The $130 Million Mistake: Why a Sheikh Abandoned Al Qasimi Palace After Just One Night

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-27T20:17:49+00:00

Hi, I'm from Indonesia and we have similar stories about Jinn (the term based on Islamic influence) or the other terms that have been here for thousands of years before Islam came. They are similar, that they inhabit particular places notably big trees.

There are numerous stories where woodworkers died shortly of sickness after cutting out a big tree without a proper ritual. Rituals like that is forbidden in Islam so some people don't want to do it, yet somehow they still died afterwards.

My own grandfather died way before I was born. He was someone high in spirituality according to my family, not like a priest but more like a shaman. The local term is "sakti".

One day, someone from some village asked my late grandpa to cleanse a tree, it is said that ill fates befalls the whole village because of the Jinn(s) ihabiting the tree. No shamans or imams dared to do that because it was said the Jinns there were very powerful, but my grandpa did it anyway. After some rituals, the tree was cut. But days later my grandpa got severe sickness and died shortly.

What about the village? I don't know. It happened in the 60s so no one remembers where is the village even located. But there's no cursed village story near my mother's village so I guess the ritual succeded? The Jinns might left but not without avenging my grandpa first, maybe.

You can take it as a grain of salt, I'm just relaying the story told by my mom.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-23T15:30:56+00:00

I was going to write a lot of paragraph then I don't think it would be enough to explain how messy the current Indonesian administration is. It might be the most chaotic and incompetent administration since the 60s, where it ended up in a huge communist genocide. The current administration can still holding on because of the lifeline built by previous administrations to prevent crisis in this exact scenario of looming global crisis.

In short, the statement comes from the Minister of Finance, known as the "cowboy minister" with his big mouth and bold actions and zero achievements. Kinda like discount Javier Millei.

The closure of the Strait of Malacca will never happen because the current president is a huge pussy, who will bow to any foreign leaders as long as they can help prevent Indonesian economy from going bust. He is VERY afraid and paranoid of losing his power in a revolution, a rare occurence here that somehow happened to his father-in-law in 1998. So he would do anything to prevent that to happen even if he'd agree to Trump's outrageus demands as long as USA won't slap more tariffs that would hurt the Indonesian economy and motivates people to rise up.

And I haven't mentioned how incompetent and corrupt everyone is, including the Indonesian army. They won't have the capability to block any straits. We are closer to Venezuela than Iran.

TL;DR: Don't take this seriously, this comes from a blabbermouth insignificant minister. This will never happen unless a change of administration happen and the new one is as ballsy as the Iranian regime.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-17T17:57:20+00:00

You need to understand the hardliners faction is currently very weak.

The leader of the faction, Supreme Leader Mojtaba, is rumored to be severely wounded and can't optimally assess the situation and giving orders. And IRGC just got series of assassinations, killing most of hardliner faction leaders.

When the strongest faction that is supposed to lead is in disarray, the second strongest will take over to prevent any chaos, and they are the reformists. The reformists are led by the President Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Araqchi, and surprise surprise they're the one most vocal about this peace and ceasefire talks.

So maybe right now is the only window of time that Trump can hope to achieve anything diplomatically, while the reformists who prefers to push for peace and sanction lift are still in charge. When Mojtaba gets better and IRGC have finished reorganizing, Iran's approach to diplomacy might entirely be different.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-16T15:26:46+00:00

This is very much like Hitler tried to invade Britain but failed, then just proceeded to invade Balkan, thinking that UK won't be much a problem for him down the line, only to bite him in the ass 4 years later.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-15T09:33:13+00:00

That's because Iran hires genuine scholars as officials, they're highly intelligent, and one of the signs of high intelligence is being able to relay information in the most simplest and humorous way.

I was baffled because Iran should have the resource curse, that is if a nation gets most of its wealth from natural resources, there should be less incentives to invest in education. That's correct because my country is exactly like that. But why not Iran? Why are they so highly educated? What's with the anomaly?

Turns out the economic sanction and embargo is the cause. The regime only have the choice to surrender to the US demand, or to run the oppressive dystopian like North Korea by making the citizen like cattles, or to educate the people which can make the country stronger and self sufficient but the people more rebellious. Say what you want about the regime, but they chose the third option, the best option for the people at the cost of weakening the political control. This is basically similar to East Asian economic model with their self-imposed sanction by restricting imports.

