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Speaker 1: Al Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Esport's Oh god, okay, that was not a great intro.

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Speaker 2: They could hear the podcast that we do via log

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Speaker 2: with the is James. We're doing it. Do another be

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Speaker 2: a James episode? Yep, we're back.

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Speaker 1: We wouldn't have a theme for our episodes. I feel like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe it is Petro dollars.

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Speaker 2: I guess it is. Yeah, yeah, we vote to you

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Speaker 2: today by big fossil Fuel. You know, this entire episode

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Speaker 2: is is the what do you do with your fossil

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Speaker 2: fuel muddy episode? So we did an episode like a

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Speaker 2: year ago about sportswashing, and it has gotten much worse

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Speaker 2: since then, you know. So, so the big kind of

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Speaker 2: sports washing thing that's happening right now is this thing

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Speaker 2: called the Esports World Cup that the Saudi government is

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Speaker 2: putting on. It is going on right now. Barring unfathomable disaster,

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Speaker 2: it will still be going on by the time this

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Speaker 2: episode comes out. We we kind of talked about in

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Speaker 2: the last episode how Saudis have been getting into sports.

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Speaker 2: I mean it sort of starts with soccer. They said,

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Speaker 2: they start to e wwe, they get into tennis, They're

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Speaker 2: in golf, they're in boxing, they're in Formula one and

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Speaker 2: in the last like two years specifically, they've gotten really

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Speaker 2: really deep into esports. In twenty twenty two, they spent

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Speaker 2: one point five billion dollars wow to acquire face it

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Speaker 2: in e SL Gaming, which were two organizations that ran

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Speaker 2: esports leagues. Esports, by the way, are professional video game competition. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: people who didn't spend their youth waking up at five

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Speaker 2: in the morning to watch Korean StarCraft tournaments like I did. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's me. I fall into that category.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I feel like on this episode we have both the

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Speaker 2: sports washing angles covered because you have the sports washing

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Speaker 2: like regular sports angle, and I've had to do the

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Speaker 2: sports washing e sports angle.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I have I know what you call them p

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Speaker 1: sports like physical sports, meat space sports.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I've been privy to a decent amount of sportswa washing

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Speaker 1: like uh, I raised a lot again and Iranian teams

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Speaker 1: when I was cycling those dudes one. So much sports

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Speaker 1: washing has just straight up like national state sponsored doping programs.

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Speaker 1: But then the UAE, Bahrain, Dubai, all these different petro

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Speaker 1: states and emirates will sponsor cycling teams, very very common

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Speaker 1: by Brunei another one, Yeah, I raise for.

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Speaker 2: Quebec once, which is not not a Petro state. Well

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Speaker 2: it's not I guess it's not a Petro state.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they got big maple syrup behind them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in Catalonia, which again not a Petro state. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's very common in all kinds of professional sports, right,

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Speaker 1: because as sports has become more of like an entertainment industry,

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Speaker 1: it's become unfathomably expensive to own a sponsor a team

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Speaker 1: for like enthusiasts, and the value proposition isn't really there

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Speaker 1: for brand. I didn't think the amount that it costs

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Speaker 1: now to even a sport like cycling, which is not

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Speaker 1: a massive sporting global terms, right, football soccer for the

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Speaker 1: Americans out there, it's not worth it for many brands

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Speaker 1: to sponsoring entire cycling team millions and millions of euros.

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Speaker 1: But like, if you can use that cycling team to

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Speaker 1: launder and normalize your state's reputation, if that cycling team

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Speaker 1: could be what people think of when they hear about

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Speaker 1: your country, then maybe that is worth it. Right, And

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Speaker 1: when you have a bottomless pot of oil money, you

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Speaker 1: don't have to worry so much about whether it's worth it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So the thing I want to do with this

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Speaker 2: episode is to get into why specifically the Saudis are

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Speaker 2: doing this right now, because again, like most countries do

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Speaker 2: sort of versions of this, right but again, you know,

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Speaker 2: that is one point two billion dollars they've thrown into

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Speaker 2: two StarCraft leagues that I primarily known them for StarCraft.

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Speaker 2: They do a bunch of stuff, but those things were

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Speaker 2: not worth one point five billion dollars, like, there's no way.

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Speaker 2: But most of the money that had been sponsoring this

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Speaker 2: stuff was crypto money, right, Okay, you know, but I

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Speaker 2: wanted to get into why this is sort of happening.

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Speaker 2: Something I think is very important to note going into

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Speaker 2: this is that the sort of league thing that's being

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Speaker 2: run right now is being run directly out of the

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Speaker 2: Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, which is called Public Investment Fund,

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Speaker 2: So this is directly state money. So the Esports World

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Speaker 2: Cup that's happening right now has sixty million dollars in prizes,

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Speaker 2: which is unreal is an extraordinary amount of money split

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Speaker 2: around twenty one esports. There are thirty sports teams involved,

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Speaker 2: and I am going to read the names of every

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Speaker 2: single fucking one of them, because fuck you. Okay, let's

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Speaker 2: do It Fanatic, G two Sports, Guildy Sports, car Mine Corp,

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Speaker 2: Movie Star KOI actual, I've never heard of those ones.

