Could Saudi Arabia join Isis?

I think the problem here is that in such complex circumstances as exist in Mesopotamia & the Persian Gulf, very little progress may be possible at all. Given the many unresolved issues attending the legacy of the several former Islamic Empires that once ruled the "Middle World" from Central Asia through northern India; the Middle East and North Africa, - all of which collapsed and descended into colonialism at the hands of the Russian, British, French and Dutch Empires, the maze of unresolved currents and potential rivals is exceedingly complex. Anyone who ventures there and becomes involved in some aspect of the problem is surely embracing a tar baby of the worst sort.

Following WWI Ataturk led a modernist movement that attempted to wrest the hands of the traditional Moslem ulema from the administration of law and create a Turkish secular nation state distinct from the Islamic tradition. However it too appears to be sliding back into the old stream of islamic History. Other offshoots of the Islamic modernist movement of the early 20th century, including the Ba'ath Party which modeled itself on the single party Fascist states of 20th century Europe, have so far have descended into secular tyrannys, such as those of Saddam Hussein and the al-Assads. They were effective in bringing peace too the various sectarian Moslem, Christian and national groups that populated these lands, but never resolved the underlying tensions or progressed into anything more modern. We may now be finding out now that there were, and still are, other, far worse, possibilities out there.

Latest interviews made to Arab investors show that they like the idea of the Islamic State. They will finally have full control of their oil, because the oil is theirs, and they see the opportunity to be ruled by a government which understands their culture and traditions.

It is possible that Saudi Arabia might be attracted to such a new birth of their independence from foreign powers.

Lets see if the West concedes and let them have real and complete freedom to build a State based in their own culture.

So far, at the beginning of the competitive prices (read cheap oil) offered for their oil by the new Islamic State, the West have decided to bomb their wells, refineries and oil tankers. What an abuse made by the US army against the environment.

What a lot of nonsense. They have operated an oil cartel for decades solely dedicated to controlling the price of oil. It is only partly effective, as the international market effectively sets the price for this commodity as with all others. In short they have as much control of their resources as any other nation does of its.

What I have seen so far of the state based on the Islamic culture isn't particularly impressive - unless you have an affection for ignorance and barbarity. Western culture has been ahead of them for at least five centuries, and they show little indication of closing the gap.

I don't think they like the idea of this Islamic state, because to embrace it would be their destruction.

I agree. In historical theological terms the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia are closely related to the ISIS militants, but the game here is for political power, and the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia isn't likely to surrender their now three generations of absolute rule.

Saudi prince and Emirate's first female fighter pilot take part in Syria air strikes

Amazing. Lock 'em up for driving and then give them a fighter plane with real guns to bore holes in the sky.

Sometimes people walk before they crawl, so perhaps with any luck, things will change over there in a more progressive direction.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is they are flying before they are driving.

Don't hold your breath. The woman was from the UAE, not Saudi Arabia.

OK, you probably know I had to look it up on a map anyway, I don't know what their political situation is like or anything else.





source


I posted the link, because of the Saudi Prince, which give a big clue on which side Saudi Arabia falls on with ISIS.

The Royal Saudi Air Force is one of the most modern in the world. By the standards of the Arab world, it is an early entry into military aviation, although it was small until the 1980s. This is because its pilots and officer corps were taken from the Saud royal family or from tribes closely allied to the royal family. Basically, the most modern and well-equipped military force in Saudi Arabia is a limb of the royal family.

There is no Isis. That's just another buzzword thought up by our CIA, and exploited by the media and political talking heads. There are only Shia and Sunni and their on-going feud.

