Why the hell are we continuing to train saudis to fly.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

67. Correct. And the Saudi military is 1 of the 2 significant counterweights to the expansion of Iranian

military power in the Persian Gulf region.

The other one being Israel.

Iraq was a 3rd and the most effective of the three but of course Dubya screwed that pooch by (calamitously) replacing its Sunni regime with an Iranian-aligned Shiite one.


Saudis make interesting pilot trainees. They are Western-educated and bi-lingual, so all that's good. But yes many are royalty-linked, too, and that's a mixed bag. Many arrive with their own needs for kid-glove handling. As well as lots of money for all kinds of off-hours fun here where it's very available for purchase. (And if their fun gets them into serious trouble here, they rarely pay consequences beyond monetary ones. All part of America's longstanding special relationship with their country.)

Generally speaking Saudi male children, royals and not, are raised as very privileged. In their families their sisters and mothers cater to them. All the world's women really should be subservient to men, is the culture.

They tend to have negligible experience with hard physical work. Saudi Arabia imports foreign guest workers to do nearly all work that entails a man getting his hands dirty; it is seen as beneath the native born Wahhibi sons. Lots of flowing, immaculately clean white men's robes worn there signal, "I never get dirty."

Most arrive here not well accustomed to receiving criticism.

They can be sophisticated and worldly young men, especially compared to many from other Arab countries (Kuwait and the Emirates excepted). But prima donnas can be sophisticated too.

All generalizations, of course. Everybody's different.

But, learning to fly a military jet has over-inflated many a young man's self-regard, even those from a middle class background and not already raised to regard himself as some kind of prince.