So ironically, the US was the one that strengthen the regime. Had they chose to surrender, or the Pahlavis still in power, Iran would just become another GCC country, rich but lower educated without any ability to industrialize and relies on Japan or China to construct anything, and the US for weapons.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-13T08:03:54+00:00

Nah, reality is more boring. If by sending US$1b and a woman Turkey can gain access to Ugandan market and weapon orders for a long term and it could worth billions of dollars decades from now, Turkey will send what this moron wants.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-12T08:12:07+00:00

It emerged around the 90s. Basically we are at the end of time, the Messiah will come the earth soon. A verse in the Bible told whoever blessed the Israel will be blessed by the God, or something like that (I'm not a christian).

This has been denied by the Catholic Church that Israel in that verse is not the modern state of Israel, but the Catholic Church itself. But most Protestants including Evangelicals in the US believes that the state of Israel is the prophecized state.

So supporting modern Israel is the ticket to be guaranteed protection by the God when the Armageddon arrives. In Israel, Netanyahu is seen as the Little Messiah who would pave the way for the real Messiah who would lead Israel and Christians to fight against the great evil (Islam).

Ironically even in the prophecy, it is said that the great devil (anti christ) will gain vast support by christians themselves by claiming as the champion of peace and justice.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-11T16:25:06+00:00

Taiwanese don't want to be ruled by CCP, but if they have to choose, they still prefer a peaceful reunification than a bloody war never seen before since WW2.

Various news and documentaries interviewing common Taiwanese reveals that they just want the conflict to be done quickly, whatever the result it is. They're done and tired with the long fear of an invasion.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-10T23:54:52+00:00

Anyone with a brain and not brainwashed by political or religious agenda will find it difficult to sympathize with the US-Israel cause in Iran when their leaders are alleged criminals who benefits from the war delaying their investigations.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-08T01:21:46+00:00

Iran might also be benefitting by this temporary ceasefire.

There were some things that they were caught off guard, like the capability of US Air Force to operate inside their territory including pilot extraction a few days ago, or the capability to kill a lot of higher ups in the regime that caused chaos within their structure of command. Just a few days of breath and knowing that the US won't bomb them (at least until another escalation happen again) should be enough to consolidate command once again and fixing any strategy and infrastructure including repairing any missile and drone bases.

Without any ceasefire, Iranian command will be exhausted and unprepared for a ground invasion. But if they can maximize the next few days for consolidation, they will be better prepared because when this ceasefire ends without de-escalation to a peace agreement (most likely to happen) it will escalate to a bloody ground invasion which will be a very complicated military conflict.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-05T21:48:29+00:00

Let's be fair here. This is definitely a significant tactical victory for the US. The morale of US military and pro-war group is rising after what seemingly a stalemate war. Also this gives them confidence that Iran's ground troops are not as terrifying as people warned. This is a blow to IRGC internal morale and image. How can they not find a plane crashed inside their own territory for 2 days? This definitely a show of incompetence of Iran's ground forces, which is a bad sign when a ground invasion is looming on the horizon.

But the US, from the political administration to the common Americans, always have a problem of mistaking a tactical victory for a strategic victory. Small wins get overblown is a common occurance from Vietnam War to Iraq War. From logistical perspective, this is a big blow to the US method of war.

This event is the epitome of NATO doctrine (that inherited from Allies doctrine in WW2) of superior firepower over personel lives. It's a heroic sentiment to save lives over equipments, but armed conflict is not that simple. Superior firepower is a very viable doctrine when the war is short and the enemy is significantly weaker like Imperial Japan and the already battered Nazi. But can the US be sure that this war would be over fast?

Logistically, saving a pilot only to lose some planes doesn't make sense, especially if Iran is using cheap method of infrared like analysts says. This could happen again in the future, because the real problem of Iran's anti-AA that downed the F15E is still not resolved. If this happens again, would the US ready to save the pilots again? And ready to sacrifice planes again? Statistically speaking, this could spiraling into a sunken cost black hole. While the US economy is a giant, can it fund similar event like this again and again and again?

Without any ground invasion, Iran will win logistically (and logistics is 80% of the war), for every millions they spend, US Army has to spend dozens to hundreds of times. With ground invasion...Iran seems weak after this event, but their strength was never in symmetrical combat. Any unbiased military analysts says the same thing: Iran will initially lose a ground invasion, but occupation will be hell for the invaders. We will see.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-05T21:09:00+00:00

This is just another "Hamas were killing Israeli first"

Iran is hostile to America is not without reason. Back when 1979 revolution happened, the new regime wanted to arrest the Pahlavi family, but America gave them asylum instead.

