$110bn arms deals agreed as Trump visits Saudi Arabia - Polidicks

[media]https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/675523728055410689[/media] Another saga in Trump Tweets [editline]21st May 2017[/editline] [URL="https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10157164318560725"]here's another[/URL]: [QUOTE]Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money from such countries![/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52258499]I don't trust Wikileaks and neither should you.[/quote] You don't trust in wikileaks in that the emails might be fake? May I remind you that Wikileaks has yet to be proven to create fake emails with anything they have released? [quote] You have no way of proving this.[/QUOTE] So you are just ignoring every link I posted and the one I specifically pointed out to you? That specific one is pretty clearly a Prime Minister admitting direct intervention by Clinton was made for a donor to keep his position in politics despite law saying he must retire.

[QUOTE=Tudd;52258519]You don't trust in wikileaks in that the emails might be fake? May I remind you that Wikileaks has yet to be proven to create fake emails with anything they have released? [/QUOTE] I don't trust them because they've become partisan as fuck [QUOTE]So you are just ignoring every link I posted and the one I specifically pointed out to you? That specific one is pretty clearly a Prime Minister admitting direct intervention by Clinton was made on behalf of donor to keep his position.[/QUOTE] So how did Clinton personally benefit from this

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52258534]I don't trust them because they've become partisan as fuck [/quote] So you aren't discrediting the email itself, but the people who released it? How does that effect the content of email for you? Just want to point this out, cause it does appear you are dismissing the email itself despite no evidence for it being fraudulent. [quote] So how did Clinton personally benefit from this[/QUOTE] I don't know Clinton's motive besides making sure her donor keeps a position, but it is still clear intervention move on his behalf and certainly a benefit to keep people who have donated previously to the foundation in positions of power.

[QUOTE=Tudd;52258568]So you aren't discrediting the email itself, but the people who released it? How does that effect the content of email for you?[/QUOTE] It's been suggested that some of the docs in the macron leak [url=http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/07/macron-email-leaks-far-right-wikileaks-twitter-bots.html]are fake[/url] I feel justified in my mistrust. [QUOTE]I don't know Clinton's motive besides making sure her donor keeps a position, but it is still clear intervention move on his behalf and certainly a benefit to keep people who have donated previously to the foundation in positions of power.[/QUOTE] So you can't prove it cool. [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-clue-to-the-whereabouts-of-the-6-foot-tall-portrait-of-donald-trump/2016/09/14/ae65db82-7a8f-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html]here's[/url] an example of someone personally benefiting from a donation by the way

