The New York Times reports (and Yahoo! News repeats without any paywall) that the government of Saudi Arabia is threatening to sell $750 billion in treasury securities and other unidentified assets if Congress passes the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The bill would allow foreign governments to be sued by 9/11 victims and their families. The threat was issued by Saudi Arabian foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir to unnamed US lawmakers while he was visiting Washington sometime last month, on the grounds that these assets could be in danger of being frozen by US courts.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Sunday April 17 2016, @01:05AM
That's ok you think the US can't make all their expensive military weaponry obsolete and non functional with a satellite signal? America would be extremely stupid selling them weapons that the Americans could end up fighting. What is money to a dead person?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Gravis on Sunday April 17 2016, @03:23AM
apparently you don't know about our politicians.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Sunday April 17 2016, @10:14AM
This is why we really should give credit to the USSR. If you look at the weapons they sold to the third world? they were ALWAYS the "M" models..know what they called the M models? Monkey models, as in "we don't trust these monkeys with the good stuff". For an example the "T-72" they were sold was the T-72M, which didn't have a targeting computer, no ATGM capability, and they swapped out the night vision for an early 60s T-54 setup.
Compare this to the USA which ever since Reagan (to Carter's credit he only sold the F-5, which was a more primitive fighter built just for the third world) has sold our latest weapon tech to plenty of dictatorships that later turned hostile. Of course that is how the MIC two step shuffle is played, 1.- Sell the latest tech to a dodgy country, 2.- When they turn hostile say "They have the latest tech! That is why you need to buy our SUX 7000 super duper weapon package!" lather rinse repeat. After all if we would have followed the Soviet example all we would be facing is cold war era crap from both sides...can't have that now can we?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 18 2016, @11:30AM
In the digital age, any enemy would be brave/foolish to go up against the manufacturer of their weapons with their own weapons - how easy is it to install a "cheat code"?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday April 18 2016, @12:15PM
Except our "digital tech" is such crap our "cheat code" would most likely blow our own shit up while unlocking theirs! I have a buddy that works on military tech (he doesn't have time to deal with his relatives so he sends them to me, along with doing all their home theater work) and its really sad, we're talking DIP switches and code that makes Win 95 look like cutting edge tech.
This is again something we should have learned about from the USSR as you look at their "M" models and its impossible to turn them into the legit versions without replacing so many critical systems you would be better off just buying a legit version. If you want to see just how bad they gimped the tech they sold to the dodgy regimes (as well as how stupid one of those regimes were) look up "Failed Tanks:Asad Babil". If we would have taken a similar stance the most advanced planes Iran would have had was the F-105 Thunderchief and the most advanced anti-air we would have given Osama would have been the Redeye missile from the early 60s.
The only "positive" I can say is if we sell them our cutting edge tech? the code is so fucking buggy it'll be more likely to break than work in the heat of battle...but the same is true of our versions, see the record of the Phalanx CIWS for how bad our software is.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mhajicek on Sunday April 17 2016, @03:32AM
But then they get to throw even more money at it to fight against our own weapons. This has been the pattern for decades.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Sunday April 17 2016, @09:06AM
And the people fighting / dying / trying to live in the expected target areas are the same which decide / benefit from the weapons deal? I don't think so... It's not Americans against non-Americans, it's rich against poor for a couple of decades already. Trust that with all big trade agreements, all wars, all weapons deals some already rich people will benefit while some poor people somewhere else will bare the consequences.
Until a couple of years / decades ago, while the concept was the same already, the average person of a rich country benefited as well. Nowadays - due to globalization - the split between rich and poor is not that much restricted by country borders anymore. The whole national pride thing, racism and so on is a huge smokescreen to distract the now-average and soon poor majority from looking at the real problem. I think there was a nice quite from Warren Buffet on the topic. The war of our age is not between countries, religions or ideologies, it's rich against poor. And the rich won already. If I find a reference, I'll post it later.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Sunday April 17 2016, @09:34AM
Ok, looks like I overstated the Warren Buffet quote.
BUFFETT: It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be. [cnn.com] The interview is interesting though. I wonder if US wouldn't do better with his kind as president compared to some other investors running. (Probably not with Warren Buffett himself, he is a bit old by now. Although, given the alternative...)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2, Informative) by terryk30 on Sunday April 17 2016, @10:55AM
Christopher Lasch [wikipedia.org] wrote on that topic [wwnorton.com] as well.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2016, @07:38PM
They do not have to do that.
They just cut off the supply chain to those weapons.
Most of our military equipment has parts in it that *must* be replaced at particular intervals or they basically stop working.
It is why there are so few of the old fighter planes remain. Without the extensive supply chain for them they are basically unusable. Then on top of that to be qualified to fly/use these things you have to put in hours of work. You can only get that by using them. That time is basically consumable. Our whole military is like that.
The Russians have a different view. They sell you fairly sturdy equipment that is not quite so finicky and easy to get parts for. However, it is usually 1950s/1960s generations of equipment. It is however dominated by anything newer.