Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince
washingtonpost.comAlso just today:
BBC headline "Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says"
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582
With more background info: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/is-china-really-using-...
Some highlights from the BBC article:
> Former British military pilots are being lured to China with large sums of money to pass on their expertise to the Chinese military, it is claimed.
> Up to 30 former UK military pilots are thought to have gone to train members of China's People's Liberation Army.
> The retired British pilots are being used to help understand the way in which Western planes and pilots operate, information which could be vital in the event of any conflict, such as over Taiwan.
> "They are a very attractive body of people to then pass on that knowledge," a Western official said. "It's taking Western pilots of great experience to help develop Chinese military air force tactics and capabilities."
The disclaimer sentence
> There is no evidence that any pilots have broken the Official Secrets Act or that they have committed any crime.
is funny - how would they gather that evidence without confessions from the pilots involved or from the Chinese? Even if they don't tell them any secrets, there remains the fact that they train them at all. With the next big conflict where this might be used being Taiwan, where the West has already taken the opposite side.
From the second link:
> The MOD also said that the United Kingdom is only one of several Western countries whose aircrew (and likely other sources of military expertise) are currently being targeted in this way. No details were provided of other nations involved.
Personally, reading this, I think the news is getting more ridiculous by the day. I think this is much worse, I don't think Saudi Arabia is likely to end up as a direct adversary, and even if it did it would not matter much. But China...
Saudi Arabia is not as worthy of an adversary as China but they still are a dangerous country to underestimate. They were possibly behind 9/11, after all: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/11/september-11-saudi-arabi... .
It's weird to me that it's legal for former military members of one country to be employed by another for any military purpose at all, without the express approval of the home country.
Here's a guess: it has been known to various counter-intelligence agencies around the world for a while, but only now someone decided to escalate just a tiny bit and clean up some of the mess. Can't say I don't like it, though I dislike the seemingly ongoing worldwide escalation in international relations.
>is funny - how would they gather that evidence without confessions from the pilots involved or from the Chinese?
MI6 is a thing. What do you think they do all day. You really think these people with classified info in their heads are just walking around blabbing secrets in China or Saudi or wherever?
That would be evidence they won't be able to use in court? It would be giving up on their sources at the least, even if they are not disclosed directly. I have my doubts in them being able to find out exactly which pilot gave the Chinese some specific piece of information. They would need a source that is part of the direct training, which I find a bit optimistic.
We have secret trials in the UK where the accused doesn't get to hear the evidence.
So classified evidence can be used and there is no danger of it leaking.
Of course, there is a danger of innocent people being convicted but that doesn't seem to bother MPs or the government or even the public.
>The disclaimer sentence
It's a manufacturing consent piece to setup this:
>Anyone working in the UK for “hostile” states like Russia and China who fails to register their role will face up to five years in jail, Suella Braverman will announce on Tuesday.
[0] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/hostile-state-workers-...
With respect to Saudi's, a lot of Saudi of military is serviced/supported by Pakistanis who feeds info directly back to PRC. And TBH it wouldn't surprise me if PRC "lured" ex Japanese / Korean pilots for info as well.
> Anyone working in the UK for “hostile” states like Russia and China who fails to register their role will face up to five years in jail, Suella Braverman will announce on Tuesday.
This is exactly like Russian 'Foreign Agent' law introduced about 10 years ago. Should we be following in the footsteps of despotic regimes? If we have just declared that these regimes are morrally bankrupt, we should be doing the opposite?
I'm sure there are a lot of things Russia does that we shouldn't do the opposite of.
IMO this was introduced so UK security architecture is more in line with US/AU when it come to PRC as pre-req for getting piece of multibillion AUKUS nuclear sub deal.
The US leaking capability to SA is like China leaking capability to NK. When SA runs fully amok the US will be worse off than if it were just in conflict with a single opponent because alliances with garbage bring you into a 2 against 200 position that is almost entirely outside your control.
This has been going on for years, but now it's news? Here's a blurb from some random 2009 blog post on how this works (more about Iraq, but Vinnell has been training Saudi forces for years, and probably is involved with Yemen as well):
> "The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard. The Fairfax, VA-based company, a subsidiary of the US aerospace firm Northrup Grumman, said on its website it was hiring former US army and marine officers to train infantry battalions and combat support units for the new Iraqi army. The Vinnell Corp. of Alexandria, Va., owned by politically connected Northrop-Grumman."