[QUOTE=Tudd;52258400] Your opinion, but I think he has done well negotiating in alot of areas, and not the overall failure this forum likes to paint him.[/QUOTE] I think it's less my opinion and more the fact that virtually everything he has accomplished has been achieved through unilateral executive action. Not a single piece of significant legislation passed even while his party controlled both houses of Congress, which tells me he isn't good enough negotiator to even sell his own party on his ideas. I don't think this forum likes to paint trump as a failure for funsies (well, some do I guess), more it's just a reaction to the fact that so far Trump's presidency has been genuinely disappointing. [QUOTE=Tudd;52258400]Still highlights even with Bush's connections how hard it is to get Saudi Arabia to align on foreign interests.[/QUOTE] Getting Saudi Arabia to agree to a large scale war in their own backyard is a far, far cry from getting them invested in a nominally humanitarian operation focused on one country. [QUOTE=Tudd;52258400]It came off as a zinger with the one sentence send off and lack of acknowledgement that the no fly over Syria is a geopolitical manuever to control a war zone, while a safe zone is to help harbor/process refugees and by [I]consequence[/I] needs things like air superiority to maintain its integrity. They are not similar in motivation or overall function. Just because one potentially creates/needs the other in parts doesn't mean they are the same. [/QUOTE] It seems like Clinton's desire for a No Fly Zone is almost exactly what Trump's request for a safe zone would be predicated upon. It wouldn't have been a unilateral thing affecting the whole country. There is no "potentially about it. The safe zones you are talking about (at least, ones that would be in Syria; calling refugee camps in other countries safe zones isn't terribly honest in my opinion) require them. That's why the ones set up by Russia/Turkey/Iran enforce No Fly Zones that NATO is respecting. [QUOTE=Tudd;52258400]I imagine the safe zones would function similarly to other safe zones created in non-border states like Greece, and thus functionally they would be located to their north most border towards Syria. Though I do know that the borders between Saudi Arabia and Iraq aren't as stringent as one imagines (from the Iraq side of it) and thus refugees probably would try to cross through Iraq as a buffer state.[/QUOTE] Trumps plan is to set up safe zones inside of Syria itself though. If we are talking about "safe zones" in countries like Greece then I really don't think they should be referred to as safe zones at all, since the connotation implies that areas immedietly outside of the zone are unsafe. Such as in most of Syria. [QUOTE=Tudd;52258400]I have made an earlier post regarding this abit. Overall I think the Clinton Foundation is documented political vehicle to gain access to the Clintons in hopes for favors. Any benefits they make to the world through it is awesome, but it was undoubtedly used for pay-to-play interactions in the political realm.[/QUOTE] I'm glad you care a lot about money in politics when it has to do strictly with the Clintons and not say, Trump, or the Republicans, or anyone else except maybe Obama, but really its beside the point. I'm not interested in talking about the Clinton Foundation. I want to know specifically what about Clinton would make you attack her over a deal you otherwise approve Trump making. [QUOTE=Tudd;52258400]I think intrinsically everyone wants the relationship with Saudi Arabia to change, but not get worse. If Trump has motivation to keep Saudi Arabia stable because he is aware of the cost of a destabilized SA would have on his hotels he use to run, then I say that is more of a consequence of the world economy than a conflict of interest. I think overall I am more interested in how he acts with this conflict of interest, than immediately condemn him for having pre-existing business in Saudi Arabia. And no, as already pointed out, Saudi Arabia not being on the DHS's Countries of Concern does not represent a clear conflict of interest issue with Trump and them.[/QUOTE] I see what you are saying here and I agree but the levels with which Trump might go to help the Saudi government (which has been so kind to him in the past; his words, not mine) might be higher than someone who has no pre-existing relationship with Saudi Arabia. It might cause him to make decisions that are detrimental to the United States or (more likely) to our allies. Any leverage, no matter how small it is or how slight the chance it could be leveraged is, is worse than no leverage. At this point I think the distinction between "conflict of interest" and "economic consequences" is largely academic. You seem to agree that its a conflict of interest, but one that presents a positive aspect rather than just a negative one. [QUOTE=Tudd;52258400]No I don't think Trump is immune to any of this. I think it is fairly obvious a person who has a their main career in politics, and then a side business in a foreign country is more concerning than someone who was Global Business man before going into politics. The potential for a conflict of interest in politics intrinsically more concerning with the person who's main job is to hopefully be as transparent as possible for their constituents. I am observing Trump as politician now since he started as a canidate, because to speculate he might have been playing all his foreign business deals only to cash in for his future career in politics is quite extraordinary and requires grand evidence to connect all those dots. [/QUOTE] And I just fundamentally disagree here. I think you should be much more wary of the man who has connections to foreign states then goes on to become the leader of his own nation, than someone who had no prior connections to the states he worked with and only became personally or financially involved with them after their objective tenure in office. I don't really see how such a claim is extraordinary or requires connecting any dots at all. Man who has businesses in a country might be more likely to deal with that country in ways that don't always align with the interests of the nation as a whole. Seems like common sense to me.

[QUOTE=Coyoteze;52257984]He's only "correct" because someone else wrote the speech for him. Now imagine him saying this in his [I]own [/I]words.[/QUOTE] Oh no a president had a speech written for him call CNN

While you guys diddle with Clinton thus just falling into Tudd's bait, here's some stuff that's actually on topic: [QUOTE]In his speech in Riyadh, he described Islam as “one of the world’s great faiths.” ([URL="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-21/trump-toast-of-town-at-riyadh-summit-as-talks-turn-to-politics?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social"]source[/URL])[/QUOTE] Before the meeting with Saudi Arabia: [QUOTE]I think Islam hates us([URL="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/09/politics/donald-trump-islam-hates-us/"]source[/URL])[/QUOTE] There's exceptions when there's money involved for personal benefit, typical business man. [QUOTE=OvB;52258638]Oh no a president had a speech written for him call CNN[/QUOTE] Look above to see what he says when he doesn't have his speeches written by a sensible person.

[QUOTE=OvB;52258638]Oh no a president had a speech written for him call CNN[/QUOTE] I get what the point is here but I don't think people would go out of their way to point it out there wasn't such a stark contrast between Trump reading a speech written by someone else and Trump speaking generally.