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Speaker 1: Uh Ognis Mouvey Stides. I'm guessing it's Spanish. That's a

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Speaker 1: Spanish telephone network.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, probably, you know, there's a couple I don't know,

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Speaker 2: but like, these are like the largest esports teams in

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Speaker 2: the world. Okay, Nija's and Pajamas or NIP Team Lique,

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Speaker 2: which I'm really sad about because I was a Team

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Speaker 2: Liquid fan for a fucking decade and I'm no longer

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Speaker 2: one now because fuck this shit. Team Secret Team, Vitality,

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Speaker 2: tuns of Esports, Vertus Pro one hundred Thieves, Cloud nine,

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Speaker 2: Phase Clan, Gavin Glad Mediators, Energy E Sports, space Station Gaming, TSM,

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Speaker 2: Blacklist International, LGD Gaming, Jenny Sports, t One, Talent Esports,

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Speaker 2: Webo Gaming, for Real Esports, Loud Team, Falcons, Twist and Minds.

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Speaker 2: Fuck all of you for fucking doing this and doing

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Speaker 2: the super pr thing. There's been a backlash, and the

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Speaker 2: backlash is largely focused on you know, Saudi's institutionalized state

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Speaker 2: homophobia and you know, I mean the fact that women

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Speaker 2: are not full citizens like miss such a Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: mean just are just straight up owned by their husbands, right,

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Speaker 2: Like that's that's that's how the sort of legal conservatorship works.

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Speaker 1: I'm not very familiar with esports, so I can be

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Speaker 1: there the podcast Grimace here competitions in esports like gender segregated?

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Speaker 2: Do people will compete together? Basically No, there are like

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Speaker 2: women's leagues, but like if you just if you want

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Speaker 2: to compete, you can just compete as soon you get

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Speaker 2: you don't get forced out by sexism. This is actually

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Speaker 2: a kind of big deal for StarCraft because about to

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Speaker 2: be four, but like probably the number two or number

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Speaker 2: three best StarCraft player in the US is Scarlett, who's

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Speaker 2: a trans woman, And I mean she's just in the

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Speaker 2: regular league, right like right, yeah? Are the turfs mad

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Speaker 2: about it? You know, it's funny inside the StarCraft community,

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Speaker 2: this was a huge thing for a long time, and

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Speaker 2: eventually the tides just turned against them because everyone likes

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Speaker 2: her because she's really good and she's also just like

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Speaker 2: a good person, and so they kind of I got

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Speaker 2: a watch over the years as they just kind of

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Speaker 2: got obliterated. Weirdly, the like regular turfs haven't really found

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Speaker 2: out about this, probably because StarCraft is I don't know,

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Speaker 2: too good of a game for them to be fucking

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Speaker 2: dealing with not understanding things has not stopped this. That's true.

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Speaker 2: That's true. It's kind of too obscure by this point.

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Speaker 2: But you know, like there's been a lot of real

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Speaker 2: concern for sort of queer players. There are a lot

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Speaker 2: of these teams, Like, right as they were announcing they

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Speaker 2: were going to the fucking Esports Well Cup, we're doing

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Speaker 2: all of these fucking Pride posts and talking about how

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Speaker 2: they're gonna let their players wear Pride jerseys. And it's like,

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Speaker 2: are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, you know, so they

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Speaker 2: physically pressed it Saudi Ara able to play. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: these these tournaments are happening physically in Riod. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know this is this isn't the first one they've had.

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Speaker 2: They've had some other events before this too there, but

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Speaker 2: you know, like yeah, and yeah, think things are very

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Speaker 2: very bad. There was a well, a story that was

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Speaker 2: famous among trans people, but I don't ever think broke containment.

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Speaker 2: Was there's a Saudi trans woman named Eden who was

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Speaker 2: tricked into going back to like see her family, and

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Speaker 2: her family just kidnapped her and locked her up, and

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Speaker 2: she killed herself Jesus, And this is not an uncommon thing.

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Speaker 2: It happens to SIS women too sometimes when they try

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Speaker 2: to like get out of the country, sure is they'll

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Speaker 2: be kidnapped and like renditioned back.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there have been some pretty good report on that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well linked them or something because it's too it'll be

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Speaker 1: too lanthly to go and do here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think I think kind of the weakness

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Speaker 2: of the backlash is that it doesn't it doesn't really

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Speaker 2: quite understand exactly why the Saudis are doing this. You know,

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Speaker 2: they understand that the Saudi government is incredibly repressive and

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Speaker 2: that it's you know, institutionally homophobic and it's instucially sexist.