More on that:
https://www.corpwatch.org/article/iraq-vinnells-army-defensi...
It's just so painfully obvious that these kind of articles wouldn't be getting published right now if the US government wasn't angry with Saudi Arabia about crude oil production.
> The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard.
Were similar contracts in place for training Afghani Army? Maybe we should get a refund?
I found shocking how western media just declared Afghani army as incapable and closed the chapter. Someone was in charge of this program for 20 years. Someone had oversight of billions spend. Were western contractor facilitating corruption? Was this a shocking failure of western management?
The results are worse than Russian army procurement where millions of uniforms just go missing!
Nobody wants to talk about training the Afghans for 20 years and having them decide to be citizens or Taliban the moment we left.
Training went well, but why would they bother once we're gone?
have youread nothing about the fact that government was paying salaries of soldiers that did not actually exist, and in fact their commanders were pocketing it.
This whole 'afghans decided not to fight' is really convenient. Like blaming a plane crash on pilot error - nothing to investigate, no defects to correct, the only one at fault is already dead.
> It's just so painfully obvious that these kind of articles wouldn't be getting published right now if the US government wasn't angry with Saudi Arabia about crude oil production.
It seems to me that the timing is the point and it is more relevant now that the relationship has become more adversarial. No one would've been paying as much attention in 2009 and rightfully so since those relationships wouldn't have as much of a conflict of interest.
And let's not forget that in 2009, MBS had yet to order Jamal Khasoggi to be killed by being cut in half by a bone saw.
Context matters.
On a related note:
Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582
Well, they are free people, not slaves. If they want to take a job in the private sector, they should have the freedom to do it, including working for a sovereign state that is not an enemy. Of course, they have knowledge of classified stuff, but I'm sure there are protocols around that, and they are aware of it.
It would be more scandalous if they were to take jobs with Russia, or Iran. But Saudi Arable is a US ally, so what's the problem?
This sort of thing isn’t all that unusual. John Paul Jones, whom many regard as the "father" of the United States Navy, served as a rear admiral for the Imperial Russian Navy after he retired from the US Navy.
Perhaps not unusual, but ethical? That’s a different matter. A former US general working for a theocratic, monarchy with a deeply concerning history on human rights raises some serious red flags in my mind.
I often wonder how people can not understand the world in which we live?
Didn’t President of the United States just go to Saudi Arabia and ask them to produce more oil.
Have we not supplied them weapons for decades?
Does the world use 100 million barrels of oil a day?
Let’s go throw something on a famous painting and maybe that’ll stop.
Still waiting for the batteries and all the renewable energy to solve the problem.
In the meantime, it’s great that people can take the moral high ground for decades on end.
We’ve been trying to get off oil since the 1970’s. How’s that working out?
It isn't lack of understanding that is being expressed, it is a lack of acceptance. I think that is a good thing.
And even if you would percieve ignorance instead, it doesn't mean that they need snark targeted at them. Please respect the community guidelines of this comment section.
I sleep well at night. How about you?
You would be surprised how many sociopaths occupy higher echelons of any power structures, be it government, military, banking, or well anything. As per J. Peterson there is around 1:20 ratio of sociopaths:normal folks in general population. Sociopathy like all other similar things are a spectrum, but with certain age you will start noticing them everywhere where power is.
If its a trait mixed with above average intelligence, these people often climb careers like ladders, and getting to the general/admiral level involves tons of political games and quid pro quo played right for decade(s).
What I want to say with all this - you bet those folks sleep well at night. They've sent 18-year old to (almost) certain death from time to time. Don't expect everybody in the world to share your morals, however sad it may be.
> We’ve been trying to get off oil since the 1970’s
Some have, but for most people and most countries it's simply far too cheap and convenient to not do that. Until there's an oil shock or a war. The oil money also pays for a lot of anti-renewables lobbying.
I mean, consider that, right now, the US has a military presence in Saudi Arabia, and active US military members are under orders to help train Saudi Arabian military members.