[QUOTE=Lambeth;52258592]It's been suggested that some of the docs in the macron leak [url=http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/07/macron-email-leaks-far-right-wikileaks-twitter-bots.html]are fake[/url] I feel justified in my mistrust.[/quote] So based off one unproven suggestion you are going to ignore the countless events proven true by the emails? These are the same emails that gave hackers the ability to login into John Podesta's Ipad, Donna Brazille to admit she received debate questions, and even US intelligence agencies concluded,[url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/07/wikileaks-cia-documents-us-russia-conflict] "Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries,” the agencies found."[/url] [quote] So you can't prove it cool.[/quote] Well you are basically then stating that Bangladesh Prime Minster has to be a liar or that somehow Clinton was only contacting her to keep the guy in power because of other non-beneficial reasons. If you got a good reason, please do state it. I think I have listed several other examples of pay-to-play interactions that you are also ignoring. [quote] [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-clue-to-the-whereabouts-of-the-6-foot-tall-portrait-of-donald-trump/2016/09/14/ae65db82-7a8f-11e6-ac8e-cf8e0dd91dc7_story.html]here's[/url] an example of someone personally benefiting from a donation by the way[/QUOTE] So you combat with a foundation misuse that can't be proved? Did you think that was going to be hard-hitting or something? Again, you have to essentially tell me the Bangladesh Prime Minister is lying when making her accusation, and you are still ignoring the other examples I provided. By the way, I would think that is shitty if it was just used for personal expense, but it really depends to whatever happened to the painting.

[QUOTE=Tudd;52258645]Well you are basically then stating that Bangladesh Prime Minster has to be a liar or that somehow Clinton was only contacting her to keep the guy in power because of other non-beneficial reasons. If you got a good reason, please do state it. I think I have listed several other examples of pay-to-play interactions that you are also ignoring.[/QUOTE] Anything outside of what you can actually prove are just conjecture and conspiracy theories. [editline]21st May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Tudd;52258645]So you combat with a foundation misuse that can't be proved? Did you think that was going to be hard-hitting or something. Again, you have to essentially tell me the Bangladesh Prime Minister is lying when making her accusation, and you are still ignoring the other examples I provided. By the way, I would think that is shitty if it was just used for personal expense, but it really depends to whatever happened to the painting.[/QUOTE] Hey what if Clinton spent foundation money on a painting of herself? wouldn't that be a tremendous abuse of important funds [editline]21st May 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Gwoodman;52258643]While you guys diddle with Clinton thus just falling into Tudd's bait, [/QUOTE] His point seems to be that when people donate to a charity that Ivanka is associated with, it is not currying favor but when people donate to a charity that Clinton is associated with, it is.

[QUOTE=Gwoodman;52258643]While you guys diddle with Clinton thus just falling into Tudd's bait, here's some stuff that's actually on topic: Before the meeting with Saudi Arabia: There's exceptions when there's money involved for personal benefit, typical business man. Look above to see what he says when he doesn't have his speeches written by a sensible person.[/QUOTE] [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4wy6qc/us_approves_115_billion_sale_to_saudi_arabia_of/"]wtf I love Islam now.[/URL] [editline]21st May 2017[/editline] Just to head off the inevitable whataboutism: The point is that presidents prior to Trump who dealt with Saudi Arabia didn't go out of their way to present such a detrimental attitude towards Islam as a whole prior to giving them hundreds of billions of dollars worth of arms. It's hypocritical, and shows a lack of judgement for someone who should definitely have known by March 2016 that he was inevitably going to have to deal with Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia.

[QUOTE=OvB;52258638]Oh no a president had a speech written for him call CNN[/QUOTE] Yeah you kind of missed my point there by a few miles. I'm saying if he'd written the speech himself, or even just gone off-script, it'd be a noticeable difference. There's people in the news saying Trumps speech was "very presidential". But, again, imagine if the speech wasn't written by someone else. It'd be a disaster, just like the man himself. Bush, for instance, was a bumbling idiot too but at least he wasn't a demented, narcissistic, pitiful and possible senile excuse of a man with the vocabulary of a 5-year old, and he actually held himself up very well when he was speaking without a ghostwriter. And god[I]damn[/I] does it feel weird to say something good about Dubya.

I don't care who you give the weapons to. Proxy wars are a recipe for trouble. Shit doesn't always end up how you think it will. Guys given the weapons might use them for a completely different purpose, the guns might be intercepted by a third party, etc. Why are we involved in Saudi again?

[QUOTE=Toybasher;52261263]Why are we involved in Saudi again?[/QUOTE] Because Saudi Arabia, with all its huge failings, is a stable country within a morass of instability.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52261304]Because Saudi Arabia, with all its huge failings, is a stable country within a morass of instability.[/QUOTE] Still, I thought Israel is supposed to be the stable country in the chaos of the Middle East. Maybe we should pull out of the M.E. completely. Nothing but trouble over there. :s:

[QUOTE=Trebgarta;52261559]Iran is a stable country :O[/QUOTE] I'd honestly take Iran over Saudi Arabia any fuckin' day of the week.

[QUOTE=Toybasher;52261307]Still, I thought Israel is supposed to be the stable country in the chaos of the Middle East. Maybe we should pull out of the M.E. completely. Nothing but trouble over there. :s:[/QUOTE] Yeah! But the black gold, man!