I can’t get enough of WikiLeaks Cablegate, could you? It’s better than the best and more gripping than a Steven King novel. Delving into the minds of those who rule us is, well, enlightening and could actually give cause to an accelerated rise to democracy in this region. Some cables also attest that hereditary genes alone are not enough to bestow the power of imagination nor do they always aid in raising the intelligence quotient.
Regardless, in the intrigue department, I came across this cable this morning. To me, it’s pretty much symptomatic of the (so called) media industry in the Arab world. No wonder papers and other media outlets care more about cheap entertainment and the advertising dollar than investigative reporting:
The Saudi regulatory system offers the al-Saud regime a means to manipulate the nation’s print media to promote its own agenda without exercising day-to-day oversight over journalists, and Saudi journalists are free to write what they wish provided they do not criticize the ruling family or expose government corruption. In addition, most media in Saudi Arabia–print and electronic–are owned by royal family members, and accordingly self-censorship is the order of the day. In comparison to a few years ago, however, the media business in Saudi Arabia is dynamic, fueled by increased demand by Saudi and pan-Arab audiences, new licensing agreements with US and other international media, and an unprecedented level of openness to outside ideas.
Yes, go feast your eyes. There’s more.
Comments
The cables also confirm that Saudi Arabia is the main and major source of funding for Islamic terror around the world, that they continue to play the double game of posing as friend while acting as a foe. We could beat the Taliban in Afghanistan more easily were we to take the war to Saudi Arabia and cut off their money.
There is a saying in aviation that if you strap a big enough engine to anything, you can make it fly. The political corollary of that is that if you have big enough oil deposits, you can make a rotten government work. There is so much wrong with Saudi Arabia that it’s easy to believe any bad news about them. We would do ourselves and the world a favor by ending the Saudi regime and their malign effect on humankind.
You would do yourselves and the world a favor (a big fat favor) by stopping your middling in other nations affairs and allow (for once) the people of those nation to select their governments freely.
Look at the wold map, wherever there is a dictatorship then there is a 99% chance the American is supporting it.
In our region, the American are friendly with dictators from Morocco to Oman and they have always supported them to stay in power. and out of 22 dictators they only opposed three (Sadam, Asad and Basheer) because they were not friendly with Israel…. even Gadafi is a friend to the west now!
Americans supported and continue to support
the dictators of Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria and medieval regimes of Morocco, Saudi arabia, Jordan, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
So, now which regime has malign effect on humankind?
Anon;
Here is a helpful wikipedia link showing a chart of the countries supported by US foreign aid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid
The only middle-eastern countries receiving financial aid from the US are Israel, Iraq, Egypt and Jordan.
The remainder of your dictatorships are self-supporting. The same is true for the rest of the world’s dictatorships.
You should rant less, breathe through the nose, and in the process come back to reality.
Anon,
All the Muslim countries are dictatorships because that reflects their people. They don’t understand any other kind of government. It is a classic Arab Muslim reaction to blame the Other for your screw ups, as you do here. However, reasonable people understand that America does not control the world, despite the fevered conspiracy theories of the Middle East. We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. However, we have flipped one Arab Muslim country from dictatorship to democracy. How many have the Arab Muslims flipped?
“However, we have flipped one Arab Muslim country from dictatorship to democracy.”
I guess you are talking about Iraq, please spare yourself the embarrassment and spare us the bullshit. All readers know what kind of “democracy” you brought to Iraq. a democracy that caused over a million deaths and four million displaced and brought sectarian parties to power and divided the country to three autonomous regions.
It is really stupid of you to use Iraq as an example of American achievements. I have seen stupidity before but it wasn’t as bad as this;
Anon;
So the Iraqis had NO OTHER CHOICE but to attack each other with bombs and electric drills because the US invaded their country?
You should drop the idea that Iraqis are dumb animals with no minds, free will, or agendas of their own. Most of Iraq’s problems have nothing to do with the US but are a direct consequence of the cultural attitudes of its populace.
Dream on Steve, your AlCapones need the oil. And your vote will have no effect at all.
The oil will be there whether the Saudi government rests on top of it or not. Whoever rests on top of it will sell it.
At what price? Do you think we’d get a good deal from Iran or China? Or even Eretz Israel?
Wake up, Stevie.
I’m sorry Steve but that’s really stupid argument. financial aid is not the only form of aid the US government give to these regimes, there is intelligence aid and media and other ways. why did the west made fuss about the last Iranian election while turning blind eye to Saudi regime where there isn’t any kind of election not even a farce one. can you compare the western media coverage of egyption election to that of the Iranian election though the egyption election was much worst?
do u think they can survive for a day if it wasn’t for US suppot? they were threaten by the pan arab nationalism in the 50s and USG supported them to beat abdulnaser (perhaps u need to educate yourself about Yemen war in 60s) I’m sure an ignorant like yourself wouldn’t know anything about what happened in the past, u only believe what your corrupt regime say. thanks to Julian assange we know today how Shell spent tens of millions on bribes and how American pharmaceutical test their drugs on innocent Childs in africa and how they conspire on the other nations.
The Iranian election made a difference because Iran is threatening to use nukes against its neighbors. That makes it of special interest. Do you follow why that is so?
Egypt does not threaten anyone with nukes, hence a lesser interest in their elections. It’s up to the Egyptians to fix their elections, not America. Even if there was a fair election, the Egyptians would have one election, one time, installing the Muslim Brotherhood who would install an even worse government. Egypt is hopeless, like most of the Middle East.
