
Richard Branson suspends Saudi Arabia’s investment over missing journalist - occamschainsaw
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/13/17967954/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-saudi-arabia-jamal-khashoggi
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pell
The starving children in Yemen weren't enough?

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dilap
Nope; neither was bombing a school bus full of children. Weird, huh?

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raprp
And the most frustrating thing is that even if there is irrefutable proof they
murdered the journalist, there is not much the US could do.

If the US apply sanctions the maniacs from SA could threaten to stop buying
weapons and using the dollar to sell it's oil.

They could also move investments to Russia or China and try to reach common
ground with Iran. Literally making a monumental amount of money and American
lives spent on wars in middle east in the last 20 years to be for nothing.

I guess the US government will have to propose some kind of "punishment" that
SA is willing to take without hurting their fragile feelings.

All these events just show how completely messed up our world is.

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contingencies
What does this mean for Softbank?

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baybal2
No American hipster startup will accept their money?

No, they don't look to me as if they are here for a type of company typically
called startup. They are here to buy big monopoly businesses.

And one may note that they are knee deep in short term debt, that may turn out
to be the last prick needed to pop the current tech bubble.

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HeadsUpHigh
>that may turn out to be the last prick needed to pop the current tech bubble.

And honestly I can't wait to get all the nonsense weeded out and see what's
actually useful. All this noise makes it rather hard.

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rasengan
This is great news and a good move Sir Branson.

Our society is past the point where we need to allow bad people to have their
way. If we do not accept the money of MBS nor take part in his endeavors we
can effectively remove his power.

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craftyguy
Too bad he didn't do this when Saudi military started blowing up Yemeni
civilians with US-made munitions. But oh, hey, 1 journalist has been
killed/missing, better disassociate ASAP.

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thucydidesofusa
This is kind of off topic, but is anyone surprised/confused by people's
reaction to this?

The Saudis have been bombing Yemen for the last ~3 years and nothing really
happened. Then they assassinate a journalist and all hell breaks loose?

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Waterluvian
I'm disappointed that this remains the pathetic reality but I'm not surprised
nor confused. This has been the way it has always worked. Humans hold
different levels of value to different people depending on which group or
locale they belong to. We associate with the journalist more than the Yemeni
children so it makes bigger news. The rest propagates outwards from there.

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ductionist
Here’s Richard Branson’s blog post announcing this:
[https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/my-statement-
kingdom-...](https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/my-statement-kingdom-
saudi-arabia)

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ironic_ali
40 dead Yemeni kids doesn't meet Branson's profit criteria though

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guessable
I guess that's complicated by the fact that the insurgent government (Houthi
movement) there have a slogan like "God is great, death to the US, death to
Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam" and the Saudis gave the
defending government there $2 billion in food aid. War is bad, but is
sometimes worse in tragedy then it is in morality. It is different from
globally-orchestrated assassinations against political opponents in foreign
countries, between peace-time nations. [https://www.dw.com/en/saudi-arabia-
gives-yemen-2-billion-to-...](https://www.dw.com/en/saudi-arabia-gives-
yemen-2-billion-to-stave-off-hunger-and-prop-up-currency/a-42178853)

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guelo
They bombed a school bus full of kids. A straight up war crime and just one of
many by a foreign aggresor that is actively bringing death to thousands. That
is much more evil than some slogan.

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ssijak
Listen, I am from European country where NATO by mostly US backing bombed and
killed more than two thousand civilians, among the targets were train full of
civilians, Chinese embassy, etc. And of course nobody would or will ever be
punished for that. And that is only my country. So first please clean up your
yard.

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kirillzubovsky
How likely is that Branson was not going to get the money to begin with, and
this is a convenient PR move to say that it was all his choice.

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gaoshan
So what? If true, he's smart. If not, he's... what... decent? Correct? Still
smart?

Someone's (imagined) motivations hardly matter if they are doing the right
thing. Criticizing someone that has done the decent thing because of what you
imagine their motivation might be is a pretty clear indicator of your own
bias.

