Bandar’s nickname, incidentally, is Bandar Bush (given to him by the paterfamilias of Kennebunkport himself).
This is a rock and a hard place. No, we should not allow these people to use terror as a stick in getting their way. On the other hand, what do you tell the families of their terror attack? “We told them to fuck off?” Are people willing to make sacrifices like that to fight these bastards?
Reminds me of the good ol’ days.
Better dead than red.
Bring it on.
Do you use the tube?
I don’t use the tube every day, but I do use the overland rail nearly every day and quite frequently use the tube.
I read things like the OP’s article, Charlie Tan’s article and get disgusted. Last night my wife and I watched a National Geographic show about the Palm Islands being built in Dubai and my wife and I were outraged. Our money pours into that region of the world and is used to support the excessive lifestyles of a “select” group of spoiled a-holes who would turn their backs on us in the drop of a hat. The Saudi’s support terrorism, demean, minimize and kill their women in the name of a barbaric interpretation of what can be a peaceful religion and we keep giving them more money.
We need to get away from our dependence on foreign oil, and I don’t just mean ME oil. No Venezuelan, no Mexican, no Canadian or North Sea drilling for that matter. When we no longer need their source of black heroin we can tell them all to fuck off. Let’s see how long the downtrodden poor of those countries will put up with manmade islands, indoor ski slopes in the middle of the desert or princes’ cavorting on 100+ foot yachts with non-muslim women.
I look forward to the day that we have a functioning, economical non-petroleum based economy. Without our financial backing the oil wealthy will go bankrupt. They won’t be able to keep up their lifestyles and their people will catch on to the fact that they have been kept down. I’ll laugh my ass off as the poor storm the Burj Al Arab and Burj Dubai and tear them down. And when the people raid the House of Saud and drag them out into the streets I’ll throw a party.
Slypork, Dubai is not in Saudi Arabia. It’s part of the UAE which is (by comparison to its neighbors at least) relatively liberal, and an ally of the west.
Or are you just angry because they’re Arabs and they’re rich because the west buys their natural resources?
And this is the England that stood up to the Nazis in the Blitz?
Churchill must be spinning in his grave.
I know that Dubai is not in SA and is the second largest emirate of the UAE. I’m angry at the fact that, despite Dubai’s claiming that most of their income comes from tourism, trade and service, they wouldn’t be where they are now if they hadn’t built on the back of an oil-based economy. We paid for the hotels and islands. If we weren’t such oil hogs there wouldn’t be sheiks and princes looking for 7 star hotels or man-made islands. If we hadn’t sunk so much of our economy into petroleum then they wouldn’t own 6 of the 20 largest yachts in the world. We have helped to finance a lifestyle in the ME that lets drug smuggling princes get away.
Our money is what keeps the princes, kings and sheiks in power. Our money is what enables them to build and waste while little is passed back to the people. Saudi Arabia’s per capita oil export revenue in 2004, $4,500 per person, was far less than the high of nearly $23,000 reached in 1980. Production is booming but the people get less.
Our money winds up in the UAE and they try to use it to buy us. Anyone remember the DP Ports controversy from 2 years ago?
That part of the world is happy to take our money and then shit on us. Be our friends one minute and then ignore us the next. Fuck ‘em. I say we wean ourselves off the oil teat and watch them fall apart.
[size]OK, I’m a little down on the Middle Eastern world today. Gas is expensive, my GP (from Iran) just quit without warning and my car was hit by a hijab-wearing lady who didn’t speak English or have insurance. I’m thinking of starting a jihad.[/size]
Hmm. So, country exploits natural resources, gets rich, creates companies, that buy up foreign interests. It’s kinda normal. In fact, your resentment looks a little like the rest of the world’s resentment of the US…
The short answer, at least here in America is no. We aren’t willing to give these backwards twats what for, and we won’t be willing to until the next 9/11.
Until then, the free flow of oil, money and power will continue to be a threat to the security of the free world.
Or, we could bomb the fuckers into last year, flood the market with “their” oil and be done with it.
Either way, really.
By all means invite sustainable energy. Good idea. Of course, that still leaves you with the rest of the petrochemical markets, such as plastics, synthetics, lubricants, yadda yadda yadda. Just because you break your dependency on fuel, that still leaves oil rich countries in a very lucrative position.
And just why the hell should they feel like they owe you anything? You need oil, they sell you oil, they somehow owe you some sort of thanks? What’s that about?
Yes.
Hey, nobody’s perfect. Up until recently the US was the country that gave and did for the rest of the world. You have a typhoon? We send money and relief workers. Need peacekeeping troops in Bosnia? We’ll be there, supporting the UN. Hell, we even sold wheat to the Soviets, our arch-enemies.
How about, we buy their oil, they don’t spend the oil profits justifying and supporting terrorists? How about if we buy their oil they try to stop the spread of radical Wahhabism?
I’m just in a crappy mood today because of several things and am in the frame of mind, “Piss on the whole ME. Nuke ‘em all. Blah, blah, blah.” It will pass. By tonight I’ll either be in a better mood or else I’ll have found a new target to gripe about.
Well again, you’re mixing the UAE with Saudi Arabia. And most developed countries provide foreign disaster aid, too - many to a higher proportion of GDP than the US.
But since you’ve declared that you’re temporarily racist today, I guess we’ll have to let both issues slide. 
Thanks. Tomorrow I’ll be offended by either Presbyterian Nazi cross-dressers or else by left-handed, green-eyed clog dancers. I’ll let you know.
Man, I have to talk to the doctor about adjusting my medication.
How about they sell you their oil, how about the US stops destabilising the entire ME with a series of neo-imperialist policies, including supporting local terrorist organisations.
Seriously, your perception that countries such as the UAE are somehow being unfair to the US seem rather askew.
How about, “we buy your oil, and you do whatever you like with the money, because we can’t stop buying your oil.” Honestly, I’m trying to picture a few of my friends from the old days telling their heroin dealers, “Now, I don’t want you spending this money on guns, or anything else that I find offensive.”
When I’m in London, yeah I do. I don’t live anywhere near usually, but I do use a lot of a public transport and if I get blown up then that’s a risk I’ve accepted.
How come we refuse to negotiate with terrorists but have no problem when it comes to nations who just behave like them? What’s going to happen the next time Bandar wants something, and plays the ‘terrorist intelligence’ card again? Presumably we’ll roll over and give him whatever he wants. Awesome.
Bollocks.
You need to go a few years further back in time to capture the spirit that the current UK government is betraying. Have a look at what the Nazis did to London during the Blitz - 57 days in a row of terror from the air, 43,000 killed - but defiance on the ground.
For all its horror, 7/7 was nothing compared to what my grandparents’ generation suffered, and the defiance they showed. My grandparents built a shelter in their back garden, and went into it when they had to, but most of the time they stayed in their house and carried on as normal. A bomb landed in their front yard, didn’t explode, tunnelled under their next-door-neighbor’s yard and came up two doors down. My generation would be in therapy for life; they thought it was funny, and insulted the men who dropped it on them.
I’m fucked if I’m going to change my behaviour in capitulation to the sort of threat offered by those bastards. The same way thousands of Londoners were on the Tube the morning after the 7/7 bombings. I’m not a brave person, and I do get nervous occasionally, but in memory of the generations before me, I make damn sure I carry on using the Tube whenever I’m in London. And in that spirit, I would have hoped my government would have told Prince Bandar to fuck himself. But they didn’t.
Saudi Arabia: A family business.