I think it's probably fair to say the regime in SA and ISIS have different ideas of what the region should look like in the long term.
I doubt either side understood a temporary alignment of interests to be anything more than that. Perhaps not entirely unlike what you saw in the eighties with the U.S. and the Mujahideen. There's probably even more appropriate examples from the same conflict with Russia, Turkey, U.S. et al supporting various factions.
Yes, I did have a little chuckle to myself about this irony until I realised there were probably (in total) millions dead at this point because stupid people are allowed to run the world.
The sooner we divest from oil reliance the better; hopefully this awful Trump presidency will give the left a mandate to do this in 4 years.
Yes, the worlds thirst for oil leads to conflicts and death in many areas of the world. The more countries reduce their oil needs, the better the world is off.
The Republican government in the U.S. favors domestic energy production including hydraulic fracturing techniques and expanded traditional exploration on federal lands. They are seeking to enable oil and gas exploitation of Indian lands as well.
In addition, they are permitting the pipelines from the Canadian tar sands, which will increase Gulf of Mexico refinery output.
The slight rise of international crude prices combined with an energy-friendly Administration has spurred domestic producers, especially frackers, to increase production.
The likelihood of continued war in the Middle East, sanctions on Russia, and economic turmoil in Venezuela all are causing a big push to move away from these foreign energy sources. It's quite likely that over the next twenty years, the U.S. will emerge as the world's top energy producer and also the top exporter of raw oil and gas and energy products.
Obama had all the mandate he could have dreamt of with the 28 pages in the 9/11 report[1]. He also had the opportunity, with fracking and Keystone XL offering the potential for the US/Canada to becomes entirely energy-self-reliant. He didn't take it, preferring instead to accommodate domestic environmental concerns. Such is politics, it is about prioritising between sub-ideal options -- but there's no reason to expect the next president will have significantly different priorities, regardless of what havoc Trump will end up wreaking.
De-carbonising the US economy to achieve energy-self-reliance through locally produced renewables through policy (as opposed to eg solar being market-competitive and taking over at scale through market processes) will take decades and be way out of reach for any one president to see through -- it will require a much deeper (in practise, bipartisan congressional) commitment. Also, anyway, these are not exclusive options. It's not materially different to decarbonise from domestically produced oil than from Saudi produced oil -- indeed, it might be easier, as domestic oil is fairly expensive and Saudi is pretty cheap.
ISIS is well funded - how do you think they continue to wage war against the superpowers of the world? But you know that - a quick Google search will return hundreds of articles from trusted news sources detailing this - so what is your real motivation?
You mean that they have some "private benefactors" in the Gulf? Sure, but that doesn't mean Saudi Arabia is funding them. Saudi Arabia is part of the coalition that is bombing IS.
Yes - those private benefactors are people - Saudi Arabia is not a person. The official government position is clear, but the government is made up of people ... who fund terrorism.
I actually think we're on the same page here - a government can publicly have one position, while it's people have another.
Mostly the former, plenty of evidence exists in the public domain.
My point is that a government can have a public position, even actively fight for it - however at the same time, it's private citizens (both in the gov and not) can have another position.
This is a larger topic than HN can and should be host to ... thanks for the debate.
> Mostly the former, plenty of evidence exists in the public domain.
Perhaps, but when you make such statements, the burden of proof is on you.
> My point is that a government can have a public position, even actively fight for it
I'm sure that there probably are ISIS apologists among Saudis - I'd argue that they are few in number - but it's nonetheless important to make the distinction between the government and regular citizens. Furthermore, you seem to be ignoring the fact that such activity is outright illegal, so it's not as if the government is OK with Saudi ISIS supporters.
ISIS is an offshoot of Al Qaeda and the Saudis have always been a major target of Al Qaeda. Bin Laden attacked Riyadh before New York.
