from Hacker News

Retired U.S. generals, admirals take top jobs with Saudi crown prince

by room505 on 10/18/22, 5:05 PM with 154 comments

  • by nosianu on 10/18/22, 7:41 PM

    Also just today:

    BBC headline "Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says"

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582

    With more background info: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/is-china-really-using-...

    Some highlights from the BBC article:

    > Former British military pilots are being lured to China with large sums of money to pass on their expertise to the Chinese military, it is claimed.

    > Up to 30 former UK military pilots are thought to have gone to train members of China's People's Liberation Army.

    > The retired British pilots are being used to help understand the way in which Western planes and pilots operate, information which could be vital in the event of any conflict, such as over Taiwan.

    > "They are a very attractive body of people to then pass on that knowledge," a Western official said. "It's taking Western pilots of great experience to help develop Chinese military air force tactics and capabilities."

    The disclaimer sentence

    > There is no evidence that any pilots have broken the Official Secrets Act or that they have committed any crime.

    is funny - how would they gather that evidence without confessions from the pilots involved or from the Chinese? Even if they don't tell them any secrets, there remains the fact that they train them at all. With the next big conflict where this might be used being Taiwan, where the West has already taken the opposite side.

    From the second link:

    > The MOD also said that the United Kingdom is only one of several Western countries whose aircrew (and likely other sources of military expertise) are currently being targeted in this way. No details were provided of other nations involved.

    Personally, reading this, I think the news is getting more ridiculous by the day. I think this is much worse, I don't think Saudi Arabia is likely to end up as a direct adversary, and even if it did it would not matter much. But China...

  • by photochemsyn on 10/18/22, 9:16 PM

    This has been going on for years, but now it's news? Here's a blurb from some random 2009 blog post on how this works (more about Iraq, but Vinnell has been training Saudi forces for years, and probably is involved with Yemen as well):

    > "The Pentagon has awarded a 48-million-dollar contract to train the nucleus of a new Iraqi army to Vinnell Corporation, a US firm which also trains the Saudi National Guard. The Fairfax, VA-based company, a subsidiary of the US aerospace firm Northrup Grumman, said on its website it was hiring former US army and marine officers to train infantry battalions and combat support units for the new Iraqi army. The Vinnell Corp. of Alexandria, Va., owned by politically connected Northrop-Grumman."

    More on that:

    https://www.corpwatch.org/article/iraq-vinnells-army-defensi...

    It's just so painfully obvious that these kind of articles wouldn't be getting published right now if the US government wasn't angry with Saudi Arabia about crude oil production.

  • by miles on 10/18/22, 6:26 PM

    On a related note:

    Ex-UK pilots lured to help Chinese military, MoD says https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582

  • by credit_guy on 10/18/22, 6:01 PM

    Well, they are free people, not slaves. If they want to take a job in the private sector, they should have the freedom to do it, including working for a sovereign state that is not an enemy. Of course, they have knowledge of classified stuff, but I'm sure there are protocols around that, and they are aware of it.

    It would be more scandalous if they were to take jobs with Russia, or Iran. But Saudi Arable is a US ally, so what's the problem?

  • by stormbrew on 10/18/22, 7:54 PM

    a lot of people in this comment section seem kind of confused about the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia?

    This isn't at all surprising, why wouldn't you hire American military to go with your American military hardware?

  • by adolph on 10/18/22, 6:57 PM

    Even awesomer is heading up Washington "institutions" like Brookings while taking a foreign paycheck.

    https://www.vox.com/23166516/scandal-john-allen-brookings-th...

    The court filing alleges that Allen had been tapped by two unregistered representatives of Qatar — a business executive named Imaad Zuberi and a former US ambassador to the UAE, Richard Olson — to advocate on Qatar’s behalf. (That Olson used the email address rickscafedxb@yahoo.com, a reference to the seedy Rick’s Cafe in the film Casablanca and the airport code for Dubai, might have been a tip-off that no one should be shocked that something was awry.)

