[Maursault]

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.

[Philorandroid]

Law is only a paper veneer to keep honest people honest. Legal acts do about as much to deter desertion and security leaks as speed limit signs keep people from speeding.

[nonameiguess]

That's an awfully bold statement. It'd be nice if you showed some evidence that classified information leakage and military desertion rates are anywhere near the rate of speed limit violations, which at a first approximation I would guess is pretty near 100% of licensed drivers doing it at least once. As a person who served in the military and still holds a clearance, I don't know the true rates, but in 15 years I have so far witnessed 0 desertions and 0 classified spills (caveat that I did witness one accidental copy of a classified course catalog onto an unclassified e-mail that was self-reported and immediately resulted in every unclassified workstation and hard drive in the 1st CAV headquarters being quarantined and wiped until it was determined the spill went no further, and we had no network access for a week while that was happening).

[Maursault]

>> Law is only a paper veneer to keep honest people honest.

> That's an awfully bold statement.

Worse, it is entirely false on its face because it not only completely ignores enforcement as well as social contract, the purpose of law is not "to keep honest people honest," nor is law "paper veneer." Laws are rules to regulate behavior, and as such fundamentally they are ideas, therefore they are intangible and only recorded to medium like paper, digital storage, stone tablets, what have you.

[formerkrogemp]

The former president routinely leaked classified information and took whole boxes worth or documents to his house after the presidency. Edwards Snowden and Julian Assange exist. There have been many "leaks" of classified information. Just because you and your associated coworkers didn't leak doesn't mean that leaks don't happen, unfortunately.

[kelnos]

Sure, but can you generalize the behavior of Trump, Snowden, and Assange to that of a bunch of retired military officers?

Incidence matters. If intentional classified information leaks were commonplace and unsurprising, then sure, we could say we expect retired military officers to routinely follow the example of Trump, Snowden, and Assange when it comes to classified information. But I don't think any of us can make that claim.

Intentional classified information leakage is relatively uncommon, and, for the most part, is punished when it happens and a perpetrator can be identified and caught. Obviously in the case of Trump, that potential punishment is politically fraught, as was/is the case with Assange. The US government would love to punish Snowden if they could get their grubby hands on him. I guess look to Chelsea Manning if you want an example of when the government has successfully brought down the hammer on someone doing things with classified material that they didn't like.

To bring it back to the topic at hand, I expect that the retired military officers now taking employment with the Saudi Arabian military will most likely protect any secrets they're legally bound to protect. Why? Because that's what seems to happen most of the time, and punishments for failure to do so can get pretty severe. And someone who wanted to sell secrets might have a difficult time if their chosen country of exile is SA. If found out, they'd have to contend with the strong possibility that the SA government would extradite them to the US, depending on what kind of pressure the US might bring to bear.

[Maursault]

> Law is only a paper veneer to keep honest people honest.

Not all laws.[1]

> Legal acts do about as much to deter desertion and security leaks as speed limit signs keep people from speeding.

Seems to be working well so far.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gr...

[hnfong]

But I hear that black holes are *notoriously* dishonest...

[thisiscorrect]

Because you can't get any accurate information out of them?

[hnfong]

I was thinking that they don't obey Newton's laws...

[Maursault]

They obey his Law of Gravity and his Laws of Motion. Newton was not incorrect and Einstein did not invalidate Newton's laws. It's only that Newton could not explain the source of the "force" of gravity, and he was honest about this.

[mytailorisrich]

It's not uncommon for ex-military to take such jobs as a way to insulate the Pentagon (or your favourite government) even though they in fact still 'work'for them.

This was (still is?) a classic of French influence in Africa, for instance.

Here my interpretation is that the US keep a close watch on the Saudis...

[atlasunshrugged]

That's an interesting interpretation and I hope you're right. I read it and just assumed it was people finally cashing out after public service and going to the highest bidder.

[mytailorisrich]

Oh they do get a great payday, but that does not necessarily mean that they cut informal ties with the Pentagon or do things against the wishes of the Pentagon.

In this case, the US and the Saudis have been 'tight' for 70 years so one can imagine it is all very friendly...

[wahern]

And Michael Flynn?

> do things against the wishes of the Pentagon

I'm betting that the Pentagon prefers their retired senior staff don't whore themselves out to potential adversaries. But unless and until they cross a formal line, what are you gonna do? If the Pentagon comes across as punitive, e.g. by revoking any latent security clearances, there'll be a huge backlash. This form of consulting and liaising with international groups by retired military is nothing new, and there are legions of retired staff leveraging their status one way or another. It's a perk of the job. It's also not new that it can sometimes be rather unseemly, to say the least. What might be new is the amount of money being thrown around.

These relationships are quite valuable because while it may not seem that way in our social media bubbles and among our international cosmopolitan peers, the day-to-day cultures and administrative machinations of various governments and militaries can be extremely opaque simply because of the huge differences in presumptions and expectations. And this is true even among allies with seemingly similar cultures, which is why even a country like the U.S. with veritable armies of intelligence analysts do ridiculous *hit like bug Angela Merkel's cellphone. Retired personnel don't need to divulge secrets to provide extremely valuable and timely insights, especially as between countries like the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

[GartzenDeHaes]

> does not necessarily mean that they cut informal ties with the Pentagon

Just the opposite, it's those ties and connections that the Saudi's are buying.

[pyuser583]

The US Army let soldiers take leave to fight in Afghanistan’s during the 1980s. This is small potatoes compared to that.

[lnwlebjel]

This would be my first assumption - if not the pentagon then the CIA.

[olliej]

Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case.

I’m not saying that there’s going to be a bunch of treasoning or anything, just that the laws you’re citing wouldn’t be particularly useful if said treasoning did happen.

[vsareto]

Doing anything remotely perceived as treasonous seems dumb. More than likely they are acting closer to spies for the US (against SA) in these positions.

[kelnos]

> Those only work for people in the US or countries that will extradite which I would guess SA would be unlikely to do in this case.

I wouldn't be so sure. SA depends on the US for a significant amount of military equipment and training. They might turn over a US traitor if they got even a whiff of that help being threatened.