That isn't to say the US is better, worse, or just as bad. Just something to compare it to.
Edit much later: you know what, I was wrong to comment this on its own. There's a lot more nuance to this and it's not a fair comparison at all. Those that called me out on this are in the right.
The US has killed thousands of “militants” (and many people who were certainly innocent) with drone strikes in places where we’re not engaged in active conflict and without due process. It may or may not be wrong, case by case, certainly arguments to be made for both, but seems about the same motivation just further away than SA killing militants.
> The US has killed thousands of “militants” (and many people who were certainly innocent) with drone strikes in places where we’re not engaged in active conflict and without due process.
If you want to call those "war casualties", then those war casualties look a whole lot like executions.
And if they weren't war casualties on account of not being in a war zone, then they are simply executions.
It is mere coincidence that you respect one country's due process and don't respect another country's due process.
Most places have non-arbitrary paths to punishment or any state actions, codified somewhere. And our media and pop culture just doesn't acknowledge that.
The similarities are greater than the dissimilarities.
In Saudi Arabia's case, the legal system does appear to be arbitrary.
> The primary source of law is the Islamic Sharia derived from the teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the traditions of the Prophet). Saudi Arabia is unique among modern Muslim states in that Sharia is not codified and there is no system of judicial precedent, giving judges the power to use independent legal reasoning to make a decision. Saudi judges tend to follow the principles of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence (fiqh) found in pre-modern texts and noted for its literalist interpretation of the Qur'an and hadith.
> Because the judge is empowered to disregard previous judgments (either his own or of other judges) and may apply his personal interpretation of Sharia to any particular case, divergent judgments arise even in apparently identical cases, making predictability of legal interpretation difficult.
It wouldn't have been as simple as the King or MBS saying that. There are some nuanced articles about the judiciary there, how they work and how they could improve.
What is the point of thinking this way? My due process could be if your name starts with an F, you get beheaded, otherwise you get a pardon. That's stupid, and not deserving of respect. Due process based on religion ending in BEHEADING is likewise stupid. The only way we improve is if some du process is more deserving of respect than others...
The same question could be asked of the person that first mentioned due process.
But the point is that many people respect the system they are raised under, and are aware of others systems. Its not a comparison of "the US to Saudi Arabia" its an acknowledgment of the nation state reality.
> The similarities are greater than the dissimilarities.
Sometimes cultural relativism gets it right and opens our eyes to our own inadequacies, but this isn’t one of those times. Saudi justice is light-years (or maybe centuries) from US justice.
Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship run by tyrants who order members of their own family kidnapped abroad, journalists murdered then cut up their bodies to hide the crime, and imprison then extort leading businessmen to consolidate power and money in their hands. They have far more in common with Putin’s Russia than the US.
The US is a long way from that, whatever its flaws (and there are many flaws, chief amongst them making alliances with brutal dictators like the Saudis).
Speaking of due process, 97% of criminal cases don't actually go to trial in the US and are instead settled with plea deals [0].
The sentencing is so harsh for anyone demanding trial and losing that it's mostly a paper right at this time. It does give people the warm fuzzy feeling of justice and correctness though.
If you're used to the EU justice or penal systems (very far from perfect and sometimes not even good, mind you), looking at the US systems must feel similar to a US citizen looking at SA justice - very lopsided, barbaric or cruel, disproportionate, and nothing close to fair.
The list is growing at a rate of about 1 country per year, which, if continued, would mean that the 21st century would be the last in which countries formally kill their own citizens.
Whew ... there's dozens of convicts on the death row that are presumably innocent. Even if some of them get acquitted at some point, having spent 20 years of your life behind bars not knowing whether the state is going to murder you for something you didn't do is not that far from barbaric.
So ... like another guy said, you're just accustomed to the set of rules of the environment where you belong, in the same way as a Saudi could think of executions as a regular thing (bc, well... they are).
Imagine someone beating you to death and the only reactions of your souroundings would be „ hey someone else is also doing this“ thats no point and no help at all
The goal of this post isn't to distribute actionable advice to those directly affected by the event. The odds that they're reading a US tech forum are slim.
Most of us here are looking to better understand what's going on in the world when we read articles like this, and the additional context OP shared is helpful to do so
When I first saw that 81 number, I thought to myself "Wow, I can't imagine what it must be like to live in such a repressive regime".
When I see comments comparing this to capital punishment and the war on terror from the US, it made me realize that I do actually live in a country that does similar things sometimes
Ok that I do understand. Still a bit confused. I thought it was common knowledge that you are living in blood thirsty country thats killing people without remorse :)
Ehmmm yes there is criticism of the death penalt in the us .... So what has this to do with Saudi arabia??? And maybe the people critizing the death penalty in saudi arabia are NOT the same people who engage in keeping the death penalty in the us???
In any comparison of two countries (or people) like this, there are two conflicting issues to keep in mind at the same time: 1) As you point out, no one is perfect, and any honest look at ourselves or the groups we're a part of will show us things we feel ashamed of. 2) Because of that, "whataboutism" is a very effective derailing tactic that anyone can use to dismiss almost any criticism.
Given that "no one should ever criticize anyone for anything" isn't what any of us wants, we need some norms and limits around whataboutism to keep it productive. I'm not sure what those should be though, and at the end of the day probably some amount of trust and good faith is required.
Whataboutism is simply an excuse for maintaining the status quo. Since there is not, nor will there ever be, a perfect country everyone should bite their tongue, and tacitly support the worst behaviors.
It’s a trash take, put out by people that would rather center on their own preconceptions rather than actually minimizing harms in the world.
Because we should be better. Like, you shouldn't interpret this as "whataboutism". It's just saying let's fix our own shit first. We have it bad. Probably one of the worst in the world when looking at the "justice" system as a whole.
Because it doesn't work. I've lived in Iran. There is a heavy amount of "were as good as your beloved America" or "were not a bad as them".
Also, people would care more if these things were reflected in our cultural exports of movies, internet, etc etc.
So yes. You're right. We are global citizens. However some of us have a lot more power than others. Right now that's America and we need to use our power to send the right message to the world.
By "shit together" you mean dependent on Russia for energy?
> Germany imports more than half of its energy . The country largely imports its oil from Russia, Norway and the United Kingdom. Germany is also the world's largest importer of natural gas. The largest gas imports come from the Netherlands, Norway, and Russia via the Nord Stream.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Un...
That isn't to say the US is better, worse, or just as bad. Just something to compare it to.
Edit much later: you know what, I was wrong to comment this on its own. There's a lot more nuance to this and it's not a fair comparison at all. Those that called me out on this are in the right.