Lebanese customs boss Badri Daher was accused of illegally lifting a travel ban on a drug-smuggling Saudi prince. Daher was arrested after he allegedly accepted a bribe, wasted public funds and misused his position to allow a drug-smuggling Saudi prince to leave Lebanon without him paying his several million dollar fine. The Saudi prince, Prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz, had completed his prison sentence for attempting to smuggle nearly two tonnes of Captagon, an amphetamine based drug, from Beirut to Saudi Arabia. Daher denied illegally lifting the ban. Lebanese customs seized about $21.75 million USD worth of Captagon. Daher said, allegedly, he had been asked by the Lebanese President Michel Aoun himself to lift the travel ban. The presidency denied the president\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My take is that it’s a shame how these individuals, and therefore the power that they hold, can be easily influenced with money. That Saudi prince smuggled roughly $22 million of Captagon, and all he has to do is slide a couple million to the Lebanese customs boss and to the president of Lebanon. Entire governments are difficult to corrupt, but individuals are easy. This will definitely leave lasting effects in Beirut. There will hopefully be an investigation into this presidency and I’m sure there will be more money that isn’t supposed to be there. If the Lebanese president is convicted, then that will definitely have long lasting effects in the area. More distrust will absolutely be embedded in Saudi-Lebanese border interactions from now on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In class, we discussed the international system in terms of polarity. More specifically for this scenario, bipolar, where it’s two powers of relative equal strength. Historical eras frequently come to an end when the international system is disrupted or changes. I’m not necessarily sure if the Saudis and the Lebanese will have a war, but there are other ways to shift international power. For example, we aren’t in a direct war with China, but we are both competing furiously to be the number one economy. Who will win is to be determined, but this “war” is bipolar in the international system view, between the United States and China. The Saudis and the Lebanese will most likely not have a war if outside diplomatic powers get involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lebanese customs boss Badri Daher was accused of illegally lifting a travel ban on a drug-smuggling Saudi prince. Daher was arrested after he allegedly accepted a bribe, wasted public funds and misused his position to allow a drug-smuggling Saudi prince to leave Lebanon without him paying his several million dollar fine. The Saudi prince, Prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4252,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/4252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}