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Speaker 2: It does not understand like just exactly how fucking bad

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Speaker 2: these people are. Like this is like the most feted

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Speaker 2: up state in the entire world. It is like it

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Speaker 2: is it is the fucking Cia state. And the rest

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Speaker 2: of this episode is going to be us running through

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Speaker 2: the exact sequence of stuff that caused the saudiast to

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Speaker 2: need to do all of this fucking pr bullshit, and

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Speaker 2: how the sort of structural economic cycle of funneling petro

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Speaker 2: dollars around has led to genocide and then also the

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Speaker 2: stupid fucking esports tournament for PR two things which I

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Speaker 2: not to say. But first, do you know who's probably

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Speaker 2: not a large enough company to have sponsored this tournament?

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Speaker 2: Although I can't promise that it's not KitKat or whatever

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Speaker 2: the fuck, hopean it is kit Kat. I would like

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Speaker 2: some kit cats if that is it. They're one of

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Speaker 2: the sponsors of this fucking Esports World Cup.

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Speaker 1: You can't poway for a biscuit, KitKat your hate cookie.

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Speaker 1: I don't want you to hate Joclabar anymore.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is the products and services of this podcast,

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Speaker 2: which hopefully are not supporting a genocide. But good god,

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Speaker 2: we copy show. Yeah, so we are back and we

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Speaker 2: are going to talk petro dollars. So Saudi wealth takes

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Speaker 2: a form of what are called petro dollars. Petro dollars

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Speaker 2: are in some sense, they're very very simple, right, It's

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Speaker 2: dollars that you get from selling oil. This is important

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Speaker 2: for a number of reasons. Though technically speaking, you can

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Speaker 2: sort of sell oil in other currencies now, but like

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Speaker 2: most oil in the world is sold specifically in dollars,

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Speaker 2: and so around the world, dollars are one of the

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Speaker 2: things that if you are an economy, you need dollars

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Speaker 2: in order to get oil from people. So huge sinks

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Speaker 2: of American dollars from all across the world, you know,

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Speaker 2: from the US of the US import a lot of

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Speaker 2: oil flow into these sort of oil producing countries. These

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Speaker 2: are called petro dollars. The most obvious manifestation of this

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Speaker 2: in Saudi Arabia is the Country Solving Wealth Fund, which

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Speaker 2: has nine hundred billion dollars of assets. Right this is

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Speaker 2: an unfathomable amount of money. It is so much money

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Speaker 2: that it is a structural problem for the global economy

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Speaker 2: trying to figure out what the fuck you do with

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Speaker 2: this money. This is a problem that has caused disaster

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Speaker 2: around the world. It is something where I'm fond of

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Speaker 2: talking about on this show, but we're going to talk

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Speaker 2: about again because it's important here. In the seventies and eighties,

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Speaker 2: as sort of Opek realized that it could, you know,

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Speaker 2: use its sort of political power to gain enormous amounts

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Speaker 2: of wealth and power and gain enormous amounts of petro

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Speaker 2: dollars by controlling the price of oil. Suddenly they had,

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Speaker 2: you know that you have hundreds of billions of dollars

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Speaker 2: floating around and because this is capitalism, you can't just

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Speaker 2: sit on that money. You have to find a way

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Speaker 2: to turn that money into more money. But again, you know,

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Speaker 2: I mean just a Solfing wealth fund is almost a

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Speaker 2: trillion dollars, right, and so this is extremely hard and

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Speaker 2: it means that this money is constantly flowing around the

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Speaker 2: world trying to find a way to get returns on it,

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Speaker 2: you know. And in the modern era, these are things

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Speaker 2: like people remember we work but incredibly stupid dune From

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Speaker 2: the beginning office space rental scheme that went under that

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Speaker 2: that was a lot of that was funded by Saudi

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Speaker 2: money because studies had put an enormous amount of money

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Speaker 2: in this Japanese bank called soft Bank, and soft Bank

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Speaker 2: was trying to figure out what to do with this

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Speaker 2: unfathole amount of money, and they were like, Okay, what

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Speaker 2: if we fund the dumbest project of all time?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it became a thing where they could fund it,

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Speaker 1: and like, just by them funding it, its stock price

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Speaker 1: would go up, even if it was like we work

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Speaker 1: a really shit idea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is something about global capital that I

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Speaker 2: don't think has been fully processed. Really. But the the sheer,

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Speaker 2: the sheer extent of capital concentration, right, the amount of

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Speaker 2: money that the richest people in the world and the

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Speaker 2: richest sort of families in the world in the sort

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Speaker 2: of Saudi case, right, you know, the Saudi Arabia is

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Speaker 2: a country where a family has access to the resources

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Speaker 2: of extremely wealthy nation state, right, And that being true

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Speaker 2: has structural effects on the entire rest of the economy

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Speaker 2: because you know, we've been seeing the consequences of this

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Speaker 2: for a long time in the tech sector, right, where

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Speaker 2: you don't have to fucking make money, like your revenue

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Speaker 2: stream can just be investor money, and you can coast

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Speaker 2: for a decade off of just taking money from the

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Speaker 2: Saudis who are like trying to find some way to

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Speaker 2: turn this money. And the more money. I think this

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Speaker 2: has downstream effects that don't we haven't even begun to

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Speaker 2: really understand yet, right. But very famously in the seventies

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Speaker 2: and eighties, there was all this money flowing around, and

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Speaker 2: what it was poured into was the Third Book debt crisis.