The narrative pushed by many journalists that ISIS is a Saudi ally is a complete fiction and big slander against the Saudis, who are very aggressive against ISIS.. The two have been at war since ISIS began.
This is the correct answer. Other Gulf countries are similar.
I've lived in the UAE, and I can tell you that they have a very hard stance on terrorism, both domestic and international. For example, the UAE has been bombing ISIS from the start. The same applies for Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.
"we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."
> Isn't ISIS supported by the Saudis to overthrow the Shiite government of Iraq?
I think it's fair to say that "the Saudis" isn't exactly a monolith in this regard. There's an uneasy alliance between the Wahabi clerisy (who in turn keep the people relatively content) and the house of Saud, who again aren't exactly monolithic, but some of whom have something that at times could be said to approach a reasonably liberal worldview (they, for sure, aren't devout Wahabis).
It would not be terribly surprising if some of the more Wahabi-aligned elements are involved in channeling funds and different kinds of support to ISIS (and the Taleban and Al Qaida, for that matter) while the other end knows that if ISIS gets free reign in Saudi Arabia, the foundation under their government can crumble very quickly.
What do you base this on? The Wahhabi scholars are conservative but very active in refuting terrorism. In fact the first book I ever came across as a new Muslim detailing the Islamic position against terrorism was written by Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz Aal-ush-Shaykh. Videos can be found online of Saleh Fawzan calling ISIS the "party of Satan."
I didn't say "Wahhabi scholars", I said "some of the more Wahabi-aligned elements".
Saudi Arabia has frustrated American policy makers for years. Ostensibly a critical ally, sheltered from its enemies by American arms and aid, the kingdom has spent untold millions promoting Wahhabism, the radical form of Sunni Islam that inspired the 9/11 hijackers and that now inflames the Islamic State.
That's more of an op-ed piece than a proper news report. Even the author admits that no evidence has been found of Wahhabi organizations funding ISIS recruiting.
Contrary to popular belief, the mainstream Saudi view - Wahhabi or otherwise - is that ISIS is bad and needs to be eradicated. As with anything else, there are fringe elements that don't follow this idea, and the government is trying to deal with that.
Like I mentioned, those are the fringe elements, and do not represent the country's stance. I'm not sure how much Saudi is doing to crackdown on such funding however.
It doesn't have to be a coincidence. The Saudi education system was infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. If what you say is true then that may be a partial explanation. The Saudi ruling elite / religious scholars are pretty constant in disapproving of terrorism. I'm just trying to make the point that things aren't always as simple as people make them out to be.
The fact that Saudi money, very substantial sums of it, find its way to terrorists, terrorist sympathisers and extremist preachers and their mosques and cultural centres is simple.
The reason for this, and the mechanism by which it happens, is indeed very complicated.
ISIS are more of a threat to the Saudi ruling elite than they are an ally. The Saudis essentially pay their population off with oil revenues to buy peace domestically. If oil prices start to dip, revenues dry up (although they have an admittedly large bankroll to fall back on, but it's not infinite). And if they can't buy peace, suddenly Saudi Arabia is fertile ground for radical militant-Islamic groups like ISIS.
In this context, it's interesting to consider the growth of US Shale Oil and the lifting of sanctions on Iran, who apparently have made an agreement with OPEC, on which the Saudis took a production hit just to get it over the line (iron clad, because it's not like anyone has ever defected from an OPEC cartel agreement...)
This simple answer to this is that the story line where ISIS and Saudi are friends is fabricated by the media.
In an openness spectrum, Saudi is a zero, and Isis is in the negatives. But they all look like they're a lower number to us so people just lumped them together. But even the saudis say ISIS are extremists.
ISIS is pretty much the only group in history to be hated by everybody, including al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hizbullah, although al-Qaeda's hatred largely stems from the fact that ISIS has enjoyed a modicum of success in their efforts.
