Neom: Saudi forces 'told to kill’ to clear land for eco-city
www.bbc.com
An ex-intelligence officer tells the BBC he was permitted to shoot dead those resisting eviction.
  • @[email protected]
    34•6 months ago

    “THIS CITY WILL BE ECO FRIENDLY EVEN IF IT MEANS I HAVE TO DESTROY THE ENVIRONMENT AND KILL EVERYONE LIVING WHERE I WANT TO PUT THE CITY TO BUILD IT!”

  • @[email protected]
    13•6 months ago

    Had a boss who was in the RAF and stationed in Saudi Arabia.

    In his office was a “minder” of the Saudi govt whose job it was to just be present and watch.

    Everyone hated the minder, like reviled him.

    My boss was “new” and asked why everyone hated him and was told that his minder position was an honor he was granted for serving the royal family. They would take flights over the desert and question opposition/dissenters and throw family members out the back of the plane into the desert to get them to speak. That was how he earned his position.

    This is of course all anecdotal and third party, but I could tell by the way he told it that it still bothered him.

    Anyways, you ought to know that “power” will do whatever it wants to get what it wants.

    Every nation was built on “kill to clear land” and while this is shocking (and rightly so) hopefully everyone recognizes this is happening elsewhere too (like some other middle eastern country for basically all of our lives) and will continue because humans fucking suck.

    • @[email protected]
      4•6 months ago

      All of these flashy Arab projects are giant grifts. The royalty want to solidify their legacy with megaprojects, but they are essentially overgrown children so they have to be dazzled and entertained with buzzword-laden presentations of CGI utopias, which they then tout as “their project.” It gets less than halfway built, and then sits in the desert to decay in the sand as a monument to stupidity and human exploitation.