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Speaker 2: People bought state debt with it, and then these loans

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Speaker 2: were on it were on adjustable rates, onjustable interest rates.

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Speaker 2: So when the vulcar shock hit and the US like

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Speaker 2: massively increased interest rates. The interest rates on these loans

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Speaker 2: like skyrocketed, and suddenly, you know, you're paying like fifty

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Speaker 2: percent interest on a loan of like cephal billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: And all of these countries are just systematically looted. Their

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Speaker 2: economies are destroyed. I mean, David Grab rememorably talks about

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Speaker 2: this thing in Madagascar where Madagascar had eliminated malaria. You know,

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Speaker 2: but the way you eliminate malaria is through mosquito extermination.

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Speaker 2: Like programs are not that expensive, but they are a

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Speaker 2: little bit expensive. And when the fucking government of metag

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Speaker 2: Escar had to like pay off this IMF debt, they

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Speaker 2: had to get rid of the they got rid of

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Speaker 2: this mosquito programs, and there was a malaria outbreak and

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Speaker 2: it killed unfathomable numbers of people, and stuff like this

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Speaker 2: happened all over the world. And the source of all

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Speaker 2: of this, right, partially the source of this is these loans,

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Speaker 2: And partially the source of this is this these enormous

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Speaker 2: piles of petro dollars that you have to find some

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Speaker 2: way to sort of turn into more capital, right, And

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Speaker 2: you know, so there are sort of trademark things you

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Speaker 2: can do with this money. One of them is buying

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Speaker 2: a bunch of military equipment. Mostly what you're doing with

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Speaker 2: that is sort of buying American patronage. If you spend

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Speaker 2: enormous amount of money buying American tanks, and this is

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Speaker 2: you know something this out he has been doing for ages, right,

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Speaker 2: you spend a bunch of money on American defense contracts.

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Speaker 2: You know, you can sort of buy us protection and

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Speaker 2: guarantees that you know, for example, as it is going

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Speaker 2: to happen later in this episode, you can buy a

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Speaker 2: guarantee that an invading army won't sack your capital. But

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Speaker 2: with the Saudis is that they have a lot of equipment,

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Speaker 2: but Saudi Arabia cannot maintain a strong functional army. If

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Speaker 2: they were, if they had an actual serious army, there

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Speaker 2: would be a coup tomorrow. So their army is extremely

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Speaker 2: well equipped kind of, but it's trained like shit, and

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Speaker 2: it's run by like just dipshits intentionally so that it sucks.

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Speaker 2: But you know, so that's like sort of one thing

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Speaker 2: you can do with this money. A lot of this

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Speaker 2: money ended up going into real estate, and there are

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Speaker 2: sort of cycles of this happening. The one that ain't

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Speaker 2: that's of concern to us is what happens after two

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Speaker 2: thousand and eight, in the sort of aftermath of two

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Speaker 2: thousand and eight, there are still places in the world where,

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Speaker 2: you know, you can park an extremely large amount of

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Speaker 2: money in real estate and have it be a relatively

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Speaker 2: liquid asset. If you have like property in a market

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Speaker 2: that is, you know, where the housing market is really

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Speaker 2: hot and prices are increasing rapidly, you can pretty quickly

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Speaker 2: get rid of it. And you can also there's liquidity,

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Speaker 2: there's sort of financial instruments you can do based off

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Speaker 2: of your ownership of real estate. And this is something

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Speaker 2: that drives the Saudis into a bunch of very very

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Speaker 2: I don't know if risky is exactly the right word,

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Speaker 2: but a bunch of moves in Many real estate that really,

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Speaker 2: truly we're about to not pay off. There's a very

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Speaker 2: good book about this, it's by Lisa Bloomy called Destroying Yemen,

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Speaker 2: which is about like a lot of the factors that

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Speaker 2: start the war in Yemen, and this this is one

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Speaker 2: of them.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: We can't really do a full recap of the Many

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Speaker 2: Civil War because that's that's its own seven hundred episode podcast, like,

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Speaker 2: oh god it is. Yeah, it's on a surface level,

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Speaker 2: it's not that complicated, but the moment you get any

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Speaker 2: granular detail on it, it's like the most complicated conflict

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Speaker 2: I've ever studied.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so many conflicts like this, right, Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: civil war appreciates us.