These former US officers in question may have already been working "for" this theocratic monarchy before they retired from the US military. So I don't think it'd be much of a moral leap for them to continue to do so, at least in their own minds.
But sure, I certainly wouldn't work for SA in any capacity; the whole idea would feel gross to me. But I don't have the career baggage of a US military officer who may have been stationed in SA for years.
The fuck is ethical about anything the US military has done since 1945?
Iraq 1 was justified imho
So justified they had to lie about babies in incubators to do it, right?
I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure you're talking about a max headroom episode...
It could be worse. He could be a US general working for a country with a deeply concerning history of human rights, a lingering racial apartheid problem, and a history of violating the independence and sovereignty of many other countries : the United States.
> a deeply concerning history on human rights raises some serious red flags in my mind.
Working for dictatorship is not worse than bombing innocent children in name of working for oldest democracy
Saudi Arabia is officially an ally of the US.
Wasn't the Russian Empire also as such.
Back the day Napoleon, from Corsica, actually whantedbto join the British Army before he settled to become an Artillery Officer in the French Army. The rest is, quite literally, history.
We don't live in the 19th century anymore so.
Fidel Castro wanted to play for the Washington Senators baseball team but wasn’t signed due to an underwhelming tryout.
TLDR; he didn't try out for the Senators. The story is a myth.
Do you have a citation for that? My understanding is he went to boarding school in France at the age of 9 and then directly entered the French military academy. The hero of his youth, Pasquale Paoli, was in exile in England for much of that time and so maybe he wanted to join him until the revolution happened and Napoleon no longer supported Corsican independence.
I would not count of SA being an ally for ever. I find this highly inappropriate especially for someone with sich high rank. Very very dangerous territory that could end up with a treason charge.
In the United States, the charge of treason only has meaning within the context of a declared war (due to it's specific definition within the constitution). Given that wars are no longer declared, I don't foresee even literal traitors being charged with treason until either a law is passed creating a different charge with different criteria, or Congress decides to check the Executive regarding the declaration of war. No reason to believe either are on the horizon; it's entirely possible no one will ever be charged with treason in the United States ever again.
Non-competes should include compensation commensurate for the non-compete period. In the case of these individuals is the retirement package not sufficient to guard national secrets?
Your comment reminds me of a scene in the Rolling Stones' Altamont Concert film: Keith Richards is hanging out of his dressing room door and he answers a queston, "Yeah, we sold out, but it was for the money so that's okay! (laughter)" From Keith Richards, it was funny. A retired general claiming the military did not provide enough incentive to guard national secrets would also be laughable, but in a different sense.
Unrelated to the topic of this discussion and elsewhere in the film, Mick Jagger answers another question, "Am I satisfied? Sexually, yes. Philosophically, no." (Working from hazy memories here -- I last saw the movie in the 1970s, I think.)
The security agreements they signed are sufficient to guard national secrets. It has nothing to do with whether they go to work for Raytheon, the Saudi Defense Ministry, or Goodwill in their retirement, their compensation packages, etc.
I'm not seeing how 'security agreements' can guard against them deciding to just stay in Saudi Arabia with the patronage of the princes.
Expatriates would still be subject to not disclosing national secrets. It's not like they're former second-rate steak salesmen.
Subject by whom? The Saudi Arabian government has their own agenda. And obviously the U.S. government cannot enforce laws or policies in Riyadh.
You honestly think an American flag officer would defect to Saudi Arabia? Really?
Russia, China, or Iran would be a far "better" choice for a number of reasons, chiefly the fact that the Saudis might turn the turncoat back over to the US for any number of reasons — like pulling American maintenance contractors out of KSA, which would ground their air force in a matter of days and leave them very vulnerable to Iranian aggression. Hell, without contractor representatives giving them cues I wonder if they can really run some of the gear we've sold them.
Besides, if I'm going to be stuck in one dictatorship for the rest of my life (because you could never safely travel again), I'd pick somewhere like Iran over KSA in a second.
I was originally responding to your comment that: 'The security agreements they signed are sufficient to guard national secrets.'
High ranking officers can just as much buy plane tickets as anyone else. Yes, including to countries that may not have entirely harmless intentions.
