b3ta.com links
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Home » links » Link 1627003 | Random

This is a normal post 'fork found in kitchen'

(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 5:57, Reply)
This is a normal post Sounds unlikely. Jimmy Carr just did a gig there and he's well known for his judgement and morals

(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 8:27, Reply)
This is a normal post
Something something steel beams?
(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 9:56, Reply)
This is a normal post Coming to the surprise of absolutely fucking nobody.

(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 10:52, Reply)
This is a normal post They have got loads of money, so that's okay.

(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 12:19, Reply)
This is a normal post It's almost like the Bin Laden family is massively influential and institutionally conjoined with the state of Saudi Arabia and everybody with a passing interest already knew that.

(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 13:41, Reply)
This is a normal post seems a bit of a stretch for the article to go from a lawsuit alleging a saudi embassy official helped some of the hijackers find an apartment
to saying "the global War on Terror was based on a mistake". I guess it's punchy for those who tldr and grist to the "saudi bad. no comedy for bad saudi" mill
I had a quick wade through the court filing for my own curiousity and they seem to be making the legal argument that they don't actually need to show evidence of direct involvement or knowlege of the saudi government for their tort (damages claim) to be valid, citing cases that they only need to show material support (aparment finding help) and that those giving it were employed by a foreign government. Good luck to them, I think the yanks have been stingy with their compo, so perhaps the saudis might cough up something after almost 30 years, they're not short of a quid.
My take is it sounds like this Thumairy character had been getting a stipend by the saudi intelligence service since 1990 to report what various saudi in the US were up to while performing his main job of giving consular help. That's pretty much the shocking new revelation in the case, "fbi records...confirming Thumairy’s regular involvement in receiving radicals upon their arrival in the U.S.and hosting them while in Los Angeles" It's possible he was sympathetic to wahabist causes like al queda, but no evidence he knew about the plot or had any direct involvement in it, or in fact, treated them any differently to any other saudis he dealt with in previous years. He might have been getting regular pay for being an informer, little diferrent to how other spy agencies use embassy staff.

As a small aside, I once had a saudi student staying at my place for a brief year I lived in Sydney. Nice bloke, paid his board and was no fuss. Had a few chats with him to learn about life there, though he did once offer to give me a koran which I politely refused. Said his dad was a real estate agent in Riyadh. Had a knock at the door one evening and it was the Consul General from the Saudi embassy. He'd come personally to my apartment in maroubra to check up on this kid.
(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 15:59, Reply)
This is a normal post The 'Global War on Terror' was nothing but a convenient excuse to do some good ol' liberating.
There is no fucking way on earth that US intelligence services weren't aware of an impending attack on American soil. The 3,000 dead is peanuts in exchange for the utterly perfect propaganda piece that a (second) attack on the Twin Towers offered.

The idea that using a hikacked plane as a weapon instead of a bargaining chip was unimaginable before September 11th is also utter bollocks.

The only mistakes made were in how American troops conducted themselves overseas in the following years.
(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 18:19, Reply)
This is a normal post Remember apartheid?
Remember boycotting apartheid?
(, Sat 4 Oct 2025, 21:58, Reply)
This is a normal post i do remember it, it was a consistent global movement to isolate one country. I supported it in my student days
and it did eventually have a fair influence on change after decades. Consistent international sanctions and their stagnant economy led botha to internal reforms before de clerk ripped the band aid off. People were quite clear about the issue, the disenfranchisement of 85% of the population based on race.
However I don't see this with Saudi. they're not hugely different from other muslim country in the status of women or gays. They're an autocracy (that britain created), but so are many countries, so the question would be why pick on them instead of say, Oman or uzbekistan, or pakistan for that matter if people are posting about countries that helped 9/11 hijackers? I don't see this international movement or sanctions against them. If you do and think this will bring about change, I can respect that. Picketing BAE for doing huge amounts of business with them. refusing to fly with airlines that use aramco aviation fuels like many british airlines do, etc. Supporting Saudi women calling for change.
But I'd bet for most this is just people posting shit having a go at some comedian doing a gig there is the extent of their opposition. it's the lamest, laziest form of vitue signalling. And rather than aparteid, you could use the better example of an autocratic opressive state that had done horrible shit, the soviet union. It wasn't sanctions and the 40 years of cold war that brought it down. I reckon that opposition helped prop them up. It was when we finally relaxed and allowed them to be exposed to western culture. All the shit they were missing. blue jeans, billy joel touring there in 87. the population had a taste and decided they had dick of it, and it collapsed, even rejecting gorbi's compromise of glasnost. these things happen by internal pressure, what we really want is enough saudis to think our western values are worth adopting. Can't see how stopping the first comedy festival in an authoritarian state acheives this. Anyway, I've waffled enough and made my points, but I imagine if the soviet union was around today those same people would be whining online to cancel billy joel, and he's the piano man goddammit
(, Sun 5 Oct 2025, 1:14, Reply)
This is a normal post
I remember when it was 'The War Against Terror' before they changed it because it spelt TWAT.
(, Mon 6 Oct 2025, 0:20, Reply)
This is a normal post TWOT is much better.

(, Mon 6 Oct 2025, 11:02, Reply)