  • by room505 on 10/18/22, 5:06 PM

  • by Maursault on 10/18/22, 6:37 PM

    Chances are good these US ex-military are not loyal to Saudi Arabia. They're only doing it for the money, not fanatical idealisms. We have the Logan Act and Espionage Act to protect us, and we benefit from these activities through income taxes.

  • by TechBro8615 on 10/18/22, 6:39 PM

    How else will they retire? It's not like CNN and MSNBC can hire all of them!

  • by sammyteee on 10/18/22, 6:55 PM

  • by anjel on 10/19/22, 12:25 AM

    For background not found in this article, a US general's retirement pension is north of $200,000 a year plus zero-cost "Cadillac" healthcare coverage and other benefits as well.

  • by gigatexal on 10/18/22, 10:55 PM

    I know they’re ostensibly an ally of the US but I find this hella suspect and not at all cool on their part. Sure they’re likely doing it for the money. But MBS is a bad dude, he killed an American journalist, and the Saudis would sell us out to the highest bidder if they could.

  • by imgabe on 10/18/22, 10:36 PM

    If they're an ally, it's to our benefit that their military is strong.

    If they become an enemy, it doesn't hurt that we built their military and know everything about it inside out.

    If the US could make every other country's military a subsidiary of the US military, they would.

  • by simonebrunozzi on 10/19/22, 7:53 AM

    "We all have to eat" [0], including retired US generals.

    [0]: https://simone.substack.com/p/we-all-have-to-eat

  • by thermalsauce on 10/18/22, 9:34 PM

    This is not as bad as it reads. Understand that the top brass in the DoD are extremely loyal to the country, loyalty and trust is crucial in the officer corps (in the US at least).

    Once you get that star (or whatever the equivalent is for the navy) you are basically a US officer for life. Retired Generals and Admirals can and do get called upon by the government when they are needed. They are considered highly experienced professionals that the government can trust. They are not "in" the system, they are the system.

    I would expect that the DoD keeps tabs on these officers. While the oil money may be nice, make no mistake, the US government is the wealthiest organization on the planet. These officers understand who the real provider is.

  • by tksiden on 10/18/22, 6:44 PM

    Apparently British officers are taking positions with the Chinese too.

  • by boomskats on 10/18/22, 9:51 PM

    How is this different to the Saudi crown prince hiring MPRI, DynCorp, or any other US private military company that largely employs retired US army personnel?

  • by bell-cot on 10/18/22, 7:11 PM

    Bad optics, certainly. Both for the U.S. and for the DoD retirees working for not-so-savory governments.

    OTOH - certain foreign governments paying top dollar to employ a bunch of military big shots from the U.S. does not say good things about their local talent pools. And the situation may look less-than-inspired to what talented young locals there are.

  • by panny on 10/18/22, 10:33 PM

    This is spam. It doesn't matter that there is a news article behind that pay wall.

  • by 1-6 on 10/18/22, 10:29 PM

    More reason why veterans need more protection in the USA.

  • by hunglee2 on 10/18/22, 8:17 PM

    this is an example of something which was entirely uncontroversial becoming a scandal only after changes in the relationship. Two weeks ago, a non story.

  • by rlewkov on 10/18/22, 7:33 PM

    Follow the money.

  • by bigbacaloa on 10/18/22, 8:03 PM

    Traitors united.

  • by markvdb on 10/18/22, 7:11 PM

    Working for the butcher prince. We don't need that kind of people near any NATO army. Let's hope they stay in Saudi Arabia.

    In other news, this is just another symptom of a shrinking US empire. Pax americana is starting to crumble.

  • by edmcnulty101 on 10/18/22, 10:50 PM

    US tax dollars spent training these mercenaries!

  • by whywhywhydude on 10/18/22, 6:32 PM

    Money wins. The admirals probably couldn’t resist the million dollar paychecks. I bet they would happily divulge all they know - mo matter how top secret-for the right price.