Signatures on a piece of paper are not the final arbiter of disputes between countries, as demonstrated by the previous administration. Even if they were, not everyone can be trusted 100% just because they made promises to that effect, actions speak louder than words after all.
And I was responding to the idea that a retirement package is a meaningful protection against espionage.
Even if a cleared military member gets nothing after their separation (perhaps do to a court martial or the like), there's still no justification in spying, especially not after the agreements and acknowledgements cleared individuals sign throughout their careers. Those documents are what put convicted spies in places like ADX Florence, and no degree of whining about one's pension changes that.
Okay, so then it seems you replied to the wrong comment with your prior comment. Since that is a different topic.
This is what I replied to:
>Non-competes should include compensation commensurate for the non-compete period. In the case of these individuals is the retirement package not sufficient to guard national secrets?
This was the strange comment I was referring to:
"You honestly think an American flag officer would defect to Saudi Arabia? Really? Russia, China, or Iran would be a far "better" choice for a number of reasons, chiefly the fact that the Saudis might turn the turncoat back over to the US for any number of reasons — like pulling American maintenance contractors out of KSA, which would ground their air force in a matter of days and leave them very vulnerable to Iranian aggression. Hell, without contractor representatives giving them cues I wonder if they can really run some of the gear we've sold them. Besides, if I'm going to be stuck in one dictatorship for the rest of my life (because you could never safely travel again), I'd pick somewhere like Iran over KSA in a second."
Which seems to be aimed at addressing a different topic.
Working for Raytheon vs working for KSA is like the difference between buying an index that has a bunch of AAPL and buying AAPL. You're "fractionally" working for KSA (and whoever else).
My dim understanding is that once you are enrolled in General- and Admiral-level security clearances, you are not quite free free to freelance your experience globally without significant limitations.
The key questions raised would seem to be: did they in fact obtain the required signoffs, and are the current requirements sufficient or do they need some adjustment?
>did they in fact obtain the required signoffs,
You don't get official "signoff" when you're at that level. You get plausibly deniable permission with the understanding that the powers that be reserve the right to pull the rug out from under you should doing so be politically expedient.
The saudis are allies and we sell them many of our top weapon systems.
It seems the ethics and wisdom of that is the debate.
Yes, and there are a lot of signoffs involved.
Saudi Arabia hasn't really been a us ally since about 2016 when Saudi Arabia tried dumping oil price to ruin the us shale industry. Ever since the USA has been preparing to strike back. Look up the NOPEC bill. It looks like the USA plan is to charge Saudi Arabia with manipulating oil prices (being a cartel is literally the stated goal of OPEC). SA knows this and they're aligning themselves with Russia and China (with whom they're ideologically closer anyway).
Also just a comment, the dichotomy "they are free not slaves" is entirely useless to this discussion. There are countless examples from elsewhere in society of where a person isn't a slave but still has constraints on how they can earn money.
> Saudi Arabia hasn't really been a us ally since
But then who has "really" been an ally since whenever? All sovereign nations have national interests, and they are not 100% allied with the US interests.
Still, in the case of Saudi Arabia, their most important security concern is Iran. And there, they are aligned with the US. Also, the US is the most important security partner of Israel, and, according to wikipedia [1], Saudi Arabia has quite a good working relationship with Israel
A former general working for Saudi Arabia is in no way traitorous. It absolutely makes sense, both in their personal interest, but also in the general US national interest.reports have surfaced in recent years indicating extensive behind-the-scenes diplomatic, intelligence, and security cooperation between the two as part of a larger Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran (see Iran–Israel proxy conflict and Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict) and, more recently, Turkey under Erdoğan. At the same time, the Saudi relationship with the Palestinian National Authority is deteriorating.Yes, I know about Kashogi. But those guys are not going there to tell MBS to kill more disidents. They are going there to give security advice. And that security advice will benefit the US, not hinder it, because it will result in a stronger ally, not a stronger enemy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_re...
> But then who has "really" been an ally since whenever?
All I'm pointing out is that the relationship between US and SA is souring. Simple stuff. Who has "really" bla bla bla I don't know dude, I can't be bothered to fight over semantics.
