Should The Union Flag Have Been Flown At Half Mast?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2923527/Flags-half-mast-fawning-praise-King-loved-people-sparks-furious-public-backlash.html

Especially at Westminster Abbey, when in Saudi Arabia Christianity is banned and possessing a Bible is illegal, to say nothing of the countries abysmal human rights record.

[DTCwordfan]

You are trying to put words in my mouth, gromit......read carefully what I said in the last reply.

[Gromit]

DTW
There is no evidence that private donations from Saudi have dried up as a result of pressure from the Royal family. They may have diverted some of the funds from going to a qaeda, to Islamic State, but that is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an improvement.

And in Saudi, nepotism is so rife, that if you are an individual wealthy enough to donate to terrorists, you are likely to be related to the Royal Rulers.

[Old_Geezer]

Whilst it may cause ill feeling in some quarters at home, it never hurts to keep official allies friendly. You get little influence with countries that don't care for you. For pragmatic reasons I think one might have the sense to turn a blind eye as to the issues some may have, and accept it as an attempt to improve relations. Although in reality it is questionable how much it would even be noticed.

[sir.prize]

Wrong again DTC. My comment is on the correct thread.

[ladybirder]

If we want to influence them, which I believe we do, I don't see the point in deliberately upsetting them. I think it's the diplomatic thing to do.

[sir.prize]

Was the guy human? Who would treat his own daughters in this way . . .



Good riddance.

[sir.prize]

Try again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&v=sM_n6XNmGBw&x-yt-cl=84503534

[DTCwordfan]

sir p - I was taking the p or are we having a humour loss on AB today?

Been to Saudi, gromit?

[anotheoldgit]

Just to lighten things up a little.

*** Blair is awarded his prize in the hoopla competition. ***

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/01/23/24F9C8E200000578-0-image-a-36_1422020767535.jpg

[mikey4444]

No...he was just another old dictator that has died...good riddance.

[douglas9401]

*** Blair is awarded his prize in the hoopla competition. ***

That's the first time anyone's managed to pin anything on Blair.

[bazwillrun]

and you can bet your last penny the Chilcot enquiry wont pin anything on him.....

Like the septics, we have had "agreements" and "arrangements" with the House of Saud gong back decades...thats why we are half masting...its all about da money, da money, da money !.....

The House of Saud was one of the few ( if there were any other Middle East governments/rulers) that Bin Laden who was born in Saudi waged his war on at the time because The Saudis allowed the Septics to use SA as a staging base for the USAF to bomb muslim brothers from...he was not happy with them for that little "agreement".

Although they cut off peoples heads and flog and god knows what else they do...we needed them and we probably still do need them from a stategic point of view in that part of the world...

[ichkeria]

We need Saudi Arabia because of their fantastic wealth and consequent influence in the Arab world. The dynasty's almost pathological hatred of Iran and Syria together with the religious establishment's promotion of Wahhabism has been partly, but only partly, been responsible for the rise of ISIS
The new king by all accounts is like his predecessor no religious fundamentalist but he will find it hard to roll back the influence of the clergy.
I don't think we should have flown flags at half mast but then we help launder criminal money from Russia, an exporter of terrorism, a rather less obvious bone of contention

[askyourgran]

It's diplomacy, and maybe the fact that I think the Saudis own half of London anyway. My nephew is out there with the military, working at the moment. I keep hoping he is ok in that Godforsaken place (well my God).

[sevenOP]

You may be correct Gromit that money from Saudi used to fund Islamic terrorists is still flowing but with respect neither DTCwordfan, you nor I know that: what is known is that Saudi continues to export Wahhabi and Salafi doctrine all over the Muslim world, which missionary zeal has already resulted in such groups as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, al-Nusra, ISIS, Khorasan...

"The soaring oil price created by the 1973 embargo – when Arab petroleum producers cut off supplies to the US to protest against the Americans’ military support for Israel – gave the kingdom all the petrodollars it needed to export its idiosyncratic form of Islam. The old military jihad to spread the faith was now replaced by a cultural offensive. The Saudi-based Muslim World League opened offices in every region inhabited by Muslims, and the Saudi ministry of religion printed and distributed Wahhabi translations of the Quran, Wahhabi doctrinal texts and the writings of modern thinkers whom the Saudis found congenial, such as Sayyids Abul-A’la Maududi and Qutb, to Muslim communities throughout the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, the United States and Europe. In all these places, they funded the building of Saudi-style mosques with Wahhabi preachers and established madrasas that provided free education for the poor, with, of course, a Wahhabi curriculum. At the same time, young men from the poorer Muslim countries, such as Egypt and Pakistan, who had felt compelled to find work in the Gulf to support their families, associated their relative affluence with Wahhabism and brought this faith back home with them, living in new neighbourhoods with Saudi mosques and shopping malls that segregated the sexes. The Saudis demanded religious conformity in return for their munificence, so Wahhabi rejection of all other forms of Islam as well as other faiths would reach as deeply into Bradford, England, and Buffalo, New York, as into Pakistan, Jordan or Syria: everywhere gravely undermining Islam’s traditional pluralism."
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2014/11/wahhabism-isis-how-saudi-arabia-exported-main-source-global-terrorism
.... all done under the obliging, averted eyes of the US.

Rather late now, but unless that 'great ally' (Saudi et al) completely halt this missionary practice, then trying to eradicate Islamic extremism is doomed to failure.