It should be noted that al-Qaeda, while being an outgrowth of the Wahhabism that Saudi Arabia nurtures, has targeted Saudi Arabia ever since the Gulf War due to American-Saudi cooperation back then. All of the Middle Eastern regimes are considered desirable targets to al-Qaeda--this is the distinction between the "near enemy" and the "far enemy."
There might be a market for fast, lightweight, extremely cheap aircrafts. No border wall defenses will help if you swarm them with more planes than they have anti-aircraft missiles.
Is the U.S. wall on the Mexican border going to be anywhere near this sophisticated? I had the impression it's going to be basically a single fence, enforced by a bulked up Border Patrol.
The focus of border security has been on stemming the flow of people through various “hot spots” – border crossings that can be secured. The idea of building a long barrier like Great Wall of China has never materialized due to both cost and the impracticality of securing rugged terrain that might include mountains and rivers. In addition, the American border includes vast areas of open space far from people and infrastructure such as power, which makes monitoring difficult, according to Dewar.
Faced with long borders and limited manpower, agencies have increasingly turned to technology to detect unauthorized intrusions. They include long-range fiber-optic sensor systems such as Senstar’s FiberPatrol system. These sensors can be deployed on a fence with just a single optical cable stretched up to 10 miles.
Buried RF cable sensors operate very much like radar and offer the advantage of being both out of sight and protected from the elements.
“People don’t know that it’s there,” says Dewar. “So they may know a system is there, but they don’t know exactly where it is and that makes it hard to defeat. It’s very tolerant to vegetation, so it works very well for borders.”
Both of these systems are able to pinpoint intrusions to within meters. If the system also is integrated with CCTV, central station monitors can point cameras in the right direction for further investigation. Border Patrol agents can then be dispatched quickly.
One of the lesser-known but technically-impressive border fences was the Cordon Sanitaire ( Corsan ) built by Rhodesia in the 1970s along the border with Mozambique.
The idea of relying solely on sensors was rejected because even heliborne troops were inadequately slow when intruders could disappear into the African bush. Instead the Corsan consisted of two fences bracketing a minefield and much Israeli monitoring equipment, ran for 180 km along incredibly hostile African territory.
Eventually the cost proved prohibitve and the next 800km of border had to be secured with only a minefield and a homeward-side fence.
If the map is correct, it looks like it could be bypassed by entering through Jordan or Kuwait. I wonder if the designers know about the Maginot Line [0] (extensive and costly fortifications on the Germany / France border, which the Germans simply bypassed by invading through Belgium)?
The question really is, will Jordan border defence be stronger than this wall? Somehow I don't see ISIS shying away from taking the way around if they really want to atack Saudis.
The Germans had an industrial powerhouse and a large population with a coherent, relatively united culture behind them, plus a solid dose of air power.
> Despite the difficulty of access to westerners, the country is relatively open to fellow Muslim nations, particularly during the Haj season when pilgrims from across the world come to Mecca and Medina.
This is helpful as I assume this means that they'll be able to take in large numbers of refugees. It seems like Saudi Arabia is very intent on keeping themselves safe from attack, so it seems a geographically close safe-haven is an ideal situation for those that would otherwise have to brave trips to Europe or the Americas.
The Haj visas are only open for certain areas of the country - mostly the airport in Jeddah and then the pilgrim trail to Mecca and Medina. There's not much infrastructure there aside from very ritzy / high end hotels that've been being built at Mecca as well, so it'd be a bit tougher to take refugees. Getting them from their origin points to Jeddah as well would be difficult - by sea that's 1080km or so, assuming they're coming out of Jordan's tiny sliver of gulf access (which getting to is pretty rough on its own).
> The Haj visas are only open for certain areas of the country - mostly the airport in Jeddah and then the pilgrim trail to Mecca and Medina.
Sounds like this is would just be a simple action of politics to extend those visas or just waive the need to wait for access -- that's what is expected of nations when talking about refugees. This sounds like a great cultural fit as well, which is important for refugees trying to adjust to a new country.