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Speaker 2: When I was studying Yemen in college, I longed for

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Speaker 2: the simplicity of the Spanish Civil War, Like this conflict

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Speaker 2: is nuts. Yeah, but for simplicity's sake. There's roughly ish

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Speaker 2: two factions. There are the sort of forces allied with

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Speaker 2: what's called the Coalition government, which is the government backed

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Speaker 2: by the Saudis, and then there are what's sort of

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Speaker 2: in the west become called the Huthis. I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: more complicated. It's all of this is enormously more complicated

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Speaker 2: than that. These are all alliances. A lot of these

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Speaker 2: alliances are extremely tenuous. But one of the things that

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Speaker 2: happens is that when when a government that is hostile

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Speaker 2: to the Saudis, which is like you know, the sort

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Speaker 2: of like unter a law like that, whole coalition is

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Speaker 2: very also to the Saudiast because the Saudis sucks shit.

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Speaker 2: You know, suddenly the Saudis are looking at an enormous

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Speaker 2: amount of capital they've sunk into real estate that they

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Speaker 2: are you know, based on these like incredibly corrupt land

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Speaker 2: deals with the previous administration, which have been friendly to them.

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Speaker 2: They are looking at suddenly losing all this land. The

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Speaker 2: Saudis weren't the first people to come into sort of

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Speaker 2: the many real estate market right on the uae Omah

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Speaker 2: and a bunch of other states has sort of been

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Speaker 2: in there before. And so part of what a big

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Speaker 2: part of what this sort of this like what's called

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Speaker 2: the coalition is this like basic a bunch of these

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Speaker 2: assholes trying to protect their housing assets. Look, that's a

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Speaker 2: lot of what a lot of wars are if we're

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Speaker 2: on it.

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Speaker 1: It's people trying to protect xoy assets, right like Unfortunately.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not really seen in these terms in

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Speaker 2: the way that's covered, but that's a lot of what's

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Speaker 2: going on. And this produces one of the worst wars

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Speaker 2: of the twenty first century, which is saying something because

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Speaker 2: the twenty for centuries had a lot of really really

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Speaker 2: terrible wars. Yeah, we've had some reference, Yeah, and we're

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Speaker 2: going to get into what the Saudis were doing during

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Speaker 2: this war. After these products and services, we have returned

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Speaker 2: and the thing we're returning into is a really really

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Speaker 2: bleak war. So we said this kind of from the beginning, right,

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Speaker 2: the Saudi military is not very good. The Saudi's attempt

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Speaker 2: to sort of end the war by like rolling a

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Speaker 2: tank column over the border, it's just like I think

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Speaker 2: it's twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, in like the early period

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Speaker 2: of the war, they try to end up by just

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Speaker 2: rolling tanks, and tanks get obliterated because the Saudi army

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Speaker 2: isn't worth shit, right. All of their ground forces are

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Speaker 2: a joke. But their air force is very very well

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Speaker 2: equipped with a bunch of like incredibly modern US warplanes

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Speaker 2: that we sell them all the fucking time, and so

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Speaker 2: you know, they don't really have good infantry. What they

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Speaker 2: have the ability to do is just obliterate people with

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Speaker 2: air strikes. The kind of like terror air campaign that

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Speaker 2: they're waging is something that I think we're all familiar

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Speaker 2: with from Palestine. But they're doing air strikes on school

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Speaker 2: buses full of children. They're taking the American thing. They

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Speaker 2: are doing double tap drone strikes on weddings where they're

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Speaker 2: hitting a wedding and then when rescue workers come up,

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Speaker 2: they hit they hit the rescue workers with air strikes. Right,

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it was young when they had the

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Speaker 2: triple tap fucking air strike where they did an airstrike

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Speaker 2: on someone's funeral, they didn't airstrike on the rescue workers,

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Speaker 2: and then when they had a funeral for those people,

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Speaker 2: they did air strike on fucking that. This is a

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Speaker 2: just unbelievably brutal war. And you know, I want to

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Speaker 2: get which we talked about, right, like there are some

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Speaker 2: there are some parts of the Saudi coalition that can

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Speaker 2: you know, field ground forces, right, that stuffs mostly the

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Speaker 2: sort of southern secessionist groups, and those people are not

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Speaker 2: really that loyal, so you know, so they have to

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Speaker 2: start importing infantry to try to fight the who thies,

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Speaker 2: and so they're importing a bunch of Colombian mercenaries. So

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Speaker 2: these are guys who've been like desk squad guys in Columbia.

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Speaker 1: The Colombian guys are the new I was going to say,

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Speaker 1: the new Rhodesians. That it's a dark shadow to cost

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Speaker 1: and a group of human beings.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it used.

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Speaker 1: To be that when you were running into private military

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Speaker 1: contractors abroad, it would be people white folks from Africa, right,

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Speaker 1: like they call themselves Rhudesian South Africans, what have you.

