
Is the Saudi Government Plotting Against Another U.S.-Based Critic? - bb88
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-the-saudi-government-plotting-against-another-us-based-critic
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jariel
If there was ever a reason to reduce fossil fuel dependency ...

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jollofricepeas
They believed that technology and democracy would save them until the age of
techno-tyranny began - thus erasing all of their progress.

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Darmody
He better don't step on any Saudi embassy.

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rdxm
the not so secret reality of all of this is that saudi money is everywhere.
and they only very recently allowed women to drive a car.

there's no question that the valley is owned / driven by this influence. the
question is: at what cost?

but, I digress, by all means, please, continue on the start-up-y discourse...

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
>After leaving the Bureau, in 2005, he started the Soufan Group, a security-
advisory firm in New York. His company runs a training academy for police and
intelligence forces in Qatar, a neighbor and bitter rival of Saudi Arabia.

The beginning of the article would have you think that this related to
Soufan's anti-terrorist work. However, reading more it seems that this is
related to his employment by Qatar. There is somewhat of a cold war going on
the the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and Iran and this seems to be
related.

Soufan is basically a mercenary working for a foreign government(Qatar) that
another foreign government(Saudi) wants to do in. Even the article does not
talk about any intention to kill him in the US, but in Qatar.

This is very different from what happened to Jamal Kashogi who was a
journalist and not involved in military or security affairs.

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pipologist
Khashoggi was a long time Saudi intelligence operative who operated in
Afghanistan during the Afghan Russian war, then was posted in the US embassy
for several years as an intelligence officer, officially "advisor to the
ambassador". He turned journalist and was very loyalist to the Saudi royalty.
The ascension of the current monarch and his son turned him after power
swapping that happened in Saudi, so he left and turned "activist". He held so
much dirty laundry on the Saudi govt from his previous work that they saw him
as a threat. I doubt Ali Soufan or any other Saudi dissidents are seen as such
a threat as Khashoggi.

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mav3rick
Thank you for that informative background. Did you gather all this from public
articles ?

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mirimir
I have an off-topic observation ...

So I happen to be working in an old VM, and it has an old version of Firefox.
And yes, I know that I ought to migrate. Anyway, this old Firefox just won't
load some sites, including The New Yorker. But there's a simple workaround:

    
    
       user@host:~$ w3m -dump https://www.foo.bar/baz/ | less

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ardit33
I hate to be rude but: No one cares. How is your very specific linux/firefox
setup any relevant to this conversation.... ?

It is so common/cliche for the first comment to be: it wont load, too slow, i
hate the fonts, etc.. etc...

It doesn't add anything relevant to the convo/topic.

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mirimir
YMMV, but w3m is a _very_ useful tool.

Also, given your comment history, it's disingenuous to say that you "hate to
be rude".