> There's not much infrastructure there aside from very ritzy / high end hotels that've been being built at Mecca as well, so it'd be a bit tougher to take refugees.
If it's very ritzy hotels, then Saudi Arabia is very financially capable of organizing buses and transport to either temporary accommodations or the facilities that would need to exist for pilgrimages. Of course, these accommodations wouldn't have to be _in_ Mecca, so this isn't really a reason to turn refugees away.
> Getting them from their origin points to Jeddah as well would be difficult - by sea that's 1080km or so, assuming they're coming out of Jordan's tiny sliver of gulf access (which getting to is pretty rough on its own).
I'm sure Saudi Arabia has a naval presence and can organize mass immigration by plane. Refugees are trying to make it to Europe by raft, so it seems as if Saudi Arabia could very easily afford to help bridge this distance.
The Haj visa are just for the Haj, during the Haj period (last week of the lunar year), for the Haj, i.e. to go from the airport to Mecca and Medina and back. You could do the pilgrimage outside the Haj season (that's called Umrah), but it's rare. (Well, "you" can only if you're a Muslim, otherwise you can't even enter Mecca, and of course if you're female you need to come with your male guardian, unless you're over 45 yrs old).
> There's not much infrastructure there
You have 2 million people passing through within one week. There is a huge infrastructure there, busses, tents, monorail, dedicated airport terminals, massive crowd control measures (every now and then you have a panic where several hundreds of people get crushed). I wouldn't call that "no infrastructure".
You might have meant infrastructure for refugees, and that's true.
Refugees and Haj are totally orthogonal topics. Saudi Arabia has little interest in refugees, or tourists: they did not even issue tourist visa until 2014. This is changing ever so slowly as the end of the flow of oil money is coming into sight.
> The Haj visa are just for the Haj, during the Haj period (last week of the lunar year), for the Haj, i.e. to go from the airport to Mecca and Medina and back.
A visa is just a political device -- we're talking about refugees.
> You have 2 million people passing through within one week. There is a huge infrastructure there, busses, tents, monorail, dedicated airport terminals, massive crowd control measures (every now and then you have a panic where several hundreds of people get crushed). I wouldn't call that "no infrastructure".
Wow, moving 2 million people to accommodations in a week should be massively helpful!
> Saudi Arabia has little interest in refugees, or tourists: they did not even issue tourist visa until 2014. This is changing ever so slowly as the end of the flow of oil money is coming into sight.
No country has interest in refugees, but modern nations have an implicit obligation to minimize human suffering.
Based on what you've taught me, I'm curious about the absence of political pressure on Saudi Arabia -- it seems to me that they could greatly help.
> No country has interest in refugees, but modern nations have an implicit obligation to minimize human suffering.
Well, yes. But Saudi Arabia is not a modern, moral nation. It is a monarchy, a totalitarian autocracy, a hereditary dictatorship, with an abysmal human rights record promoting a particularly toxic version of Islam (Wahabism), which in turn legitimises the Saud dynasty's hold on power. They execute more people than the USA (though less than China and Iran).
(Note that I'm saying that it's a terrible political system - many Saudi individuals are fine people and suffering under their regime; just as can be said about North Korea, Iran, etc.)
The reason they get away with it is their oil wealth.
At any rate, they don't give a rat's ass about refugees, and used to have enough money that they didn't need to care much about anyone's opinion. That is slowly changing, and I hope the country will open up and modernise, but I wouldn't hold my breath for any substantial contribution to the refugee crisis.
> The six Gulf countries - Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain - have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.
That's really shocking to me as these countries are rich in resources. Further, AFAIK, the majority of the populations share a religion/culture and these countries are very close (comparative to Europe/US) to the current middle east struggles, so why would they turn away refugees? I'm surprised there's not more political discussion happening to pressure stable, neighboring countries to help in this global challenge.