Aren't there literally American military bases in Saudi Arabia? https://militarybases.com/overseas/saudi-arabia/ How much more allied can you get?
Like I said, this is a story in development now.
Yes, there are bases in SA, and the US has threatened to pull them out.
[1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/06/oil-dispute-p...
[2] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-democrats-slam-opec-cu...
Sure, no one has any responsibility for what his employer does or where the cash comes from. Mafia mentality has taken over the tech world apparently.
Russia and Iran weren't behind 9/11, Saudi Arabia (or at least key parts of the current ruling royal family) was.
Wow, I can't believe the "free market" argument is being used to justify top military leaders serving other countries. I guess we aren't a country anymore. Just one big (free) market.
Truly late stage capitalism here.
a lot of people in this comment section seem kind of confused about the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia?
This isn't at all surprising, why wouldn't you hire American military to go with your American military hardware?
Not only that, we have active duty American service members stationed in Saudi Arabia working as instructors and advisors on how to maintain and employ that hardware.
Saudi pilots are routinely trained at American military flight schools like Fort Rucker and NAS Pensacola. The performance of these Saudi student pilots is usually terrible[1], by the way, to the point that it's a running joke in the American military aviation community. This is probably because their officers are selected based on having royal blood, not based on merit, whereas getting into flight school is highly competitive for Americans. I'm told that Saudi Arabia pays a lot of money to send these guys for training, so instructors aren't allowed to fail them. Basically, the instructors pencil-whip their progress and let them graduate, but then Saudi Arabia seems to really need some experienced Americans on-hand to keep things from going off the rails.
[1] I was paired with a Saudi during flight school. For example, all students had to score 100% on a written test on aircraft limits and emergency procedures before ever getting into the cockpit. American students would get a second chance if they got one or two questions wrong, but that was rare and embarrassing, and there would be no third chance. My Saudi partner, on the other hand, scored something like 16% on his first attempt and then received five or six more chances. When we actually got into the air, he wasn't much better. During the first week, I approached my commander and told him that I was uncomfortable flying with this guy, but he assured me that our instructors dealt with this situation all the time and knew how to manage it safely. Later in my career, I saw a bit of what happens behind the scenes and learned that cheating among Saudi students was also rampant and effectively allowed to continue.
Because the United States should not be involved in invoking terror on the Yemenese population.
Why selling them weapons then? Except if they were intended for gardening and what we have here - an obvious breach of TOS.
> invoking terror on the Yemenese population
To clarify the US is invoking terror on the Yemeni Iranian proxy forces and therefore the population.
I mean, I agree! But it is, and this specific thing is only part of that.
It's not confusion, it's disgust. Everybody understands that Saudi's are the leading exporters of terrorism and the US helps enable that terrorism with our money and intel. Then we condemn Putin and expect the entire world to take it seriously.
Even awesomer is heading up Washington "institutions" like Brookings while taking a foreign paycheck.
https://www.vox.com/23166516/scandal-john-allen-brookings-th...
The court filing alleges that Allen had been tapped by two unregistered representatives of Qatar — a business executive named Imaad Zuberi and a former US ambassador to the UAE, Richard Olson — to advocate on Qatar’s behalf. (That Olson used the email address rickscafedxb@yahoo.com, a reference to the seedy Rick’s Cafe in the film Casablanca and the airport code for Dubai, might have been a tip-off that no one should be shocked that something was awry.)
Agh, and he probably thought he was just so clever with that email too. Ex-military officials should stick to joining the boards of defense conglomerates that their former friends and colleagues are going to spend billions of dollars with.
My guess is that the military is only the tip of the State iceberg.
Shortly after Olson left the State Department, several Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, launched a blockade against Qatar that sparked a massive spending spree in Washington on lobbying and other efforts to influence the US policy.
Olson, Zuberi and retired Marine four-star Gen John Allen traveled to Doha early in the diplomatic crisis to meet with top Qatari officials and discuss ways of resolving the issue, according to court records and a statement Allen’s spokesman provided to the wire service last year.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/954208-ex-us-ambassador-to-...
Chances are good these US ex-military are not loyal to Saudi Arabia. They're only doing it for the money, not fanatical idealisms. We have the Logan Act and Espionage Act to protect us, and we benefit from these activities through income taxes.
