Surviving Capitalism (Not) : 2nd Saudi Strike on Russia after Putin´s Dismissal of Bandar´s Threat

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, October 31, 2013

2nd Saudi Strike on Russia after Putin´s Dismissal of Bandar´s Threat

Click here to access article by Christof Lehmann from nsnbc.

The author uses a recent terrorist bombing in southern Russia reported by RT to link the event to a veiled threat from Saudi Arabia´s Intelligence Chief, Prince Bandar, in a meeting in which he was trying to bribe Putin with weapons and oil deals. Bandar has been quoted as saying to Putin:

I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the direction of the Syrian territory without coordinating with us. These groups don´t scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria´s political future.

The relationship seems very plausible given that Saudi Arabia seems linked in one way or another to so many terrorist events, 9/11 being the most prominent.