National Review Online Thanks ISIS for Beheadings
Source: Media Matters for America

In an article for National Review Online, anti-Muslim activist David Horowitz described the benefits to conservatives of the recent beheadings carried out by the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS). The October 9 article is headlined "Thank You, ISIS" and bears the subhead, "The beheadings have achieved what all the warnings from conservatives never could":

"Beheadings of innocent human beings are unspeakable acts reflecting the barbaric savagery of the Islamic 'holy war' against the West -- against us. Yet despite the intentions of their perpetrators, they have had an unexpected utility. Their gruesome images have entered the living rooms and consciousness of ordinary Americans and waked them up. For more than a decade, a handful of conservatives, of whom I was one, tried to sound the alarm about the Islamist threat. For our efforts, we were ridiculed, smeared as bigots, and marginalized as Islamophobes. And then came ISIS. The horrific images of the beheadings, the reports of mass slaughters, and the threats to the American homeland have accomplished what our small contingent of beleaguered conservatives could never have achieved by ourselves. They brought images of these Islamic fanatics and savages into the living rooms of the American public, and suddenly the acceptable language for describing the enemy began to change. 'Savages' and 'barbarians' began to roll off the tongues of evening-news anchors and commentators who never would have dreamed of crossing that line before, for fear of offending the politically correct."

Horowitz is a former member of the New Left who, since his political conversion, has made a career out of alleging liberal bias on college campuses and accusing anyone who is not overtly Islamophobic of being in league with terrorists. The Southern Poverty Law Center described Horowitz as "the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement." The website of Horowitz's organization, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, says it "combats the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values and disarm this country as it attempts to defend itself in a time of terror."

Read more: mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/09/national-review-online-thanks-isis-for-beheadin/201098

Syria-to-Ukraine Wars Send U.S. Defense Stocks to Records
By Richard Clough Sep 25, 2014 8:47 AM CT
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-25/syria-to-ukraine-wars-send-u-s-defense-stocks-to-records.html

2014JulAprOct140.00160.00180.00* Price chart for LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP. Click flags for important stories. LMT:US175.951.40 0.80%

Led by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), the biggest U.S. defense companies are trading at record prices as shareholders reap rewards from escalating military conflicts around the world.

Investors see rising sales for makers of missiles, drones and other weapons as the U.S. hits Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Chicago-based BMO Private Bank. President Barack Obama approved open-ended airstrikes this month while ruling out ground combat.

“As we ramp up our military muscle in the Mideast, there’s a sense that demand for military equipment and weaponry will likely rise,” said Ablin, who oversees $66 billion including Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) and Boeing Co. (BA) shares. “To the extent we can shift away from relying on troops and rely more heavily on equipment -- that could present an opportunity.”

Bombardments of Islamic State strongholds added to tensions this year that include U.S.-led sanctions on Russia for backing Ukrainian rebels and China’s feuds with neighbors over disputed South China Sea islands. The U.S. also is the biggest foreign military supplier to Israel, which waged a 50-day offensive against the Hamas Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip.
Source: U.S. Central Command via AP Photo

This still image made from video released by the U.S. Central Command on Sept. 23,... Read More

A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of the four largest Pentagon contractors -- excluding Boeing, whose civilian airplanes business is larger than its military unit -- rose 19 percent this year through yesterday, outstripping the 2.2 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Industrials Index.
Record High

Lockheed, the world’s biggest defense company, reached an all-time high of $180.74 on Sept. 19, when Northrop, Raytheon Co. (RTN) and General Dynamics Corp. (GD) also set records. That quartet and Chicago-based Boeing accounted for about $105 billion in federal contract orders last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

“There’s no doubt the world is getting to be a more and more dangerous place, and there are countries around the world” that could look to buy aircraft and artillery, Jeff Babione, deputy manager of Lockheed’s F-35 Lightning II program, said in an interview in Oslo. “There’s a sense that there’s less stability in the world than there was before.”

For defense companies, the offensive against Islamic State and al-Qaeda extremists is more than a showcase for big-ticket weapons such as Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor fighter, the stealth jet that debuted in combat this week.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

A Boeing Co. unmanned aircraft vehicle is displayed on the exhibition floor during the... Read More

In its first night of airstrikes into Syria, the U.S. dropped about 200 munitions and launched 47 Raytheon-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, according to U.S. Central Command. The military also deployed Boeing’s GBU-32 Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Hellfire missiles from Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, creating an opening for restocking U.S. arsenals.
Warhead Assembly

The Pentagon recently authorized Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon to resume assembling warheads designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles, a defense against threats from countries including North Korea and Iran. The program had been suspended in 2010 after failed test launches.

