Why Do The Journos Keep Whining About The Saudis?

[ToraToraTora]

Yes we know they are barbaric mad mullahs but hello, you sometimes have to deal with bad guys to help the cause against the worse guys. No one will be happier than me when we reduce our reliance on oil and gas but for now we have to hold our noses and get on with it.

[Khandro]

Yep, as the saying goes, 'There are no friends in business'.
i.e. Dealing with people doesn't mean you are friends.

[Ellipsis]

You might have written the same thing about Putin a couple of months ago ...

[1ozzy]

By all means hold your nose, nothing worse than an offensive odour.
Keeping a stiff upper lip will help too.

[Gromit]

Let’s learn a new word…

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypocrisy

[ichkeria]

We'd have to do business with Putin if the Martians invaded.

But as it stands, yes, MBS sadly needs to be our ally for now.

[ichkeria]

It isn't hypocrisy

As I have said before, if we start looking for equivalences everywhere we end up doing nothing, but simply sounding righteous while evil people run riot.
That is the worst hypocrisy of the lot.
We aren't going to solve the world's problems by simply wagging our fingers

[Gromit]

And another for you…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/double%20standard

[ichkeria]

As I already said ...

[ToraToraTora]

gromit lets learn another new word:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pragmatism

[ToraToraTora]

If it was up to gromit we'd only be dealing with Tibetan Monks.

[dannyk13]

Another new word for Gromit:-
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grouch

[jim360]

A better way of thinking about the problem might be that this merely serves to kick the can down the road. What happens if Saudi Arabia goes too far down the same road as Russia, if it hasn't already? Do we then switch to dependency on the oil resources of another country, and so begin the cycle again?

Even if you stripped the need to tackle Climate Change out of the picture -- which anyway you shouldn't -- then this is probably the biggest reason why we need to move as quickly as possible to other sources of energy. It places a fundamental limit on the ability to apply pressure to brutal regimes, if we rely too heavily on them for a critical resource.

That said, in the short term I agree that we should "hold our noses" on the point. But it has to be understood, at last, that reliance on oil weakens the West.

[Ellipsis]

Reliance on anything weakens anyone ...

[ichkeria]

Reliance on anything is a weakness

[ichkeria]

Snap ellipsis!

[ToraToraTora]

In the film "Independence day" we all cooperated even the Jews and the Arabs to defeat a common enemy. That's what we are doing now but people like gromit would rather hang on to his purity of conscience than contribute to the defeat of the new Hitler. However bad the Arabs are, they are not invading and destroying their neighbours, they are not threatening Armageddon. Gromit what is your solution to weaning ourselves off Russian oil and gas?

[Gromit]

ichkeria
Carp.
The Saudis are slaughtering tens of housands of Yenemis and we are happy to turn a blind eye and line their pockets.

[1ozzy]

Use pictures, apparently they are worth a thousand words.
It'll save posting a lot of links.

[ToraToraTora]

jim: "A better way of thinking about the problem might be that this merely serves to kick the can down the road. What happens if Saudi Arabia goes too far down the same road as Russia, if it hasn't already? Do we then switch to dependency on the oil resources of another country, and so begin the cycle again? " - The Arabs are not armed with nukes, they are not showing any signs of invading other countries even if they were they'd be easily controlled by NATO. Putin is a special case because he has WMDs and is psychotic enough to use them, thus the whole world must find a way to neutralise him. No one wins if the world is toast.