Egypt survived without US support before and it would survive in the future without it. US support consists mostly of a giant bribe to stop Egypt from attacking Israel.
American pharmaceutical companies do not test their drugs on African children. You should be embarassed to say something so stupid but this kind of slander is typical of the Middle East. US drug companies must develope and test their drugs under a stick regime set by the FDA, costing about $100 million each drug. Most fail. They don’t do their tests in Africa.
Steve, I’m shocked really shocked from your ignorance. First, where did you hear that Iran threatened its neighbors with nuke?! could you please give us a single reference… they don’t even have it, so I don’t know how they could threaten their neighbors with something they don’t have, as a matter of fact the only country with nuke capabilities in the middle-east is Israel (now why America don’t say anything about it, that’s another story).
As for American pharmaceutical companies and their drug tests on African children, please read the following cable from your government embassy in Nigeria about Pfizer and how ethical they were:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/203205
I told you, you are so ignorant and don’t seem to read anything apart from what you write.
Anon;
Read your own link more carefully, especially the part about “participants and families â€Â
This is a clinical trial, conducted with the consent of the patients and their families, not a secret experiment. Western patients participate in drug trials all the time, assume the risks, and are awarded compensation for unexpected side effects. The only thing dark and sinister here is the Kano government demanding a cut of the payment.
Ok I got it, so you they are trying them then?! and why did you hire private investigators for?!
I don’t understand why you want to deny what is so obvious!
Anon;
If the US fussed about elections in Arab countries, you’d accuse it of meddling. If it doesn’t fuss, you’d accuse it of indiffernece. You really can’t have it both ways.
The Iranian Shah regime had US support and didn’t survive a popular revolution. If people really want to overthrow a regime, they will, regardless of outside support. If you think the US is keeping Assad of Syria in power, you need to cut back on the magic mushroom.
You comment about phamaceutical companies experimenting on African children really should be written in a Comic Sans.
Toady:
what I said is this “out of 22 dictators they only opposed three (Sadam, Asad and Basheer)”, so if you can’t read then its not my problem. I think I clearly said that they only opposed those three dictators.
what you have mentioned about American support for Shah regime is absolutely true, but the American support though didn’t secure the survival of the regime it prolonged it; the Iranian people could have overthrown the Shah in the 50s with Mossadegh (I believe you agree with me that he would have been a much better option than the Ayatullahs).
and again there is a difference between making a fuss about something and meddling in other nations affairs. When you pay opposition groups and support separatists and use your media outlets to incite violence that is called meddling and that is what America did with Iran.
Anon;
If you wish, you may continue to believe that malign foreign influences are keeping the middle east from progressing. Wacky conspiracy theories hurt you more than they hurt us because they prevent you from facing your problems and fixing them.
Dear Toady,
These are not “wacky conspiracy theories”, they are rather facts that you don’t like. Even president Obama admitted US involvement in the coup against Mossadagh he said in a speech in Cairo 2009
“the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government”
So according to your president the US played a role in overthrowing a democratically elected president.
That means the middle eastern people are striving for democratic change while the US is playing a negative role overthrowing their elected governments. The US president said that not me, so enough with the conspiracy theory trash.
Anon
The US did support the Shah and helped to overthrow Mossadegh, that is true. I will remind you that the Mossasdegh election was an oligarchic election where less than 10% of the people voted, hardly a democratic example.
The rest of your dictatorships are keeping themselves in power. They are not being sustained by dark foreign forces, Jews, or shape-shifting space lizards. Get off the drugs and the wacky conspiracy theories will fade away.
If the US is as sinister as you claim, then boycott all of its products, starting with your computer.
Steve,
“The Iranian election made a difference because Iran is threatening to use nukes against its neighbors. That makes it of special interest. Do you follow why that is so?”
Your resource of those so-called threats? take in mind that a threat of retaliation is different from initiating an attack.
“Egypt does not threaten anyone with nukes, hence a lesser interest in their elections. It’s up to the Egyptians to fix their elections, not America. Even if there was a fair election, the Egyptians would have one election, one time, installing the Muslim Brotherhood who would install an even worse government. Egypt is hopeless, like most of the Middle East”
Lol, you know whats funny, that you find people who agree with you as non threatning, when in fact, for “America’s message to the world” at least, Egypt and similar governments should be primary threat to america. But hey, capitalism and dictatorship why disagree, fuck human rights violation, they are only doomed as long as the capitalistic influence exist, and im talking from economic point of view.
“Egypt survived without US support before and it would survive in the future without it. US support consists mostly of a giant bribe to stop Egypt from attacking Israel.”
Half of the time, i think your joking, but you seem serious, so I can only assume that your IQ is that of 99 cent corn dog. Obviously you are supporting a country by bribing it, seems like optimal strategy to win a cause or get ur points cross. Bribe and keep the government in power, the 90 million with absolutly no rights to protect their dignity? nahh faakkk emmm.
“US drug companies must develope and test their drugs under a stick regime set by the FDA, costing about $100 million each drug. Most fail. They don’t do their tests in Africa.”
Fact: During those “clinical” tests, an estimation of about half the side effects are known, the other half, you find out.
Source: FDA it self. Obv a stick regime.
But yeah what do you expect from somebody from a country where half of its population is patriots, the other half are traitors.