.
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Dunno, but there were reports that Armenia's Iskander SRBMs were missing their targets altogether and the ones that did hit anything were only detonating at ~10% yield. Russian military say that's impossible as Armenia didn't launch any Iskanders, yet there is video shot by Armenian troops standing next to the three launchers and cheering the Iskanders as they launch.
 

ianh

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Malevolence said:
Russian military say that's impossible as Armenia didn't launch any Iskanders, yet there is video shot by Armenian troops standing next to the three launchers and cheering the Iskanders as they launch.
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Russia..........lie about stuff.......... Nooooooooo :D

Russia then releases a video of their Iskanders hitting buildings in Syria to show they do work, and accidentally confirm that they did hit a hospital as shown in the footage which, back in 2016 when it happened, they claimed was just Turkish propaganda.............. Doh!
 

dowie

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LOL no way... surely they could have verified this before there was a press release etc.. I mean I presume therefore the DOB doesn't match etc..
 
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