Everybody is against corruption, so it has become the new cool way to concentrate power in dictatorial societies to engage in an anti-corruption drive, as Putin and Xi Jinping have done. Actually corrupt people may well be arrested, but somehow included in the set of those arrested are rivals of the leader who are conveniently disposed of.
So we now see it in Saudi Arabia, where Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman has been leading a special anti-corruption committee approved of by the Saudi ulama, and now it has arrested 11 princes accused of corruption. As in other countries, many of them, possibly all of them are guilty, but included among them are some rivals of Muhammed’s for power, and, indeed the full set of names has not been released.
The most important in terms of being a rival is the now former commander of the SANG, the Saudi Arabian National Guard, which was long commanded by Prince Meti bin Abdullah, son of the long time former King Abdullah. Before Meti commanded SANG, Abdullah did so for decades and had the HQ of SANG on his own palace grounds within a wall. SANG has long been the rival military in Saudi Arabia to the regular military under the Defense Department, which has been under the control of the crown prince since his father became king, succeeding Abdullah. SANG has a base among the tribes, and it was SANG that finally defeated the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) uprising in 1979 that had led them to seizing control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Abdullah was SANG commander at that time, and he had the reputation of having excellent relations with tribal leaders. His sone was clearly a threat and rival to the crown prince, and now he is out. The commander of the Saudi navy has also been replaced, although not clear if he has been arrested.
Among the others who are out is the Minister of the Economy, and among the arrested is one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest men, Prince al-Waleed bin Talal. His father was long the leader of the secularizing and liberalizing faction among the sons of Saudi Arabia’s founder, Abdulaziz.
The crown prince has also been making speeches about how he wants to encourage a moderate form of Saudi Islam. I wish him luck on that, and his move to allow women to drive starting next June does provide some credibility on this front, although probably with major limits. As it is, Saudi Arabia is apparently funding the building of many madrassas in Southeast Asia, including Bangladesh and Indonesia, where the local forms of Islam are far more moderate than even a moderate form of Saudi Wahhabism would be.
In any case, under the guise of cleaning up corruption, which he may be doing at least partly, it looke like Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman is cementing his power, following in the footsteps of such role models as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Barkley Rosser
Barkley,
You should probably think in a wider framework of color revolution, not in the narrow framework of (possibly inflated) corruption charges. This is about de-legitimization, not about the corruption pe se.
BTW the charge in corruption is a standard tool used in color revolutions.
So it is far from only “the new cool way to concentrate power in dictatorial societies”. It is more of an old way to induce “regime change”.
It is perfectly applicable to political struggle in neoliberal societies as well as we see now with Trump. Probably even more, as “greed is good” morale imperative implies. Also provides opponents of Trump high moral ground to attach him and his entourage.
We can start analysis from Trump campaign against Hillary
If it would be more interesting to analyze the current anti-Trump campaign from this angle. especially recent Robert Mueller’s indictments
.
We can view then as a kind of attempt to “import” color revolution methods of “regime change” into the USA in order to depose Trump.
In other words boomerang eventually returns.
Here are some signs 9 from https://www.sott.net/article/334026-SOTT-Exclusive-A-Purple-Color-revolution-in-the-US-Learn-the-signs-of-color-revolutions ):
== quote ==
The Chinese pastor Leung has outlined the 12 steps of regime change.
The key difference is that this time it is not the U.S. making regime change overseas, but in America itself to serve the powers that be.
The 12 steps are:
1.Dispatch CIA, MI6 and other intelligence officers as students, tourists, volunteers, businessmen, reporters to the target country
2.Set up Non Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) under the guise of humanitarianism to fight for “democracy” and “human rights” in order to attract advocates of freedom and ideals
3.Attract local traitors, especially academics, politicians, reporters, soldiers etc. through bribery or threaten those who have some stain in their life
4.If the target country has unions, bribe them
5.Pick a catchy theme or color for the revolution. Examples include the Praque spring (1968), Velvet Revolution (Eastern Europe, 1989), Rose Revolution (Georgia, 2003), Cedar Revolution (Lebanon, 2005), Orange Revolution (Ukraine 2004), Green Revolution (Iran), Jasmine Revolution, Arab Spring and even Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution
6.Start protests for whatever reasons to kick off the revolution. It could be human rights, democracy, government corruption or electoral fraud. Evidence isn’t necessary; an excuse will do.
7.Write protest signs and banners in English to let Americans see and get Americans politicians and civilians involved
8.Let those corrupted politicians, intellectuals and union leaders join the protests and call upon all people with grievances to join
9.The US and European mainstream media help by continuously emphasizing that the revolution is caused by injustice and thereby gaining the support of the majority
10.When the whole world is watching stage a false-flag action. The target government will soon be destabilized and lose support among its people
11.Add in violent agent provocateurs to provoke the police to use force. This will cause the target government to lose the support of other countries and become “delegitimized” by the international community
12.Send politicians to the US, EU, the UN to petition so that the target government will face the threat of economic sanctions, no-fly zones and even airstrikes and an armed rebel uprising.
Oh, I don’t think so, Likbez. The really big numbers of arrests for corruption as part of a power grab have not been in color revolution nations, but in long estabilished regimes. So in China Xi Joinping has arrested about 1.4 million people in the CPC on anti-corruption charges since he took power. No wonder nobody was voting against him at the recent party congress.
Then we have Erdogan in Turkkey, who has arrested something like 70,000. Now a lot of those have been busted for supposedly being part of the Gulenist copu attempt, but many have been buseed for couurption. Yeah, color places do it, but these are the places with the reallyi big numbers.