The reason is simple: incoming refugees will cause internal strife and fracture the Saudi Royal family's tenuous hold on power. I don't agree or disagree with that premise, but that's the reasoning.
The same is occurring in Europe and even America. The establishment is threatened as a result of this mass immigration. Perhaps the difference is that the Saudis do not suffer from white guilt and, hence, attempts at rational discourse are not drown out with calls of racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.
According to a report by Amnesty International, the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council offered zero formal resettlement slots to Syrians by the end of 2014.
Rights groups point out that those countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — with wealth amassed from oil, gas, and finance, collectively have far more resources than the two Arab states that have taken in the most Syrians: Jordan and Lebanon
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 62.0 ms ] threadThis statement seems backward to me. Isn't ISIS supported by the Saudis to overthrow the Shiite government of Iraq?
I doubt either side understood a temporary alignment of interests to be anything more than that. Perhaps not entirely unlike what you saw in the eighties with the U.S. and the Mujahideen. There's probably even more appropriate examples from the same conflict with Russia, Turkey, U.S. et al supporting various factions.
The sooner we divest from oil reliance the better; hopefully this awful Trump presidency will give the left a mandate to do this in 4 years.
In addition, they are permitting the pipelines from the Canadian tar sands, which will increase Gulf of Mexico refinery output.
The slight rise of international crude prices combined with an energy-friendly Administration has spurred domestic producers, especially frackers, to increase production.
The likelihood of continued war in the Middle East, sanctions on Russia, and economic turmoil in Venezuela all are causing a big push to move away from these foreign energy sources. It's quite likely that over the next twenty years, the U.S. will emerge as the world's top energy producer and also the top exporter of raw oil and gas and energy products.
De-carbonising the US economy to achieve energy-self-reliance through locally produced renewables through policy (as opposed to eg solar being market-competitive and taking over at scale through market processes) will take decades and be way out of reach for any one president to see through -- it will require a much deeper (in practise, bipartisan congressional) commitment. Also, anyway, these are not exclusive options. It's not materially different to decarbonise from domestically produced oil than from Saudi produced oil -- indeed, it might be easier, as domestic oil is fairly expensive and Saudi is pretty cheap.
1: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/15/politics/congress-releases...
We love selling them cluster bombs.
I actually think we're on the same page here - a government can publicly have one position, while it's people have another.
Are you implying that government officials are funding ISIS? Or do you mean "government" as in "the country is governed by its people"?
If it's the former, please provide evidence. If it's the latter, recall that KSA is a full-blown monarchy, so the people != the ruling elite.
My point is that a government can have a public position, even actively fight for it - however at the same time, it's private citizens (both in the gov and not) can have another position.
This is a larger topic than HN can and should be host to ... thanks for the debate.
Perhaps, but when you make such statements, the burden of proof is on you.
> My point is that a government can have a public position, even actively fight for it
I'm sure that there probably are ISIS apologists among Saudis - I'd argue that they are few in number - but it's nonetheless important to make the distinction between the government and regular citizens. Furthermore, you seem to be ignoring the fact that such activity is outright illegal, so it's not as if the government is OK with Saudi ISIS supporters.
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2015/01...
The narrative pushed by many journalists that ISIS is a Saudi ally is a complete fiction and big slander against the Saudis, who are very aggressive against ISIS.. The two have been at war since ISIS began.
I've lived in the UAE, and I can tell you that they have a very hard stance on terrorism, both domestic and international. For example, the UAE has been bombing ISIS from the start. The same applies for Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.
Source: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774
While the CIA has claimed these emails were hacked by Russia, they clearly stated they are authentic.
I think it's fair to say that "the Saudis" isn't exactly a monolith in this regard. There's an uneasy alliance between the Wahabi clerisy (who in turn keep the people relatively content) and the house of Saud, who again aren't exactly monolithic, but some of whom have something that at times could be said to approach a reasonably liberal worldview (they, for sure, aren't devout Wahabis).