Law is only a paper veneer to keep honest people honest. Legal acts do about as much to deter desertion and security leaks as speed limit signs keep people from speeding.
That's an awfully bold statement. It'd be nice if you showed some evidence that classified information leakage and military desertion rates are anywhere near the rate of speed limit violations, which at a first approximation I would guess is pretty near 100% of licensed drivers doing it at least once. As a person who served in the military and still holds a clearance, I don't know the true rates, but in 15 years I have so far witnessed 0 desertions and 0 classified spills (caveat that I did witness one accidental copy of a classified course catalog onto an unclassified e-mail that was self-reported and immediately resulted in every unclassified workstation and hard drive in the 1st CAV headquarters being quarantined and wiped until it was determined the spill went no further, and we had no network access for a week while that was happening).
>> Law is only a paper veneer to keep honest people honest.
> That's an awfully bold statement.
Worse, it is entirely false on its face because it not only completely ignores enforcement as well as social contract, the purpose of law is not "to keep honest people honest," nor is law "paper veneer." Laws are rules to regulate behavior, and as such fundamentally they are ideas, therefore they are intangible and only recorded to medium like paper, digital storage, stone tablets, what have you.
The former president routinely leaked classified information and took whole boxes worth or documents to his house after the presidency. Edwards Snowden and Julian Assange exist. There have been many "leaks" of classified information. Just because you and your associated coworkers didn't leak doesn't mean that leaks don't happen, unfortunately.
Sure, but can you generalize the behavior of Trump, Snowden, and Assange to that of a bunch of retired military officers?
Incidence matters. If intentional classified information leaks were commonplace and unsurprising, then sure, we could say we expect retired military officers to routinely follow the example of Trump, Snowden, and Assange when it comes to classified information. But I don't think any of us can make that claim.
Intentional classified information leakage is relatively uncommon, and, for the most part, is punished when it happens and a perpetrator can be identified and caught. Obviously in the case of Trump, that potential punishment is politically fraught, as was/is the case with Assange. The US government would love to punish Snowden if they could get their grubby hands on him. I guess look to Chelsea Manning if you want an example of when the government has successfully brought down the hammer on someone doing things with classified material that they didn't like.
To bring it back to the topic at hand, I expect that the retired military officers now taking employment with the Saudi Arabian military will most likely protect any secrets they're legally bound to protect. Why? Because that's what seems to happen most of the time, and punishments for failure to do so can get pretty severe. And someone who wanted to sell secrets might have a difficult time if their chosen country of exile is SA. If found out, they'd have to contend with the strong possibility that the SA government would extradite them to the US, depending on what kind of pressure the US might bring to bear.
> Law is only a paper veneer to keep honest people honest.
Not all laws.[1]
> Legal acts do about as much to deter desertion and security leaks as speed limit signs keep people from speeding.
Seems to be working well so far.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gr...
But I hear that black holes are *notoriously* dishonest...
Because you can't get any accurate information out of them?
I was thinking that they don't obey Newton's laws...
They obey his Law of Gravity and his Laws of Motion. Newton was not incorrect and Einstein did not invalidate Newton's laws. It's only that Newton could not explain the source of the "force" of gravity, and he was honest about this.
It's not uncommon for ex-military to take such jobs as a way to insulate the Pentagon (or your favourite government) even though they in fact still 'work'for them.
This was (still is?) a classic of French influence in Africa, for instance.
Here my interpretation is that the US keep a close watch on the Saudis...
That's an interesting interpretation and I hope you're right. I read it and just assumed it was people finally cashing out after public service and going to the highest bidder.
Oh they do get a great payday, but that does not necessarily mean that they cut informal ties with the Pentagon or do things against the wishes of the Pentagon.
In this case, the US and the Saudis have been 'tight' for 70 years so one can imagine it is all very friendly...
And Michael Flynn?
