Shooting at Pensacola Naval Base

FTFY.

https://wordforge.net/index.php?members/federal-farmer.50510/

Got nothing, got it.

Got nothing, got it.

Just like what occupies the space where your brain should be

holy FUCK! Did not see this coming! Extremist movements & child porn? If true....throw the bums out! I'm guessing that they won't get a hero's welcome when they get sent back to their nation of origin. Then again.....

So what does this say about the relationship between our two countries?

it should be seriously reevaluated IMHO. Supposedly it's not just about the oil, it's because they offer stability in the region. Do either of these things really apply in 2020 and to what degree?

Reasonable questions. I wonder if anyone anywhere in the current power structure is asking them.

I hope so. I am cautiously optimistic about that.

Dug into this expulsion thing a little more. Apparently a handful of Saudis will be expelled, not just from P-Cola but from some of the other bases as well, either for extremist ties and/or possession of child porn. My guess is that the feds found the latter while combing personal computers for links to extremist sites, chat rooms, what not.

It's a start, I guess. Having lived through the experience of training alongside the Saudis when I was a flight student, my preference would be to send them ALL home. Not because they're Saudi or because they are Muslim, but because almost without exception they do not put the required effort in to succeed, and they can't be washed out of the program normally as discussed earlier in this thread. Furthermore, given the rock-star lifestyle they pursue once they hit the U.S., there is no incentive for them to move through the training pipeline and go home- the longer they can drag it out, the longer the party lasts. Other foreign students from allied countries don't behave this way- they are held to standards, they perform, or they are history. When I was a flight instructor, I did it in Corpus Christi, not Pensacola. Thankfully, the only foreign students trained in Corpus were Italian Naval Aviators who qualified on helicopters first at Whiting Field near Pensacola, then came to the advanced maritime syllabus in Corpus to learn how to fly multi-engine fixed wing. (A LOT of us wish we could have gotten dual qualified like that as Americans- it was the best deal going!) In any case, I dodged the Saudi bullet as an IP- pun totally intended.

Anyhoo. Those decisions are made waaay above the paygrade of people like me. Those days seem almost like another lifetime, now. Getting to be a LONG time ago, for me- more than 20 years past, now. Onward and upward.

On a personal note, the son of one of my best friends from my flight instructing days is about to get winged out of the Helo training squadrons up at Whiting Field. He knew a couple of the guys who were wounded and hospitalized, but was assigned to NAS Whiting (a separate base in the area) when the shooting happened. Pretty soon here he'll be headed to the RAG and then out to the fleet. That kid and my son were plucking Star Wars figures off their birthday cakes when they were about 4 years old, when I was instructing in Corpus. Don't know where the time goes.

Why?

why am I cautiously optimistic about our leaders asking the right questions/evaluating our relationship with the Saudis? Because they probably don't want to rock the boat, or at least be the first person to rock the boat.

It might be a rumor or "urban legend" or whatever but when I was an instructor dealing with foreign students the supposed reason why we couldn't fail them is that in the past some students who washed out were killed for disgracing their military/country when they returned home.
Who knows? All I know is they were too big to fail and yes, the Muslim students in particular did party like a rock star. Who could blame them, having one opportunity to do whatever they wanted with no restrictions?

We heard that most of them came from highly placed families back homes- sons of sheikhs and all that, so there was a shame issue involved, nothing more. When they'd fail an event and go to a progress review board, the recommendations was usually to attrite (wash out), but the Saudi government would immediately overturn that and 'request' that training be continued until the student was brought up to standards. Since they were paying the bills for their own guys, our government saw no reason to refuse the request. Go along to get along, and all that BS.

Interesting side note: in addition to actual flight training, there are the pre-flight requirements that have to be met. There is physical fitness testing, swimming training and tests, water survival and device training, and there used to be an obstacle course (like the dunkers and o-course you saw in An Officer and a Gentlemen) and a timed cross-country course that was partially soft sand. We also boxed. (No Lou Gossett Jr killer Tai Kwon Do training. ) All of this stuff had to be passed before you could go on to a training squadron and start flying- fail two events at any point (which included failing written tests in Air Navigation, Propulsion, or Aerodynamics), and your new name was 'washout.' The Saudis were mostly stick thin characters with no upper body strength and ZERO swimming skills (the latter owing mostly to culture), so their government usually had a couple of retired USN SEAL/UDT types on retainer to remediate these guys and get them up to a passing level on the physical stuff.

The rub was that back in the late 80's, the Saudi government paid for the construction of a top-notch physical training facility aboard NAS Pensacola. Weight room, brand new nautilus machines, a boxing ring with about a dozen boxing workout 'stations', and so on. They paid for it, primarily to help their own guys, but said anyone was free to use it. We used the hell out of it, and even conducted our boxing training in that facility because it was perfect for it. I NEVER ONCE saw a Saudi student in there working out. That was the mentality we were dealing with, then, and apparently still.

I'll never get used to hearing "aboard" relating to a land base.

WAIT A MINUTE! In the movies and TV the captain always says "welcome aboard!" when people are getting on the boat. So how can "aboard" be a boat and a land base? Wouldn't the captain say "welcome aboat" or "welcome aship" when people are getting on the boat?

Marso's post #108 got me thinking: now that he mentions it the Saudi students I taught were not very physically imposing types either.
Granted none were heavy enough to worry about not making weight, but they were quite "noodle armed" to be honest.

I've heard the similar things from people who've worked with or trained Saudi armor crews. In other militaries around the world, tank crews do much of the vehicle maintenance themselves. In Saudi, due to most of them being rich, royal, or both, their crews don't get into the nitty gritty of maintaining them or learning how they work and hire maintenance people to keep them running. They "play" with them more than they train, including going through barrel changes at a far faster rate than even the most highly trained US units (and the barrel life for a 120mm gun is 1500 rounds).

It's part of the reason why they routinely get their ass kicked in Yemen.

Marso and Shooters posts just got me thinking (now you've done it! ) that wouldn't it be wild if the Saudis wore out their welcome in the region, lost U.S. military support, and SA found themselves surrounded by unfriendly forces much like Israel is? Of course not being as gung-ho Krav Maga (not just a martial art, it's a mindset and lifestyle) and hard training as Israel is by necessity they might be fucked-like-chuck when decades of buying expertise instead of cultivating it themselves catches them with their pants down! That would make a good movie I think!

That’s why the House of Saud throws so much money around. They’re buying themselves a degree of security from being conquered and/or overthrown.

Until they meet that bully that beats up their bodyguard and still takes their lunch money. Bottom line that kind of lifestyle is not sustainable indefinitely.

Well, this past week I finally heard a U.S. president stand up and acknowledge a) that we are now energy independent; b) a net exporter of oil; and c) consequently, we have options in the ME that weren't necessarily viable in the past. I read that as a veiled hint that we could divorce ourselves from that part of the world entirely in the near future, if we choose to.

Personally, I would love to see the U.S. presence in the ME trickle off to nothing.

It seems we are keeping them in power and they are keeping things from their people which is why they killed khoshenoggi.

How does that go along with your love for killing off Iranian leaders?

Don't hold your breath. US interest in middle-east oil has never been about using it for themselves.

you and me both!