Dr. Gonzo

Wanting a military alliance with the UK/US and buying US weapon systems is absolutely them feeling the support of the US and UK. This is the kind of support Saudi Arabia gets. Guyana will get US aid, that is then going to be turned around and spent on US weapon systems. In return, Guyana is armed to the teeth with advance military equipment as a deterrent to Venezuelan aggression. The US gets to feed its military industry complex, so they'll see it as tax dollars well spent.

But that sample size is good enough to give a 95% confidence interval in a population of 4m. The number of people asked isn’t really an issue to give out a statement saying x amount of people out of 4m people feel this way. You can say “it’s not enough people” but maths says it is. There’s always a degree of “wrongness” with surveys. They aren’t claiming to be 100% accurate. There’s other biases (sampling bias - so not getting a diverse enough group of people responding from to accurately reflect a population; response bias - who knows who answered truthfully and who didn’t; even the way the questions are worded can create a bias). I have no idea what possible flaws in the methodology - it definitely has some, all surveys do. They are all accurate and inaccurate to a degree. I think it’s strange 40% of the people asked were in a Tory stronghold and still they got the results they did tbh.

I do because I think the photos are being distributed as “revenge” for when Hamas paraded stripped captured IDF forces after their attack.

40% of UK Muslims wanting Sharia Law in the UK is still fucking disturbing and shocking. I’m the son of someone who was sent running from living under an Islamic theocracy. Iran wasn’t a free country, but it was a hell of a lot more free than it would become after 1979. A lot of people’s lives changed for the worst, a lot of people got arrested, tortured, and/or killed just for political views. They made pop music illegal! They even had to control what kind of entertainment people could enjoy! A lot of families from Muslim countries that fled the places where extremists pushing their insane views. For 40% of them to want that same kind of shit brought to the UK is nothing short of insanity. There’s nothing wrong with the sample size either. If there’s 3.9m Muslims in the UK roughly (that’s what Google told me so it could be wrong I just went with the first # I could find quickly to save time), if you want a survey with a 95% confidence interval - you’d only need a sample size of about 395 for a population of 4m. Obviously that doesn’t mean there aren’t other flaws in the methodology for the survey. But sample size isn’t one of them.

I would say it would be profoundly stupid for Maduro to go ahead with this annexation. Having said that, the kind of person that could lead an oil rich nation like Venezuela to economic failure is probably profoundly stupid.

These authoritarians with expansionist land grab goals are really something else. The US flies military planes over Venezuela to deter them from stealing land that doesn't belong to them and does belong to a nation friendly to the US. Venezuela calls it a provocation. Clearly someone's been taking lessons from Putin!

Just trying to let you know there's more to the world than the news and social media are showing you.

Now you're cooking with gas

Aw bless, do you think media coverage is necessary for a war to be going on? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts

Honestly? What a fucking stupid thing to say. What progress has happened in Qatar? Pretty sure rights for the migrant workers (the people who are virtually slaves) didn't change at all. They're still an absolute monarchy that supports suppression of human rights in Iran. They're still a state sponsor of terrorism. The thing is now if mention Qatar to people, for a lot of people their mind goes to "omg that was the best world cup ever" or "I like their F1 track" - does it work for everyone? No, and I don't think anyone claimed it would work for everyone. Just because the term "sports washing" is fairly new, doesn't mean it's a new concept. Did China and Russia host the Olympics just for fun? Did China use their opening ceremony to try to highlight their military might to demonstrate their love of athletics? No. They hosted the Olympics for the same reason everyone hosts the Olympics or why everyone who hosts the World Cup wants to host it: partially as propaganda & partially to boost tourism. You don't need to use the words "sports washing" or have the media tell you what countries you're meant to like and dislike for the concept to be fundamentally the same. FFS the Nazis famously used the Olympics as an international propaganda event - what makes you think authoritarian governments would suddenly stop seeing it as a fantastic propaganda opportunity. I would say all Saudi Arabia or Qatar have to do is avoid starting any wars to see the good work of their sports washing go to waste... but I think Azerbaijan's proven that even that doesn't matter.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/12/07/Blinken-Guyana-Venezuela-Essequibo/7051701954496/ ExxonMobil's heavily invested in Guyana, so it's basically a given that if Venezuela does attempt to annex the area that the US will have a serious response.

Texas and California both have fringe weirdos that always talk a big talk on succeeding, but I doubt it ever happens because regardless of how big of an economic driver they are for the US... part of the reason they do so well is because they're a part of the US. I won't say it'd never happen because shit like Brexit also made very little economic sense, I think both in the short and long term, happens and a lot of voters in any democracy will go with what resonates with them emotionally. Both California and Texas have more to lose than to gain if they became independent states.

Tbh I don't think this has as much to do with the boycotts - the industry at large is having a slower than average holiday season.

Yeah that's very shit. He was in very good form and Matip at his best is one hell of a defender. Sad way for him to have likely played his last match for us.

For the US it's pointless anyways because Israelis don't need a visa to enter the US unless they want to work in the US (unless they're also US citizens, which I think 15% of Israeli settlers are). The policy of continual settlements in Palestinian territory in Israel is a shambles. It's against international law and they almost always announce more settlements when a US or western leader arrives in Israel - which makes it appear as though these settlements are approved and endorsed by the west.

