[HN Gopher] Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff
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       Saudi Arabia jails two Wikipedia staff
        
       Author : onei
       Score  : 29 points
       Date   : 2023-01-05 21:47 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | abvdasker wrote:
       | Add this to the long list of actions by the Saudis demonstrating
       | that they are probably the most unambiguously evil government in
       | the world. But they seldom get any criticism from mainstream US
       | media and politicians because of the Saudis' vast oil resources.
       | Imagine how much better off the world would be today had the US
       | government chosen to topple the Saudis after 9/11 (for which
       | everyone knows they were actually responsible) instead of
       | pursuing irrelevant boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Funding
       | for Sunni terrorists would have been disrupted which probably
       | would have had a far greater impact to reduce global terrorism
       | than anything else the US did. Hell, even the neocons just in it
       | for oil would have been happy with that.
        
         | nickff wrote:
         | I'd agree that the Saudi Arabia does many bad things, but
         | "probably the most unambiguously evil government in the world"
         | is quite a stretch. Russia is currently throwing conscripts
         | into an unprovoked war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China has
         | millions of people in 're-education' camps, and supports North
         | Korea, which is itself basically a slave-state. There are also
         | a number of very troubling states throughout central Africa and
         | Asia, such as Afghanistan, which is descending further into
         | government-led disaster.
        
           | abvdasker wrote:
           | If you think Saudi Arabia doesn't rely on modern slave labor
           | I would urge you to learn more about their treatment of
           | immigrants.
           | 
           | And there is simply no comparing the status of women in China
           | or Russia to Saudi Arabia.
           | 
           | Combine that with Saudi Arabia's barbaric public beheadings
           | and you're talking about a modern dystopia that many in the
           | US would rather ignore out of convenience. Another common
           | response is to distract from their crimes by hyping up other
           | bogeymen in more direct competition with the US.
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-05 23:01 UTC)