We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

What Stinks in Saudi Ain’t the Camel Dung

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from OffGuardian

I regard Engdahl as a first-rate geopolitical analyst. In this explosive article he assembles many facts, most of which I have found documented by credible observers over the past decade, which he sums up with these two statements:
  • ISIS is simply a “Saudi army in disguise.”
  • What stinks in Saudi Arabia ain’t the camel dung. It’s the monarchy of King Salman and his hot-headed son, Prince Salman. For decades they have financed terrorism under a fake religious disguise, to advance their private plutocratic agenda. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with money and oil. A look at the ISIS map from Iraq to Syria shows that they precisely targeted the oil riches of those two sovereign states. Saudi control of that oil wealth via their ISIS agents, along with her clear plan to take out the US shale oil competition, or so Riyadh reckons, would make the Saudi monarchy a vastly richer state, one, perhaps because of that money, finally respected by white western rich men and their society.
What I fault him for in this article is what I fault him for in most of his articles: he doesn't provide any links to documentation to back up his facts. Either he is exhibiting what I refer to as a "professorial arrogance" or he is guarding his sources in his soon to be published book or other books he has authored. I can't fault him if it is the latter reason--he simply needs to be economically self-sustaining in order to maintain his independence to be regarded as a credible geopolitical analyst.