Kevin McCarthy announces he'll be retiring at the end of the year. Probably off to go get some cushy lobbyist job or following in Paul Ryan's footsteps of being a shit Speaker of the House then getting a Directors job at Fox News. Glad to see that useless sack of shit will no longer be a part of any sort of governance.

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That's exactly why it does work. Those people will associate Saudi Arabia with football, golf, WWE, F1, etc... because that's when they'll hear of Saudi Arabia. Just because you've said something many times before, doesn't mean you're right. Things like the Olympics don't exist in the modern day just for fun - it's all political. The US, China, and Russia aren't just trying to collect gold medals because they just love athletics. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the US aren't trying to host world cups because they're football mad countries.

It’s simple and proven said the man offering no proof. If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t work. If it works some of the time… it does work. Most people are stupid, if you don’t think so… pay more attention to what’s going on in the world.

Lol what? "Maybe something that works, actually does work? Nah, it doesn't... except when it does." So it does work.

Fixed

I think the US is 6 ahead of the UK on the quality of life index - I would expect quality of life in Saudi Arabia to be higher than most Middle Eastern countries now that they've knocked off a lot of the gender apartheid shite and their own morality police has been scaled back significantly though. Tax free, oil subsidies pay for a lot of social benefits, and as mentioned a big relaxation in the societal rules that were previously imposed on them, though. Those are all things that would make life more comfortable for most. Regardless, how good things may have become for Saudis in a short amount of time domestically doesn't really make an impact on their foreign policy goals. Saudi Arabia wants to be seen as the leader of Arabs and a power broker in the Middle East - doing something that is going to enflame the Arab population at large against the Saudi government isn't going to make it easy for them, in the short term at least, with respect to those goals. I'm not sure I understand your last point. I don't think you can separate the concept of jihad from Islam. There's greater jihad (internal struggle with one's base impulses to conform with God's law) and there's lesser jihad (external struggle with non-believers), and different Muslim scholars have different takes on what both of those mean. If you're using jihad as a translation of "holy war" - I think that's a pretty huge oversimplification.

God, very sorry to hear that - condolences to you and your family and wishing you all have a much happier 2024.

I hope one day all Middle Eastern countries make peace with one another, including all countries making peace with Israel and all countries making peace with Iran. But I don't think now, with tensions being as high as they are - and with the aftermath of this war likely to leave a lot of resentment towards Israel from the Arab/Muslim world at large... it's not the right circumstances to have Saudi Arabia involved in setting up a legitimate government for Palestinians that actually cares for the national interest of Palestine. It's one thing to balance Saudi's national interests on the conflict domestically and walk that tightrope. It gets much harder for them balancing their interests while also maintaining the grip of influence they want to have over the Arab world at large. Amongst Arabs, making peace with Israel is not popular. Resistance and victory from "river to sea" are very popular though. Can the Saudi monarchy enjoy the same influence if they come in to help remove extremism from Gazan governance while Iran, a country that is predominantly not Arab, would be seen as the dominant country in protecting Palestinian Arabs? The best case scenario for MBS is he's seen as a bringer of peace in the eyes of the western world, but the worst case scenario for him is he's seen as a traitor to the Arab world and lose significant influence in the region to Iran. There's a reason why Saudi official statements on the conflict are very carefully worded to lay the blame at Israel's feet.

They back ISIS, Al Qaeda, have ties with the Taliban, and are the largest spreaders of the Wahhabi ideology in the world. They're doing well to reduce the powers of political Islam in Saudi Arabia, but that's simply because it's a threat to their own monarchy. They aren't exactly people I would trust though to not foment more extremism outside of Saudi Arabia. They might be good for Newcastle United FC, but the amount of faith I have for them to produce any sort of meaningful peace in the Middle East is an absolute 0. Imo the worst options in some sort of multinational coalition to set up a transitional government for Palestinians would be the 3 most troublesome nations in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia - have a history of fomenting extremism and backing awful people for their own benefit, see above Iran - have a history of fomenting extremism and backing awful people for their own benefit, notably in this conflict: Hezbollah (which they basically completely control at all levels) and Hamas Qatar - have a history of fomenting awful extremism and backing awful people for their own benefit, notably in this conflict: Hamas, who's leadership they house and protect There's a reason MBS and his government have been very careful and deliberate regarding their statements on Israel. While he wants better relations with them and close ties to the West - his people largely fucking hate Israel and side strongly with Hamas. Being openly involved in trying to end this conflict with peace between both people will not sit well with many Saudi Arabs. For a man who's done a lot to ensure his people don't openly rebel against him... I'm not sure he wants to risk pissing off that many Arabs all at once. With Jordan and Egypt, there's the same balancing act of what their government wants vs. what their people want - but they do have the vested interest of not having open and continuous conflict on their borders. They've got more skin in the game to actually create a lasting peace. Whereas MBS is pretty far removed from the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis and to an extent benefits greatly by continually using the plight of Palestinians as a prop to demonstrate how Saudi Arabia stands up for Arabs in the region.