It would not be terribly surprising if some of the more Wahabi-aligned elements are involved in channeling funds and different kinds of support to ISIS (and the Taleban and Al Qaida, for that matter) while the other end knows that if ISIS gets free reign in Saudi Arabia, the foundation under their government can crumble very quickly.
Saudi Arabia has frustrated American policy makers for years. Ostensibly a critical ally, sheltered from its enemies by American arms and aid, the kingdom has spent untold millions promoting Wahhabism, the radical form of Sunni Islam that inspired the 9/11 hijackers and that now inflames the Islamic State.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/opinion/the-world-reaps-w...
The reason for this, and the mechanism by which it happens, is indeed very complicated.
In this context, it's interesting to consider the growth of US Shale Oil and the lifting of sanctions on Iran, who apparently have made an agreement with OPEC, on which the Saudis took a production hit just to get it over the line (iron clad, because it's not like anyone has ever defected from an OPEC cartel agreement...)
War Tard is a great read on this: http://wartard.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/the-geopolitics-of-20... . It's a shame he seems to be posting at a rate of about once a year now...
In an openness spectrum, Saudi is a zero, and Isis is in the negatives. But they all look like they're a lower number to us so people just lumped them together. But even the saudis say ISIS are extremists.
It should be noted that al-Qaeda, while being an outgrowth of the Wahhabism that Saudi Arabia nurtures, has targeted Saudi Arabia ever since the Gulf War due to American-Saudi cooperation back then. All of the Middle Eastern regimes are considered desirable targets to al-Qaeda--this is the distinction between the "near enemy" and the "far enemy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
Which references this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-c...
Faced with long borders and limited manpower, agencies have increasingly turned to technology to detect unauthorized intrusions. They include long-range fiber-optic sensor systems such as Senstar’s FiberPatrol system. These sensors can be deployed on a fence with just a single optical cable stretched up to 10 miles.
Buried RF cable sensors operate very much like radar and offer the advantage of being both out of sight and protected from the elements.
“People don’t know that it’s there,” says Dewar. “So they may know a system is there, but they don’t know exactly where it is and that makes it hard to defeat. It’s very tolerant to vegetation, so it works very well for borders.”
Both of these systems are able to pinpoint intrusions to within meters. If the system also is integrated with CCTV, central station monitors can point cameras in the right direction for further investigation. Border Patrol agents can then be dispatched quickly.
src: https://us.sourcesecurity.com/news/articles/border-security-...
One of the lesser-known but technically-impressive border fences was the Cordon Sanitaire ( Corsan ) built by Rhodesia in the 1970s along the border with Mozambique.
The idea of relying solely on sensors was rejected because even heliborne troops were inadequately slow when intruders could disappear into the African bush. Instead the Corsan consisted of two fences bracketing a minefield and much Israeli monitoring equipment, ran for 180 km along incredibly hostile African territory.
Eventually the cost proved prohibitve and the next 800km of border had to be secured with only a minefield and a homeward-side fence.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line
Jordan's military leadership is surprisingly competent, with lots of forward thinking, preparations and plans for eventualities.
This is helpful as I assume this means that they'll be able to take in large numbers of refugees. It seems like Saudi Arabia is very intent on keeping themselves safe from attack, so it seems a geographically close safe-haven is an ideal situation for those that would otherwise have to brave trips to Europe or the Americas.
Sounds like this is would just be a simple action of politics to extend those visas or just waive the need to wait for access -- that's what is expected of nations when talking about refugees. This sounds like a great cultural fit as well, which is important for refugees trying to adjust to a new country.
> There's not much infrastructure there aside from very ritzy / high end hotels that've been being built at Mecca as well, so it'd be a bit tougher to take refugees.
If it's very ritzy hotels, then Saudi Arabia is very financially capable of organizing buses and transport to either temporary accommodations or the facilities that would need to exist for pilgrimages. Of course, these accommodations wouldn't have to be _in_ Mecca, so this isn't really a reason to turn refugees away.