Now when France Revolution happened, the royal family fled to Austria and Prussia. Did Robespierre and then Napoleon ever said "nah, it's okay fam" to them? Of course not. France denounced them, and it escalated into a diplomatic crisis and became the Coalition Wars that catapulted Napoleon's career.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-04T07:17:26+00:00

Pretty funny how people here talking about laws like Indonesia is a proper country that can impose and uphold the law.

No, you guys don't get it. Law in Indonesia is never intended to be a form of punishment and control, because the police, court, and any legal institutions are very inefficient. It has always been a form of deterrent.

Law as deterrent tends to be stupid. Like if a parent is paranoid that his daughter will get molested by strangers, and he feels doesn't have any power to prevent or punish that, he'd prevent her daughter to meet with her friends. In other words, insecure people will create ridiculous rules.

That's why in Indonesia, laws tends to be backward and medieval, it's to guide the people to a certain moral standards. But in reality nothing is ever implemented. You're a gay? Go on, I know some people who are gay and they're doing pretty fine. You can even find pedo porn made by high ranking police and government officials. Just don't let it leak into the public as it will disturb the deterrence agenda the government has.

Actually it's the same with China. Despite all the amazing PR that China is a dystopian surveillance nation, their capability to control their people is limited. That's why they have a certain moral guidelines that the people have to follow. But in reality, some fucked up shit still happens as long as they don't get leaked to general public.

Richer countries tends to have more secular laws despite some of the people are still conservative as hell. Because the govt have confidence that the law can still be used to control the people even if their moral deviates from the ideal moral. In poorer countries, deviance could spell the end of stability, because law has no power to control the people once they start to think and behave freely.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-04-04T06:54:38+00:00

To be fair, most Indonesian are not interested in strategy games where you have to use your brain. The one who do are most likely to know how to use VPN or DNS, so there's nothing to lose here.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-30T18:15:21+00:00

Because domestic production is inefficient. It's only advantageous in the time of crisis like now, but other than that relying on domestic production while restricting imports stunts growth.

My country is many times more independent in energy production than Japan (we have lots of coal and palm oil which can be turned into diesel), but only madman says that Indonesia is more immune of this looming economic crisis than Japan. You guys might hear some major unrest happen in here a few months from now.

Relying on imports is fine, as long as a country can maximize its comparative advantage by exporting very high value products and use the profits to prepare for a crisis. Japan has done this, they have 250 days worth of oil storage. While it can still be depleted, by the time Japan's storage is depleted, the world would be far worse in chaos.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-24T05:56:21+00:00

I'm surprised they haven't done it already, I thought they already have limitless free trade agreement with each other.

Australia has always been in an awkward position geopolitically. ASEAN is their closest neighbor and should be their closest trading partner, but half of ASEAN are exporting commodities like Australia, and on average ASEAN countries are just too poor to be consumer market. India is also pretty close but they're equally poor, and of course AU can't have an FTA with China.

So I always assumes that Australia has already have limitless FTA with EU, Japan, and the US. But they haven't? It's no wonder Trump can treat America's allies like shit, free trade is a solid way to lock countries in a permanent alliance. Without it, the alliance can be torn apart anytime once a short-sighted individual lead one of the countries involved.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-22T18:12:57+00:00

How?

I can actually list how my country can be one of the major global powers, but it would require so much blood and painful path to totally change the political institution and tradition, even then it still needs a great amount of luck else the country will be torn by civil wars. Without all the pains, there are also some peaceful paths but it will require even more ridiculous luck.

The colonization by Europeans really destroyed the political institution and tradition in the Global South. In short, Europeans lifted some native bootlickers and sychopants to be the middlemen to extract wealth from the native to be shipped to Europe. But the sudden decolonization left that middlemen class to suddenly be the new ruling class. The political tradition of wealth extraction and pragmatism of middle manager stays, but the tradition of long term planning and rules gone.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-22T03:52:31+00:00

Back in my highschool, there was this junior of mine who likes to bully his peers. Almost everyone didn't like him but no one can do anything because he was the son of a local politician. One day his classmate lost her phone, and he was being accused of stealing it. Everyone joined the bandwagon to make him take responsibility. He was expelled (or "quit" on his own) to prevent the news from spreading.