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Speaker 1: Now you'll see a lot of like a lot of

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Speaker 1: private military contractors, like at the boots on the ground,

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Speaker 1: you know, infantry level of Colombians.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so that that's one of the sources they

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Speaker 2: went to. But then you know, part of the Saudi

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Speaker 2: coalition is the UAE, and the UAE has a lot

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Speaker 2: of very very close ties to militant groups in Sudance.

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Speaker 2: Specifically a group of militias that's now known the West

404
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Speaker 2: is the Rapid Response Forces. But these are the people

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Speaker 2: who did the genocide and are for and they are

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Speaker 2: like right now like doing a genocide in like in

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Speaker 2: Sudan as they attempt to sort of seize control of

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Speaker 2: the country. And because the UAE is very very well

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Speaker 2: connected to these, one of the ways that the coalition

410
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Speaker 2: tries to get ground troops is by using troops who

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Speaker 2: were you know, kidnapped by these militias. And when I

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Speaker 2: say troops, I mean child soldiers. The forces that they

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Speaker 2: are deploying in Yemen in an attempt to use as

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Speaker 2: cannon fodder are Sudanese child soldiers. It is unbelievably believe,

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Speaker 2: I mean kind of funnily. A lot of these people

416
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Speaker 2: end up not fighting because they you know, they get

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Speaker 2: handed a rifle, will get thrown into Yemen and they

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Speaker 2: just immediately sell their guns. And I refused, but like,

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Speaker 2: you know, but like that, that's the kind of shit.

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Speaker 2: Like again, the kind of pure evil we are dealing

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Speaker 2: with is we are having the guys who did the dart,

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Speaker 2: who did the fucking Darfur genocide, kidnap fucking villagers from

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Speaker 2: Sudan like child soldiers from Sudan and attempting to use

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Speaker 2: them as cannon father in their fucking war in Yemen

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Speaker 2: so they can like defend their fucking real estate assets.

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Speaker 1: Yeah right, I think Friend of the Show Eric Prince

427
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Speaker 1: makes a uh makes an appearance in Yemen as well

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Speaker 1: his Triumvira of companies, which are the same company, right

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Speaker 1: Black waters Z.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Probably, I quite frankly don't remember that part, but

431
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:39,120
Speaker 2: probably also Yeah, you can rely on EP to show

432
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 2: up in a situation I is. Yeah, I mean the

433
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,399
Speaker 2: part of this we haven't gotten to yet is the

434
00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:46,879
Speaker 2: worst part of it, which is so this the Saudist

435
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 2: and the sort of coalition government they you know, they

436
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:53,479
Speaker 2: do okay in the sort of southwest of the country

437
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 2: because the Southern Yemen secessions groups are well organized and

438
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 2: are good soldiers, even if they've sort of rebel and

439
00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:03,800
Speaker 2: there's this whole it's it's a whole mess. But in

440
00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:07,360
Speaker 2: the west of the country, everything is completely different, and

441
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:09,199
Speaker 2: you know, they're they're basically getting their shit kicked in.

442
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:14,280
Speaker 2: And in that theater, the Saudi's plan is we are

443
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 2: going to starve the country. So you know that the

444
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:20,720
Speaker 2: Saudi the Saudis have naval assets. Nobody else really in

445
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:24,119
Speaker 2: this war does, right, and they just set up a

446
00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 2: blockade on like all of the ports on that side

447
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 2: of the country. We do not know how many people

448
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:32,240
Speaker 2: get starved as a result of this. The last good

449
00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:34,280
Speaker 2: mortality figures I could I could find, this war is

450
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 2: still going on, by the way. I mean, fighting has

451
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 2: gotten a lot less intense since of twenty twenty one,

452
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, but I mean it's it's still going

453
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:45,640
Speaker 2: The last good numbers that I can find suggest three

454
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy seven thousand dead and it's probably way

455
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,360
Speaker 2: way worse than that, because again we just don't know

456
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:54,760
Speaker 2: how many people died in the famines that you know

457
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,840
Speaker 2: that that the Saudi set off, and this was you know,

458
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:00,800
Speaker 2: this was explicitly there there. They're planned here was to

459
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 2: just kill off the population of this part of Yemen

460
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:06,359
Speaker 2: by starving them to death. You know, this is the genocide, right,

461
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:08,240
Speaker 2: They were attempting to do a genocide. It doesn't work,

462
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:11,120
Speaker 2: and it doesn't work because I mean, there's a number

463
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 2: of reasons why it doesn't work. They basically they get

464
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:18,800
Speaker 2: defeated militarily. Kuthi troops like take several cities like inside

465
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:20,879
Speaker 2: of Saudi Arabia and like they like they march across

466
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:23,479
Speaker 2: the border and take them, and you know, I mean

467
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 2: it's it's bad enough for the Saudis that like there's

468
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:27,239
Speaker 2: a moment where it like it looks like they're going

469
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 2: to lose ri odd and the US has to step

470
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:31,680
Speaker 2: in and be like no, like okay, you guys need

471
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 2: to fucking pull out of this shit. But that you

472
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 2: know that, and that that makes the war less bad,

473
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 2: you know, like the blockadees not still in place. But

474
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 2: this is the situation in twenty twenty two that we

475
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 2: walk into when when suddenly there's they're buying all these

476
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 2: esports companies that they have just attempted to commit a genocide, right,

477
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 2: they have just attempted to exterminate a vast part of

478
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,439
Speaker 2: the population of Yemen. That's I think, like really the

479
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 2: true sort of heart of darkness, evil shit, right, Like

480
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:01,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's like us and Cambodia is shit.