Oh, and the numbers arrested in Saudi Arabia apparently now exceed 200, and that is not coloar revolution, nor is what has gone on in the US.
“Oh, I don’t think so, Likbez. The really big numbers of arrests for corruption as part of a power grab have not been in color revolution nations, but in long estabilished regimes.”
Not true. After Ukrainian Maidan color revolution (2014) there were wide purges on corruption changes of supporters of ousted President Yanukovich.
The current “Russiagate” color revolution against Trump recently started to concentrate on corruption charges (Mueller’s first indictments). They are definitely not wide. But they send a message to Trump and serve classic for color revolution de-legitimization purpose.
In the context of the USA they probably do not actually need them to be wide as they can be amplified 100 or 1000 times by anti-Trump MSM.
See https://www.amazon.com/Power-Struggle-Politics-Nonviolent-Action/dp/087558070X/
In both cases there is a strong support within the intelligence agencies of the actions that can help to depose elected President (Brennan, Clapper, possibly Comey in case of the USA). Along with goal was to froze the possibility détente with Russia. Which was achieved to the delight of all neocons. .
There is some discussions about the possibility that DNC hack was a false flag operation in classic color regulation fashion. See
http://kickthemallout.com/article.php/On_The_Origins_of_Russia-gate
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/11/trump-points-to-weaknesses-of-russian-hacking-claims-media-still-ignore-them.html
Likbez,
Oh dear, are you some Putin troll? This is total bs.
Almost nobody was arrested for corruption after the Maidan uprising, a handful of mid-tier politicians after a long lag. Yanukovich and his inner circle all fled successfully to Russia, although Yanukovich’s estate was plundered by demonstraters.
OTOH, somewhere between 70 and 200 demonstraters were shot by snipers, with many charging these were under the control of the Russian FSB. I do not know about that, but 9 snipers were arrested and jailed. So, are you talking about these 9 snipers who killed people, Likbez? You look more like “lick Putin’s behind and his shoddy propaganda.”
As for worrying about a coup against Trump and comparing this to anything happening in Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, or Turkey, you must be out of your mind. This is total Trump/ Putin troll garbage.
Two notes:
Yanukovich was a corrupt pro-western Politian who tried to balance Ukraine between West and Russia milking both. It is incorrect to view he as pro_russian politician. His mentor was Joe Biden, not Vladimit Putin.
He did managed to escape to Russia, that does not mean that Maidan organizer did not try to kill him. They understood that if he escapes alive, their legitimacy is jeopardy.
Russia BTW refused to recognize Ukrainian government in exile as they hated Yanukovich for his anti-Russian moves too. They did not even allow him to come to Moscow: he was exiled to some provincial city — Rostov on Don as a regular refugee, who face mortal danger in his home country, if I not mistaken.
As for Maidan shooting I would recommend you to read research by Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D. School of Political Studies & Department of Communication University of Ottawa Ottawa
The number of victim you cite is incorrect too, See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_killed_during_Euromaidan
Likbez,
This will be my last post on this thread, which is now in the zone where nobody reads them except maniacs, which you seem to be.
Please do not spout screaming drivelly lies such as that Yanukovich was pro-western. Gag, you are such a blatant Putin troll. Are you being paid for this sort of garbage? Yeah, he made a move to get in with the EU, but he was pressured by internal political pressures to do so, and readily pulled out of it when Putin snapped his fingers. Please do not take either me or anybody else still reading for this such idiotic fools. Really.
Oh, the Russians took him in and all his pals. But they did not bother setting him up as a government in exile because Putin simply decided to take over parts of Ukraine directly himself, which he promptly did. I do think you may have heard about the annexation of Crimea, not to mention those uprisings in Donetsk and Luhansk, although I suppose you deny that they were supported at all by Putin and the Russians, simply local and spontaneous and gloriously anti-fascist. While you are at it you might as well add the story told for awhile on Russian media that the Malaysian airliner contained the already dead bodies that had been in the one that went down in the Indian Ocean. Hey, that is about as reasonable as the rest of the nonsense you have been spouting here.
As for me being wrong about the dead in Maidan, I said between 70 and 200, and your source says 130, which, I note is almost exactly in the middle of the range I provided. Are you able to read, moron?
And as for the snipers, note that I said that “many have charged” that they were run by the FSB, not that they definitely were. But the numbers claiming what I said are much larger than those supporting what your guy with his paper said. I do not know the answer on that one.
Anyway, outtahere. Good-by and good riddance.
Just a bit more to bring this back to the main thread and put a hard period on it. You dragged in this whole Ukrainian issue, which is basically a sideshow to this thread, because you claimed that there had been this big purge after the Maidan revolution or whatever you want to label it. I went and wasted time checking out what I thought was an incorrect claim, and indeed found that it was an incorrect claim, a very incorrect claim.
That is why I brought in the nine snipers, because they were the only people arrested in the immediate aftermath of the change of government, although much later there was a small number of arrests of some low level officials. For the purposes of this discussion, it does not matter who was the boss of the nine snipers, what matters is that they did indeed kill a lot of people (somewhere between 70 and 200 probably, maybe even the 130 you seem to think is the precisely correct number). They were not “purged” for “corruption,” and do not remotely resemble the large numbers arrested by Xi Jinping, Erdogan, or Muhammed bin Salman. They are totally irrelevant.
As it is, the facts of the poor leadership in Ukraine and the details of the Maidan uprising and related Putin activities are utterly and totally irrelevant to this discussion beyond the fact that you lied about their being a purge based on claiming corruption.
Got it? So, shut up and get lost, you worthless troll.