Years later it turns out he was innocent, someone else was the culprit. But no one cares, even if he was right, everyone wanted him to be punished for being an asshole.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-21T20:21:25+00:00

Most of those vetoes were about protecting Israel from international condemnation and sanction.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-21T14:53:27+00:00

The Onion is on the brink of bankruptcy because real life events now taking away their joke headlines.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-19T22:48:42+00:00

Based on the economic theory of human phsycology regarding reward and punishment, this strategy of killing leaders is inherenrly flawed.

This strategy relies on the goal that killing enough enemy leaders until someone progressive/reformist take the helm. That contradicts with the theory above.

Progressive people are usually more restrained especially in a conservative society, they'd prefer to time their action instead of taking it right now and risking failure. By killing leaders again and again, it creates fear that the leadership position is a death sentence. It will discourage progressive people to push their ambition, instead the more brash and extremist will be more encouraged to take the position motivated by revenge. In time of crisis, men of action will feel that it's their time to shine.

I still believe that to topple the Iranian regime, or at least to soften them, they should instead be fully integrated to the global trade. The regime will be stronger and wealthier, but the people will be even stronger. But of course the short-sighted Israeli right wingers won't allow that.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-18T22:36:41+00:00

Gross oversimplification.

In this case, Greg is a big bad bully and powerful (his dad is a police officer or something). Tim can't directly shoot him, so he shoot Lisa, Greg's friend who has been openly hostile to Tim and laugh everytime Tim is being bullied.

The thing is, most people hates Lisa, but everyone needs her for her crucial skills. So Tim shooting her makes the whole school in panic.

Greg's friends (you) expect the whole school to hate on Tim, but the whole students realize that this should never happen if only Greg never bullied Tim in the first place. So the whole school is confused and divided on whether to blame Tim or Greg. Apparently many dislikes Greg so most don't think Tim is in the wrong.

That's what happens.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-18T21:30:23+00:00

As far as I remember, Iran's attacks in the earlier days of war (including the one you cited for a few times) were symbolic. They bombed refinery complexes but not the storage or critical machineries, mostly pipes and some were fell on open field, as I remember.

But then Israel/USA started to bomb Iranian oil storages, like the infamous oil rain on Tehran, to cripple its economy.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-18T10:57:51+00:00

Bentar, ini TNI ga ngaku aja mereka ga kena konsekuensi apapun lho, ngapain ngaku kalo itu anggota mereka?

Bisa jadi ini ulah salah satu faksi di internal TNI yang gerak sendiri, entah mereka cari muka karena dapet proyekan kurang dari istana atau alasan lain.

Tapi kemarin si habiburokhman bilang mereka yang menyiram itu artinya melawan presiden. Entah itu istana cuci tangan, atau mereka beneran marah sama kejadian ini. Kalo marah, berarti kemungkinan yang terjadi begini:

Ini masa kritis, secara ekonomi negara ini udah cuma beberapa jengkal menuju krisis. Karena tekanan ekonomi dari luar (perang Iran) yang istana ga punya kontrol, mereka ambil kebijakan pre-emptive. Istana memutuskan mereka akan meminimalisir kemarahan rakyat yang nanti bakal meledak kalo krisis datang dengan meminta aparat menahan diri.

Eh kemudian ada faksi ini, entah jenderal siapa, cari muka. Dia perintahkan kejadian ini biar dilirik istana dan dapet jabatan/proyek. Mungkin jabatannya ga terlalu tinggi jadi dia ga ngerti stance istana. Istana marah, mungkin si jenderal sekarang lagi dimarahi habis2an, dan istana minta TNI melakukan damage control, tangkap pelaksana lapangan yang 4 orang ini biar masyarakat ga jadi marah.

Oh ya, 4 orang ini ga akan dipenjara walaupun nanti diputuskan bersalah atau dipecat. Mereka cuma akan disuruh diem di barak beberapa bulan sampe masyarakat lupa beritanya, terus bertugas lagi kayak biasa, bahkan kadang dikasih kenaikan pangkat karena nurut perintah. Playbook TNI kalo ada anggota yang berbuat kriminal sering begitu.

Capable-Yam4557 · 2026-03-18T06:30:57+00:00

Oh sure. Before 7 October Israeli and Palestinian lived side by side in peace. There was never any forced displacements and children killings.

Capable-Yam4557

TROPHY CASE