481
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 2: But you know there's stuff that got more media attention too,

482
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 2: which was like in a lot of ways more harmful

483
00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 2: to them because that the pr from it. But one

484
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 2: of the things I think people have forgotten now because

485
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 2: this was six years ago, is that in twenty eighteen,

486
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 2: they kidnapped and then killed a Washington Post columnist named

487
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:22,960
Speaker 2: Jamal kas Shogi. Yeah, by tricking him into going into

488
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 2: a consulate, killing him, carving his body up with a

489
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,959
Speaker 2: bone saw. And we're pretty sure the way that they

490
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:32,120
Speaker 2: got the body out of the consulate was by stuffing

491
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 2: the fucking again bone saled parts of his body into

492
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 2: embassy bags and a diplomatic community and walking them out

493
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 2: of the embassy.

494
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of those things that I should

495
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: never be forgotten, right, Like, yeah, he was a citizen right,

496
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:47,240
Speaker 1: was he a green cod hode?

497
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 2: I'm not one hundred percent sure, but this is obviously

498
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 2: like a fucking unbelievable crime. I think I wish that,

499
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 2: you know, the fact that they were doing fucking air

500
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 2: strikes school buses had gotten as much attention as this did.

501
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 2: But you know, for for a long time, right like

502
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 2: in the late twenty tens and the early twenty twenties.

503
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,159
Speaker 2: And this this was an issue in the twenty twenty

504
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 2: presidential campaigns because you know, I mean, Trump fucking went

505
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 2: and touched the orb with Muhammed bin Salman, who's the

506
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:22,120
Speaker 2: Crown Prince of now Well at the time, was known

507
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 2: as Mohammad been bone saw because she just trade up

508
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 2: ordered this guy to be fucking bone salved, you know.

509
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 2: But like that, it was. It was a real sort

510
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:31,880
Speaker 2: of issue. And this is the reputation that the Saudi

511
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 2: government has that causes them to kind of go really

512
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 2: really hard into the into this esports angle. And there's

513
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 2: one last kind of angle to this, which is like

514
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 2: the worst kept secret in the oil of the oil market,

515
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 2: is that the Saudi's are running out of oil. It's

516
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,160
Speaker 2: like it's it's technically a secret, but it's like everyone

517
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 2: knows this, Like every everyone knows that a lot of

518
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 2: sort of oil that's technically sold by Saudi Ramco is

519
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 2: not their oil, it's their labels and other people's And

520
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 2: people have known this for a long time, and the

521
00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:06,119
Speaker 2: South's obviously know it. And so the trick they have

522
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 2: to pull right in order to continue to be this

523
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 2: fucking like nightmare dictatorship state propped up by the CIA,

524
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 2: is to find something else to base their economy on.

525
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 2: And their plan has been a lot of like they're

526
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 2: trying to do just tech bullshit. We're not going to

527
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 2: get into da because that's its own thing. I'm so sad.

528
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:29,240
Speaker 2: I'm so sad to be talking about the line. Sorry,

529
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 2: the lives. Yeah, they're trying to build a city that

530
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 2: is a lot of aligned. Yeah, that is also a city, a.

531
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 1: Really really long city is aligned. That's going to be

532
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: their tech thing. You may sound like we're ever simplifying this,

533
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: We are not. No, it is they are trying to

534
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: build a city that is aligned.

535
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 2: It's not going to get built. What it has done

536
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 2: is they've absolutely destroyed the lives of a bunch of

537
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 2: sort of people who are just like farmers and cattle

538
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 2: like herders, like some of the metic cattle herders and

539
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 2: people who've been there for a really long time have

540
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 2: had their land taken away from them and their lives

541
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 2: have been destroyed by it. So you know. But the

542
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 2: thing is that in order for them to try to

543
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 2: do their tech pivot, they have to fix the reputation people.

544
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 2: They cannot be the state that is you remembered for

545
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 2: like bone sawing a journalist and attempting to start of

546
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 2: an entire population and doing air strikes and school buses. Right,

547
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:16,119
Speaker 2: this can't be the reputation they have.

548
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 1: This is it Vision twenty thirty or Plan twenty thirty

549
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: or some big Yeah. Yeah, for their like rehabilitation and

550
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: diversification of their income. But like posts Jamal Kashogi, a

551
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: lot of big companies like we can't be like like

552
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: companies like Google, right, and like big big tech companies, Yeah,

553
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: kind of took a noticeable step back.

