Posted on 08/09/2002 6:24:29 AM PDT by rdb3
NEW YORK - The Bush Administration once again heard the cold, hard facts about Saudi Arabia's growing threat. And once again, they covered their ears.
"Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies," Rand Corporation analyst Laurent Murawiec told the Defense Policy Board last July 10. "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader," he said to this advisory panel of former elected officials and security experts.
Senior administration officials would have none of this. When the Washington Post revealed this briefing on August 6, Secretary of State Colin Powell called Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud Faisal to promise that it did not reflect U.S. policy. "The Saudis cooperate fully in the global war on terrorism," Pentagon spokesman Victoria Clarke added.
True, but on which side?
Saudi Arabia routinely antagonizes Americans and Israelis. Behold a small sample of its latest misdeeds:
Saudi Arabia is the Federal Reserve of terrorism. Israeli soldiers recovered records on the West Bank this spring that show that the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Intifada al-Quds (Arabic for Jerusalem) has paid $5,300 bonuses to the families of at least 102 Palestinian homicide bombers. The Committee, controlled by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, raised $109.5 million last April in a Jerry Lewis-style telethon for "Palestinian martyrs."Documents indicate that another Saudi "charity," the International Islamic Relief Organization, gave $280,000 to 14 Palestinian groups including "Hamas-identified committees/bodies." Hamas sponsored the July 31 Hebrew University bombing that wounded 86 civilians and murdered seven others, five of them Americans.
Here's what news accounts say NATO troops found last October at the Sarajevo office of the Saudi High Commission for Relief: pre-and-post-attack photos of the World Trade Center, the USS Cole and American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, maps of federal buildings in Washington and materials for forging State Department badges.
Top Saudis parrot Der Sturmer editor Julius Streicher, perhaps Hitler's loudest Jew hater. Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Saudais, Chief Cleric at Mecca's Grand Mosque, claimed last April 19 that Jews are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the killers of the prophets and the grandsons of monkeys and pigs."
The Saudi Commerce Ministry recently banned spoons, toy guns, candies and laser discs emblazoned with Stars of David, the English-language Riyadh Daily reported June 25.
Soon after the September 11 attacks, orchestrated by 15 Saudis among 19 hijackers, Saudi diplomats whisked several of Osama bin Laden's relatives on a private jet from America to Saudi Arabia and beyond the reach of U.S. investigators.
As the Administration considers invading Iraq, it also should pursue regime change in Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein is essentially a better-armed Ferdinand Marcos. He is an egomaniac who craves power and crushes opponents. Hussein, a secular Muslim, professes no concrete ideology beyond his own cult of personality. Yes, he has treated his Kurdish minority to poison gas and likely is building chemical, biological and even atomic weapons of mass murder. Still, Hussein seems more of a regional headache than a worldwide menace.
The House of Saud apparently lacks such a weapons program, but it adheres to a globally-ambitious, religious-based ideology. Saudi Arabia aims to hijack Islam everywhere - from Medina to Manila to Manhattan's Islamic Cultural Center on East 96th Street - and infect it with that religion's virulent Wahhabi strain. The goal? An energized, anti-Semitic, anti-Western, anti-American faith. Through the charities, religious schools and mosques they finance, Saudi Arabia would employ Wahhabism to build a bridge to the Eighth Century.
America should confront the Saudi dictatorship. For starters, President Bush and Secretary Powell should stop glad-handing Saudi officials. Statecraft may require them to work with Riyadh, but there is no need for Crown Prince Abdullah to hobnob at Bush's Texas ranch.
Abundant global oil supplies also would diminish Saudi Arabia's relevance. Thus, Washington should help Russia and West African nations boost their petroleum production. Africa needs the money, and a prosperous, Westward-looking Russia would be unlikely to re-aim its ballistic missiles at America.
Topple Saddam Hussein, if we must. But Rand's scholar is right. Team Bush should stop pretending that Saudi Arabia is Holland with sand dunes.
True. There's not much sense in killing your biggest customer.
