Having just returned from the Gulf I decided to read more about how it became what it is now, how they became more Americanized than any other country I've been in, the answer is OIL and the American interest in the resources they've got in their country, Syriana is one of the movies that really exposes the reality of the situation and how Americans need Arabs to want stuff they don't need from them, in order to maintain a trade balance, otherwise America would go bankrupt while purchasing petrol from the middle east, One of the best book on this is "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" I haven't read it just yet but looking forward to, this book is about how the middle east was shaped and reshaped to enable America to acquire Oil without going bankrupt.
Going back in history, about the same thing happened when England discovered Tea around the 1700s, basically tea at one point became a hyped commodity in Britain and since the Chinese people were from a totally different culture and didn't require anything that the British technology could produce and export, additionally china had really firm trade regulations that limited the interaction of the traders to certain areas and they weren't allowed to move freely within China, the Brits wanting tea and having nothing to trade it for started using the universal currencies, gold and silver, soon enough Imperial Britain realized that they were running out, and due to the popularity of tea they were going to go bankrupt in a decade or two. Additionally cargo ships were going to china while empty, since Chinese people didn't want to buy anything from them, the solution was to get them hooked to something they could easily produce, something that didn't cost them a lot to produce, Opium, which they grew in India, and Indians were hooked to British commodities, so the ships sailed from Britain, with commodities for the Indians, traded them for Opium, took the Opium and traded it with China for tea. By the 1800's, China was trading the silver they saved up for Opium, The trade imbalance shifted in the other side, which eventually sparked the Opium war. This sounds awfully familiar doesn't it.
The gulf nations are living this life that's completely Americanized they are addicted to these little trinkets exported to them by the Americans, commodities that they've always lived without but now can not, and for these commodities they are trading out their oil reserves. That said I have this other observation, have you noticed how all of the major cigarette companies are American?
Going back in history, about the same thing happened when England discovered Tea around the 1700s, basically tea at one point became a hyped commodity in Britain and since the Chinese people were from a totally different culture and didn't require anything that the British technology could produce and export, additionally china had really firm trade regulations that limited the interaction of the traders to certain areas and they weren't allowed to move freely within China, the Brits wanting tea and having nothing to trade it for started using the universal currencies, gold and silver, soon enough Imperial Britain realized that they were running out, and due to the popularity of tea they were going to go bankrupt in a decade or two. Additionally cargo ships were going to china while empty, since Chinese people didn't want to buy anything from them, the solution was to get them hooked to something they could easily produce, something that didn't cost them a lot to produce, Opium, which they grew in India, and Indians were hooked to British commodities, so the ships sailed from Britain, with commodities for the Indians, traded them for Opium, took the Opium and traded it with China for tea. By the 1800's, China was trading the silver they saved up for Opium, The trade imbalance shifted in the other side, which eventually sparked the Opium war. This sounds awfully familiar doesn't it.
The gulf nations are living this life that's completely Americanized they are addicted to these little trinkets exported to them by the Americans, commodities that they've always lived without but now can not, and for these commodities they are trading out their oil reserves. That said I have this other observation, have you noticed how all of the major cigarette companies are American?
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