> do things against the wishes of the Pentagon
I'm betting that the Pentagon prefers their retired senior staff don't whore themselves out to potential adversaries. But unless and until they cross a formal line, what are you gonna do? If the Pentagon comes across as punitive, e.g. by revoking any latent security clearances, there'll be a huge backlash. This form of consulting and liaising with international groups by retired military is nothing new, and there are legions of retired staff leveraging their status one way or another. It's a perk of the job. It's also not new that it can sometimes be rather unseemly, to say the least. What might be new is the amount of money being thrown around.
These relationships are quite valuable because while it may not seem that way in our social media bubbles and among our international cosmopolitan peers, the day-to-day cultures and administrative machinations of various governments and militaries can be extremely opaque simply because of the huge differences in presumptions and expectations. And this is true even among allies with seemingly similar cultures, which is why even a country like the U.S. with veritable armies of intelligence analysts do ridiculous *hit like bug Angela Merkel's cellphone. Retired personnel don't need to divulge secrets to provide extremely valuable and timely insights, especially as between countries like the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
> does not necessarily mean that they cut informal ties with the Pentagon
Just the opposite, it's those ties and connections that the Saudi's are buying.
The US Army let soldiers take leave to fight in Afghanistan’s during the 1980s. This is small potatoes compared to that.
This would be my first assumption - if not the pentagon then the CIA.
Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case.
I’m not saying that there’s going to be a bunch of treasoning or anything, just that the laws you’re citing wouldn’t be particularly useful if said treasoning did happen.
Doing anything remotely perceived as treasonous seems dumb. More than likely they are acting closer to spies for the US (against SA) in these positions.
> Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case.
I wouldn't be so sure. SA depends on the US for a significant amount of military equipment and training. They might turn over a US traitor if they got even a whiff of that help being threatened.
How else will they retire? It's not like CNN and MSNBC can hire all of them!
I don't know, they seem pretty determined to. I'm surprised at the complete breakdown of journalistic independence, right when news outlets are in a financial position where they should be trumpeting that sort of justification for their existence.
Yeah, and Ollie North ruined it for military people at Fox /s
He was pardoned for his crimes!
For background not found in this article, a US general's retirement pension is north of $200,000 a year plus zero-cost "Cadillac" healthcare coverage and other benefits as well.
I know they’re ostensibly an ally of the US but I find this hella suspect and not at all cool on their part. Sure they’re likely doing it for the money. But MBS is a bad dude, he killed an American journalist, and the Saudis would sell us out to the highest bidder if they could.
If they're an ally, it's to our benefit that their military is strong.
If they become an enemy, it doesn't hurt that we built their military and know everything about it inside out.
If the US could make every other country's military a subsidiary of the US military, they would.
> If they become an enemy, it doesn't hurt that we built their military and know everything about it inside out.
What if you know it inside out and all it benefits you is that you now know they have a competent and robust organization, whereas before they were bungling idiots and you only kind-of knew the extent of it?
You will know exactly how competent and how robust as well as exactly what their limitations and weaknesses are. You'll also know all their internal procedures, what decisions they'll make in a given situation before they make them (because you taught them what to do), the exact capabilities of their weapons, where they deploy their forces, it's information the military would literally kill for against any enemy.
Maybe they would have otherwise been bungling and inept, but that is pretty poor planning to to just hope that your enemy is incompetent. The more likely scenario is they would be competent and you just wouldn't know anything about them.
A competent enemy you can predict is probably better than an incompetent one you can't. Better to know in advance exactly what competent thing they will do so you can anticipate it. Incompetent people can still get lucky and can hurt you when they act in ways you don't expect.
"We all have to eat" [0], including retired US generals.
This is not as bad as it reads. Understand that the top brass in the DoD are extremely loyal to the country, loyalty and trust is crucial in the officer corps (in the US at least).
Once you get that star (or whatever the equivalent is for the navy) you are basically a US officer for life. Retired Generals and Admirals can and do get called upon by the government when they are needed. They are considered highly experienced professionals that the government can trust. They are not "in" the system, they are the system.
I would expect that the DoD keeps tabs on these officers. While the oil money may be nice, make no mistake, the US government is the wealthiest organization on the planet. These officers understand who the real provider is.
They're so loyal that they're working for the guys who planned 9/11, and not just working for them, but giving them expertise.
I see you and raise you one Flynn.
Apparently British officers are taking positions with the Chinese too.