554
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 2: And so this has been why they've been going into sports,

555
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 2: because they can throw around, like we're talking nine hundred

556
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 2: billion dollars of assets, right, they can just swamp a sport, right,

557
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 2: especially something like esports where people are not very well paid.

558
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 2: There's not that much money sources of income or ten us,

559
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 2: they could just sort of buy off these entire industries

560
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:55,480
Speaker 2: and it's kind of and it's working. And part of

561
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 2: the reason that it's working is that, you know, the

562
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 2: focus is on and like, I understand why people are

563
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:04,640
Speaker 2: doing this, but the focus has been on the fact

564
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 2: that set like the Saudi government is, you know, is

565
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 2: sexist and homophobic, and that's true. But if that's the

566
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 2: reputation that the Saudis have, that is a win for

567
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 2: them because a they'll be able to find people who

568
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 2: agree with those views, and b nobody's talking about again

569
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 2: the fact that they fucking they did an airstrike on

570
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 2: a school bus, like the bodies of children and their

571
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 2: fucking school bags were flying over. Like they've been able

572
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:34,199
Speaker 2: to sort of avoid any kind of more reckoning with

573
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 2: this because people are off talking about other stuff. And

574
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 2: if this keeps working like it's going to work, they're

575
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 2: going to be a country that killed three hundred and

576
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 2: seventy thousand people and probably more.

577
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: I think also, like one of the reasons they've been

578
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: able to get away with this is that ah media

579
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: has normalized massive amounts of death and dying of Muslim

580
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: people in the Middle East. Yeah, for twenty plus years, right,

581
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: so a lot of people's entire of media consumption. Every

582
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: day we've dropped bombs and killed hundreds of people in

583
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and it's just, yeah, it's the background

584
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: noise in US media.

585
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to watch one more thing they did

586
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 2: that wasn't the script, but I need to fucking talk

587
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 2: about because it's one of my formative political experiences. Was

588
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 2: So when the Arab Spring started, one of the biggest

589
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 2: uprisings was in Bahrain. This is one of the earliest

590
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 2: uprising in twenty eleven. There's antempt to knock off the

591
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 2: monarchy of Bahrain, and they probably could have won. The

592
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 2: kids in the streets in Bahrain are probably the bravest,

593
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 2: on of the bravest people I've ever seen. And the

594
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 2: Saudis rolled tanks into Bahrain to crush the protests and

595
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 2: fucking keep the government intact and for I mean years,

596
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 2: for you, I mean like a decade afterwards. Every once

597
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 2: in a while, you'd get a video coming like that

598
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 2: came out of like the of these kids dressed in

599
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 2: all black chasing down an armored vehicle that's shooting at

600
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 2: them with molotovs. Right, I've never seen anything. I've never

601
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 2: seen anything like it. Like, there's some of the bravest

602
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 2: people in the world, and the Saudis fucking rolled tanks

603
00:29:56,360 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 2: into their country to fucking crush them. The fucking esports companies,

604
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 2: those are the people whose money you're taking, right you

605
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 2: you were, you were taking the money of a bunch

606
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: of people who rolled tanks into the country, whose people

607
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 2: wanted fucking democracy. And yeah, that's that's all I got

608
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 2: about this. I'm extremely angry about all of this, and yeah,

609
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:21,680
Speaker 2: fuck them.

610
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I can say from a perspective of someone

611
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: who's been paid to do sports for a decent amount

612
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: of my life, yeah, you make shit money, but like

613
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: it's so much better to not make shit choices as well,

614
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: And like that goes way beyond like not cheating and

615
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: the manifest ways of people cheating in sports, but also

616
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: just like you don't compromising to the way more important

617
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: than like playing, right, Like sports are supposed to be fun,

618
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: and if you allow yourself to be a vehicle for

619
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 1: things that are terrible, like you're gonna be miserable in

620
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 1: your fucking forties anyway, because your body will fall apart like,

621
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: don't make yourself feel guilty for this as well.

622
00:30:57,080 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one last thing I want to address because

623
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 2: one of the defenses that Saudi people have been rolling

624
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 2: out is this like, oh, you guys don't respect Muslim culture,

625
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 2: like because because the main line of complaint has been

626
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 2: about sort of about homophobia and sexism, and it's like, yeah, man,

627
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 2: those fucking children in their school busses were Muslim to like,

628
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 2: fuck you.

629
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, the people in Bahrain are Muslim too, right, the

630
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: people who yeah, bodies were all over the streets because

631
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: they asked for a chance to have some say and

632
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: how the country with run like that.

633
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 2: It's just you don't get to do that. Yeah. So

634
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:28,959
Speaker 2: this has been nickeld happen here. Fuck every single one

635
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 2: of the scenes that is fucking doing this ship fucking ball. Yeah,