> Getting them from their origin points to Jeddah as well would be difficult - by sea that's 1080km or so, assuming they're coming out of Jordan's tiny sliver of gulf access (which getting to is pretty rough on its own).
I'm sure Saudi Arabia has a naval presence and can organize mass immigration by plane. Refugees are trying to make it to Europe by raft, so it seems as if Saudi Arabia could very easily afford to help bridge this distance.
The Haj visa are just for the Haj, during the Haj period (last week of the lunar year), for the Haj, i.e. to go from the airport to Mecca and Medina and back. You could do the pilgrimage outside the Haj season (that's called Umrah), but it's rare. (Well, "you" can only if you're a Muslim, otherwise you can't even enter Mecca, and of course if you're female you need to come with your male guardian, unless you're over 45 yrs old).
> There's not much infrastructure there
You have 2 million people passing through within one week. There is a huge infrastructure there, busses, tents, monorail, dedicated airport terminals, massive crowd control measures (every now and then you have a panic where several hundreds of people get crushed). I wouldn't call that "no infrastructure".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj#Modern_crowd-control_prob...
You might have meant infrastructure for refugees, and that's true.
Refugees and Haj are totally orthogonal topics. Saudi Arabia has little interest in refugees, or tourists: they did not even issue tourist visa until 2014. This is changing ever so slowly as the end of the flow of oil money is coming into sight.
A visa is just a political device -- we're talking about refugees.
> You have 2 million people passing through within one week. There is a huge infrastructure there, busses, tents, monorail, dedicated airport terminals, massive crowd control measures (every now and then you have a panic where several hundreds of people get crushed). I wouldn't call that "no infrastructure".
Wow, moving 2 million people to accommodations in a week should be massively helpful!
> Saudi Arabia has little interest in refugees, or tourists: they did not even issue tourist visa until 2014. This is changing ever so slowly as the end of the flow of oil money is coming into sight.
No country has interest in refugees, but modern nations have an implicit obligation to minimize human suffering.
Based on what you've taught me, I'm curious about the absence of political pressure on Saudi Arabia -- it seems to me that they could greatly help.
Well, yes. But Saudi Arabia is not a modern, moral nation. It is a monarchy, a totalitarian autocracy, a hereditary dictatorship, with an abysmal human rights record promoting a particularly toxic version of Islam (Wahabism), which in turn legitimises the Saud dynasty's hold on power. They execute more people than the USA (though less than China and Iran).
(Note that I'm saying that it's a terrible political system - many Saudi individuals are fine people and suffering under their regime; just as can be said about North Korea, Iran, etc.)
The reason they get away with it is their oil wealth.
At any rate, they don't give a rat's ass about refugees, and used to have enough money that they didn't need to care much about anyone's opinion. That is slowly changing, and I hope the country will open up and modernise, but I wouldn't hold my breath for any substantial contribution to the refugee crisis.
http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/beautiful-urban-moments/mina-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mina,_Saudi_Arabia
Despite the facility to do so, they take in no refugees. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/12/facts-figures...
That's really shocking to me as these countries are rich in resources. Further, AFAIK, the majority of the populations share a religion/culture and these countries are very close (comparative to Europe/US) to the current middle east struggles, so why would they turn away refugees? I'm surprised there's not more political discussion happening to pressure stable, neighboring countries to help in this global challenge.
Up to this point, I thought SA was refusing to take any refugees from Syria. Has this changed recently?
http://time.com/4025187/arab-states-syrian-refugees/
According to a report by Amnesty International, the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council offered zero formal resettlement slots to Syrians by the end of 2014.
Rights groups point out that those countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — with wealth amassed from oil, gas, and finance, collectively have far more resources than the two Arab states that have taken in the most Syrians: Jordan and Lebanon