
Khasho who? One year after gruesome murder, investors embrace Saudi Arabia again - AndrewBissell
https://www.fastcompany.com/90412231/year-after-khashoggi-murder-investors-embrace-saudi-arabia
======
sverige
> Larry Fink, who boycotted last year’s event. Fink explained his decision in
> a post on LinkedIn: “I believe greater economic integration and
> diversification will help Saudi Arabia build a more modern and sustainable
> economy for all of its citizens,” he wrote, adding that “corporate
> engagement and public dialogue can help with that evolution.”

That's the same reasoning used to justify continuing trade with China and
other repressive regimes. I think of it as high-minded rationalization to
justify continuing profitable business. Excuse me if I don't believe the
people saying things like this really give a shit about anything but getting
more money.

~~~
tomp
What else should we do? Did economic isolation help with the case of North
Korea? To the extent I see, the rise of tourism has helped / is helping Cuba
to become more and more integrated, as it's increasingly hard for the
government to keep modern technology etc. from the hands of locals.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _the rise of tourism has helped / is helping Cuba to become more and more
> integrated, as it's increasingly hard for the government to keep modern
> technology etc. from the hands of locals._

I can't speak to the situation of these other nations, but I've been going to
Cuba for a long, long time. (Was at the University of Havana for a bit in the
90's, been visiting since.) Even during the Special Period there were
tourists. Lots of them. I can tell you that there is no real "rise" in
tourism.

There have been small changes in Cuban government _economic_ policy over time,
as well as changes in American policy towards Cuba. But if you ask the average
Cuban on the island, I'm sure they'd tell you both of these changes in policy
are precipitated more by the North Cuba Basin than they are by tourism. I
generally agree with that assessment. Being that most of the movement towards
these changes happened post-2004, despite the fact that there was no rise in
tourism over the same period.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Cuba had 1.8 million tourists in 99, 2.4 million in 04, and 4.7 in 2017.
Meanwhile, their population has risen from 11.1 million in 99 to 11.2 million
in 2017. And though oil reserves were found, production has stayed roughly the
same since 2004.

~~~
bilbo0s
Those are registered numbers. Tourism from the nineties until Obama,
especially from the US, was completely unregistered. Not only that, but Cuba
facilitated tourism scofflaws by making it policy not to stamp certain Western
passports. (I was there legally, and I can tell you that even the legal
visitors, did not get stamped. At least as an American they didn't. They went
the extra mile to cover your tracks.)

Point being, reported tourist numbers from Cuba are completely unreliable.
(Really _any_ reported numbers from Cuba are unreliable but that's a whole
other story.) They report whatever serves the government's story in Cuba. Full
stop.

~~~
boomboomsubban
So what government story prompted the gradual growth of reported tourists?

I looked at the data a bit more in an attempt to find sources skeptical of the
reported tourists, and I couldn't find anything. I did find the reported
tourism revenue though, and though it still seems like far more tourists are
visiting, the expenses per person has dropped a fair amount leading to the %
of GNP from tourism dropping since 98.

This would explain why the economy doesn't seem to be benefitting despite the
high rise in tourism.

------
Doubl
Imagine the American response if this recorded state sanctioned murder had
happened in an Iranian embassy

~~~
mrkstu
If Iran murdered an Iranian citizen in their own embassy in third country? No
response at all except a shake of the head?

Iran regularly kidnaps dual citizens when they come to Iran and hold them
without formal charges, and many disappear/die. The only reason this is a
story is because we theoretically hold Saudi Arabia to a higher standard than
Iran in the first place.

~~~
mattnewton
>When they come to Iran.

This is different imo, an American resident was murdered in a third country. I
can assure you if this happened nobody would be talking about how important it
is to keep selling arms to Iran, the way we did with Saudi Arabia.
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/opinions...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-
opinions/saudi-arabia-murdered-a-journalist-trump-doesnt-seem-to-
mind/2019/06/24/558dbb5e-969f-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html%3foutputType=amp)

~~~
pseingatl
An American resident? He wasn't a US "person" under US law. He didn't have a
green card--H1 visa, perhaps?- and wasn't eligible for consular protection
under the Vienna Convention. Trying to turn him into an American is silly.

~~~
rgbrenner
All people on US soil are protected by the US Constitution and bill of rights.
It doesn’t matter if you’re citizen or immigrant; permanent or temporary
resident; illegal or legal. Simply being on US soil means the US must
acknowledge the rights that were granted to you by your creator (this is the
way it’s phrased in our constitution)

~~~
rubinelli
Mississippi is arguing otherwise, after an undocumented immigrant was
mistakenly killed in a raid:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/27/ismael-
lope...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/27/ismael-lopez-
southaven-mississippi-police-shooting-constitution/)

~~~
xtracto
Howdy cow, if that belief is upheld, the repercussions are chilling. As the
article mentions, if illegal immigrants are not protected by the constitution
then they can be enslaved or killed without repercussions.

------
rudiv
Saudi Arabia has money and oil. America likes oil and money. It's been as
simple as that since the bitter Lake conference. Why else would a country that
claims to have gone to war to create a representative democracy and destroy an
unrepresentative monarchy be the best of friends with one of the most
unrepresentative monarchies in the modern world? Can you think of another
country named after a dude? Or, excuse me, a dude's family? (All respect to
Abdulaziz, lord knows the Saudis could strike me down in the banana republic I
live in).