Just in case you need another data point.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hong-kong-protesters-turn...
Having lived through this, it's a bit funny to me that most people aren't aware the Chinese crackdown on Hong Kong protests was led by British officers on the field. Inconvenient truths I guess.
it might sound weird, but if they're allowing it they're probably using it to gain intel while not giving away any valuable info
How is this different to the Saudi crown prince hiring MPRI, DynCorp, or any other US private military company that largely employs retired US army personnel?
This is much worse
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Bad optics, certainly. Both for the U.S. and for the DoD retirees working for not-so-savory governments.
OTOH - certain foreign governments paying top dollar to employ a bunch of military big shots from the U.S. does not say good things about their local talent pools. And the situation may look less-than-inspired to what talented young locals there are.
> paying top dollar to employ a bunch of military big shots from the U.S. does not say good things about their local talent pools
It depends. If it's just "talent" they're after, then sure. If they're after things that can only come from a US military big shot, then it's a different issue.
This is spam. It doesn't matter that there is a news article behind that pay wall.
More reason why veterans need more protection in the USA.
this is an example of something which was entirely uncontroversial becoming a scandal only after changes in the relationship. Two weeks ago, a non story.
Follow the money.
Traitors united.
Working for the butcher prince. We don't need that kind of people near any NATO army. Let's hope they stay in Saudi Arabia.
In other news, this is just another symptom of a shrinking US empire. Pax americana is starting to crumble.
While I'm in general agreement that we should stop treating Saudi Arabia like it's the ally we want it to be given their actions in Yemen, with OPEC and their direct ties to 9/11.
But your comment is particularly funny because you brought up NATO [1]:
> One typical example is General Adolf Heusinger, a career military officer who, with the outbreak of the Second World War, became part of the German headquarters field staff and helped plan the Nazi invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, France and the Low Countries. The Nazis perpetrated against Poland one of the worst crimes history has ever known. Poland suffered the largest number of casualties per capita of any European country, with a total of about six million people killed. Heusinger rose quickly through the Wehrmacht’s administrative ranks and in 1944 was appointed Adolf Hitler’s Chief of the General Staff of the Army.
> With the 1955 establishment of the Bundeswehr, the reconstituted West German Armed Forces, Heusinger returned to military service, and was appointed Lieutenant-General in 1955. In 1957, he was promoted to full general and named the first Inspector-General of the Bundeswehr. He served in that capacity until 1961. In 1961, Heusinger was appointed Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, making him the senior military spokesperson for NATO and in 1963 he also became NATO’s chief of staff, serving in that capacity until 1964.
There were a number of other ex-Nazis in NATO's ranks and leadership.
Generals who oversaw Abu Ghraib are no different.
Pax Americana is definitely crumbling before our eyes.
It's ok for two different things to both be bad, we don't have to pretend they're the same.
They're similar in that they're both beyond the pale.
For example, Manadel al-Jamadi was murdered in detention, while being tortured by the US military. The people who murdered him then took "thumbs up" photos with his corpse.
No one was punished for his murder.
NSFW, his corpse is pictured on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Manadel_al-Jamadi
I don't see much of a difference between the two. They're both institutional murder and torture.
There is action and there is the reaction. You could argue that the action is identical. But the reaction—internal, institutional, political—was and is not participating similar.
People in power will abuse power. That’s inevitable in any regime. What makes the difference is how they are held accountable, especially by their own regime.
Under both Obama and Trump the US provided *direct* logistical and targeting support for the Saudi bombing of Yemeni targets. Biden finally stopped it in 2021. The humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen would not have happened without U.S acquiescence.
Saudi Arabia is not a U.S adversary, it is an ungrateful client state and has been since Roosevelt.
> Pax americana is starting to crumble.
You mean Pax Israel is starting to crumble. Is it a coincidence that Yair Lapid is now advocating for a two state solution? They see the writing on the wall.
Crumbling for sure. But incredible turn arounds have happened before. Consider the US posture at the end of the 1970s vs only a decade later.
US tax dollars spent training these mercenaries!
Money wins. The admirals probably couldn’t resist the million dollar paychecks. I bet they would happily divulge all they know - mo matter how top secret-for the right price.