The US economic condition is deteriorating rapidly because of lack of faith in the irresponsible corporate leaders, now we should add to it irresponsible political leaders! If the war drums are beaten for Iran, and Saudi Arabia, I would be the first to cheer on, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are the world largest contributer financially and idealogically to the hate/militantan campaign against Christians and Jews. We have finite resources, and many enemies. A dictator like Saddam is not our priority at this time. Let us focus on El Qaeida, Hamas, Moslem Brotherhood, Jamaa Islamia, Jishi Mohamad of Pakistan,.......too many radical nut cases all over the world! Do not take your eye off the ball. The problem is Islam! The Bush administration have been doing a great job so far focusing on the terrorists. Let us not distract them from their mission, which is not depose a dictator! Even the UN inspector Mr. Ritter said that Saddam has been defanged, and no longer a danger. The real danger are the mosques that spewing venomous Islamic preaching without control in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, London, Chicago, Atlanta,…..
We should ally ourselves with non ideological regimes like Syria/Iraq/Egypt/Lebanon/Jordon to invade both Saudi Arabia, and Iran to change their governments to a non-fanatic representative governments. That would get the support of the Europeans, the American people and most of the world. Granted that Mr. Kristol, and Mr. Pearl would not be happy, but who cares.
WE must make every effort to change the venomous preaching in the mosques. These governments employ these clerics, and can control their speeches the same way they control other speeches! If our leaders are too timid to demand changes in clerics preaching, then we need different leaders!
In other words, let us not encourage them to establish "Freedom of Speech," but institute a a better system of propaganda (one more in tune to our world objectives... like not letting our citizens get blown up by these fanatics).
Additionally, we can just forget about the notion of "State-sponsored Terrorism" and just concentrate on the actual terrorists themselves ...(Forget about Hitler! It's the individual Nazi that's our main problem!)
I respectfully suggest the time for dialog is over... sometimes we just have to act in a way that gets peoples attention.
I'm so glad the U.S.A. established the concept of "jihadd" ...here I was thinking it was an Islamic invention.
I agree radical Islam is the problem. But it's been a problem since the Crusades of the middle-ages. The solution is to contain the threat.
We disagree on the course of action. I simply do not believe that replacing one propaganda system with another is a viable solution.
Chrisitanity is superior to Islam for many reasons, aside from the completeness of it's truths. One reason is that throughout the history of Christianity there has been an active dialog and sincere questioning of what is true and what is not. Islam has no such history. There is no serious debate about what is truthful and what is not. Clerics (imperfect men) determine what the populace will believe. Independent thought regarding a persons relationship to his Almighty Creator is forbidden. Good intentions will not change that.
Only through a comitted and just use of reasonable force can we hope to open-up Islam to the idea that we can become closer to God by questioning those dictates that keep us in servitude to a corrupt philosophy.
Let me put it this way: I am closer to the Holy Trinity today, because of the efforts of some great thinkers who dared to question the written word... and in so doing discovered undenialble truths. (I'm thinking of the "Great-Debates" of past ages where clerics gathered to examine the teachings of Scripture).
No, the secret to distroying Islam is to expose it to the Lamp of God and allow free-thinking men (and women) the chance to fully examine it's total decay. We only have the option of using tools that are effective to get their attention.
P.S. The bet explanation can be found in the words to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" ...(which I can't seem to stop humming). LOL!
Unless you're Islamic. Saudi Arabia seems to have no problem funding attacks against their biggest customer.
I don't care how many of them there are, Abdul.
Cockroaches are even more numerous (for the moment).
Doesn't stop me from eradicating them.
Yes, it makes total sense.
Please calm yourself. There was no CIA or United States, and Israel had not yet been reborn when radical Islam was "invented." A guy named Muhammad did that in 670 AD, when he invented Islam itself.
If you are referring to the Wahhbists of Saud...again, there was no CIA, and Israel had not been reborn at the time Wahabbism was invented, though there WAS a United States. Wahhabism became popular in the late noneteenth century, and it is responsible for the bloody coup - caused by Islamic extremists, NOT the CIA or Israel - which gave rise to the House of Saud.
I know when they start their anti American tirades and accuse the US of having taken over "the world" and I say "REALLY?? When did we nuke Mecca? When did we divebomb planes into Mosques? Why haven't I heard this?" they get hysterical. "You can't do that!", "You spout American imperialist lies!" and other such gibbering stupidity.
And I get THAT reaction from making a sarcastic remark!! They are PETRIFIED at the prospect, because they know we can!
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