Global conflicts are benefiting more than just the makers of offensive weapons, according to Howard Rubel, a New York-based analyst with Jefferies LLC. He has a buy rating on DigitalGlobe Inc. (DGI), a Longmont, Colorado-based company specializing in high-resolution satellite imagery that has supplied equipment used by NATO to monitor Russian movements along the Ukraine border.

While the 2011 Budget Control act mandated about $500 billion in cuts from proposed Pentagon spending over a decade, this year’s rally in arms stocks predates the emergence of the Islamic State in the U.S. public eye. In June, the group declared a caliphate and later released video showing the beheadings of U.S. journalist James Foley and other hostages.
Overseas Markets

Pentagon contractors have been responding to the pullback in U.S. military budgets by shifting focus to international markets, said Philip Finnegan, director of corporate analysis at Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia-based consultant that tracks defense and aerospace companies.

Even with revenue at Lockheed, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Falls Church, Virginia-based Northrop down 4 percent since 2011, non-U.S. sales have climbed 9 percent during that stretch. The four companies also have pared expenses, including reducing their combined workforce since 2011 by 23,000 people, or about 6 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The improvements to profitability, combined with investor-friendly moves such as stock buybacks, may influence share prices more than the strife in Iraq and Syria, Finnegan said.

“Clearly the world has become increasingly unstable. The question of whether that has a major impact on the defense budget is uncertain,” Finnegan said. “There may be an investor psychology that suggests that there’s going to be a large benefit to these companies. But the jury is still out.”
New Conflict

U.S. lawmakers including Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, have suggested that the new global threats could prompt Congress to reconsider planned reductions in defense spending.

Rubel, the Jefferies analyst, said Congress’s possible willingness to boost arms budgets “reflects some rational thinking.”

“The military is stretched and stressed and there’s risk that if we cut much further, we’ll cut into serious bone and risk national security,” Rubel said.

For the U.S. military, tensions between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia may force a rethinking of plans to reduce American deployments in Europe and postpone retirements of older fighter jets such as Lockheed’s F-16 and Boeing’s F/A 18, said Michel Merluzeau, an aerospace and defense consultant based in Kirkland, Washington.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine has spurred European governments to reassess defense strategies, too. Germany’s Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH has reported new interest in its Leopard 2 tank, a peer of the U.S. M1 Abrams from Falls Church, Virginia-based General Dynamics.

That would be a turnabout for European militaries, where armored units have dwindled in importance since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago.

“We haven’t seen so many territories and borders called into question since World War II,” said BMO Private Bank’s Ablin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Clough in New York at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at [email protected] Molly Schuetz, John Lear

No, Saudi Arabia is a dynastic monarchy which allows "crusader" (ISIS terminology) military bases on its soil thereby facilitating "western imperialism". ISIS is opposed to all of those things (including leadership by the House of Saud).

ISIS also takes the Koranic injunctions against the worship of saints and icons very seriously, according to a strict fundamentalist interpretation. That is why they are always destroying cultural artifacts (polytheism) and Shiite shrines and tombs (where pilgrimages are made to pray to ancestors and saints).

In fact, ISIS regards the famous Kaaba in Mecca (which the Saudis have custody of) as a pagan shrine of polytheists (which it was until Muhammad coopted it as a destination for strictly Islamic pilgrims), and ISIS actually wants to destroy the shrine and the so-called Black Stone.

Its a bit like the way the early Catholic church incorporated the popular practices of Celtic and other heathens they wanted to convert. ISIS, being purists, don't approve.

Only an ISIS inspired overthrow of the Saudi government could result in Saudi Arabia "joining ISIS" (incorporation into the caliphate). Even al Qaeda doesn't recognize the authority of ISIS.

In 2 or 3 hundred years like the black problem in the U S of A?