~~~
dcolkitt
> Can you think of another country named after a dude?

I mean, I get what you're saying... But isn't America named after Amerigo
Vespucci?

~~~
rudiv
IIRC that is no longer considered to be a likely hypothesis.

------
eecc
Well frankly the Saudis should have been held accountable do ISIS and the 9/11
operations... and yet they got away with it. If that didn’t earn them US
retribution, nothing else ever will.

------
schalab
What was wrong with US's response to 9/11 attacks?

Tunnel vision, moral and patriotic grandstanding, group think, not thinking
about the long term consequences of actions.

Yes, Saddam Hussein was evil, but the consequences of removing him were much
more dire and opened up pandora's box.

Yes, what Saudi Arabia did was gruesome, but if you respond by cutting them
off totally, they will ally with China. You lose the entire region, your
leverage on oil production in the middle east. You make your rivals stronger.
Is that reaction proportional with the action?

Is this one incident, which is not like Saudi Arabia didnt get massive
blowback for, worth the long term consequences?

Where is the media commentary which is more pragmatic and willing to look at
things two steps down, a decade from now?

Which media outlets actually present the question in that format. Nobody has
learnt anything from the previous problems. People are still easy to
manipulate, and the media still lacks any kind of long term thinking.

~~~
rolltiide
The US is not dependent on middle eastern oil any more.

Let them ally, tell them “have fun with that”

Same goes to any other middle eastern allies with troubling policies who we
have unwavering support for. “We disagree with how you treat some human
beings, have fun with Russia!” “Why havent you just been issuing debt on the
international markets to fund your defense programs like the rest of us? Have
fun destabilizing your whole economy, thats life!”

~~~
opportune
I think the US control over global oil supply in theory has a few big
consequences greater than just importing cheap oil:

First, there’s the whole petrodollar thing, which in theory is a net positive
in global trade (since all this external money is sloshing around in USD,
there is more demand and liquidity for USD globally, and at the end of the day
that means we get traded things in exchange for printing money).

It also gives us a lot of leverage over other countries the world over. If
Russia is acting up, the US can pressure countries to dump oil to lower the
price and hurt Russia.

A lot of these countries like SA buy a lot of US weapons which we like for
economic and political reasons.

Also, the US wants the region to be stable, since Iran, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, and Israel are all at varying degrees of being nuclear powers and
don’t have great relations between each other. If there were a big war over
there, it would be bad for business globally and could destabilize countries
outside of the region.

Now, I’m not saying I like this state of affairs, but it’s complicated and
there aren’t a lot of good guys over there, so it’s hard. At least the current
state of affairs is somewhat stable.

------
throwaway66920
So this may be interpreted poorly, but why was this murder such a big story in
the news? This is a drop in the bucket of Saudi misdeeds.

Is this _not_ in line with the average person’s perception of the Saudi
government?

~~~
dpark
> _Is this not in line with the average person’s perception of the Saudi
> government?_

No. The average person thinks we’re allies and therefore by definition Saudi
Arabia is run by “good guys”.

~~~
icebraining
That's not what the polls in the US shows; 2/3rds have a mostly or very
unfavourable opinion of SA: [https://news.gallup.com/poll/1624/perceptions-
foreign-countr...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1624/perceptions-foreign-
countries.aspx)

------
coldtea
If investors backed off every time a country's government did something
murderous, then not just SA, but all major Western countries would be
investment free...

------
amai
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecunia_non_olet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecunia_non_olet)

------
chiffre01
Did anyone honestly think anything else would happen?

------
pseingatl
[https://medium.com/@al_mu7ami/in-defense-of-mbs-the-need-
for...](https://medium.com/@al_mu7ami/in-defense-of-mbs-the-need-for-a-new-
law-of-war-4d408f7c96df)

~~~
xtracto
Great article and definitely has a point: Someone killed one co-citizen in
their own country and on its own soil. At most, Saudi Arabia must open a local
investigation to find the responsible person.

Other countries might not like their law, but it is the same as me not liking
Death Sentences in the USA, but what can I do? I am not a citizen of that
country.

~~~
cycrutchfield
Conflating extrajudicial killing with the death penalty? Is it really “the
same”?

------
pseingatl
Khashoggi's murder was horrible, but it did not violate international law.
[https://medium.com/@al_mu7ami/in-defense-of-mbs-the-need-
for...](https://medium.com/@al_mu7ami/in-defense-of-mbs-the-need-for-a-new-
law-of-war-4d408f7c96df)

~~~
happytoexplain
I think the criticism is moral, rather than legal.

------
projectramo
I suppose this is worth saying but "the regime" is different people.
Complaining about attending the investment conference because of the terrible
murder of JK is like complaining that foreigners should not attend US
conferences during Obama's drone strikes.

I know -- you have a strong negative reaction to that statement -- because you
don't think they are equivalent. Fine, let's talk about the difference.

~~~
icebraining
This is not a conference organized by some SA citizen, it's organized by the
sovereign wealth fund of the SA state, whose chairman is the Crown Prince.

~~~
projectramo
But the beneficiaries are, in theory, the people of the state.

In the Obama/Trump drone equivalency case -- or pick another president and
some other war -- one might argue that the people are more culpable because we
have a democracy. Note that given our vantage point, we might be inclined to
make fine distinctions: popular vote vs electoral college, or 52% of the
support etc.

