[Shadow44]

Al-Qaeda is a Saudi proxy army. It was made up of mujahedeen which nobody disputes were Saudi proxies, and Bin Laden’s family is tied to the hip of the Saudi Royal Family. Then suddenly 9/11 happens and Al-Qaeda hates the Saudi government, despite being armed and funding to engage in advancing the same geo-strategic interests and receiving continuous support from the Saudi government.

[Celtic Conservative]

Well, the Binladin group will have a hard time ginning up terrorists because the Saudis just nationalized a good chunk of it.

CC

[Zhang Fei]

[Al-Qaeda is a Saudi proxy army. It was made up of mujahedeen which nobody disputes were Saudi proxies, and Bin Laden’s family is tied to the hip of the Saudi Royal Family. Then suddenly 9/11 happens and Al-Qaeda hates the Saudi government, despite being armed and funding to engage in advancing the same geo-strategic interests and receiving continuous support from the Saudi government.]

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What geo-strategic interest of the Saudi royals was al Qaeda advancing when it struck the US on 9/11? Basically, al Qaeda put the Saudi royals in the cross-hairs.

The 9/11 attacks were a supersized coup attempt against the Saudi royal family by bin Laden. The idea behind the attacks was that the US would invade Saudi Arabia and topple the al-Saud family, thereby uniting the Muslim world behind al Qaeda’s plan to make bin Laden the first Caliph since the Ottomans were removed from power by Kemal Ataturk. Assuming al Qaeda was able to eject the US from Saudi Arabia the way the Afghans ejected the Soviets, the bin Ladin family would graduate, from mere retainers to a royal family, to being the royal family.

In addition, Saudi Arabia also suffered a huge hit to its favorability rating among Americans in the wake of 9/11. It went from 47% favorable and 46% unfavorable in Feb 2001 to 29% favorable and 67% unfavorable in Feb 2019, almost 18 years after the 9/11 attacks. In a traditional Arab society where collective responsibility is pretty much a given, there’s no question that the bin Ladin family has a lot to answer for.

[Zhang Fei]

[Al-Qaeda is a Saudi proxy army. It was made up of mujahedeen which nobody disputes were Saudi proxies, and Bin Laden’s family is tied to the hip of the Saudi Royal Family. Then suddenly 9/11 happens and Al-Qaeda hates the Saudi government, despite being armed and funding to engage in advancing the same geo-strategic interests and receiving continuous support from the Saudi government.]

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The neocons who advanced this argument are full of crap. And when I say neocons, I don’t mean Jews. I mean people who think inside every foreigner is an American struggling to get out, and one man one vote will usher in American-style democracy. In Egypt, they did that and they got the al Qaeda’s civilian wing (the Muslim Brotherhood) ruling the country. My point being that people have different customs and traditions handed down from generation to generation, along with mother’s milk, that have nothing to do with our narratives or even the ruling government’s narratives. Look at how quickly the Soviet Union devolved into over a dozen countries despite over a hundred years of Russification efforts, enforced with gulags that killed tens of millions and forcible relocation efforts that took troublesome minorities thousands of miles from their ancestral lands.

Arabs don’t take their marching orders from the government. That’s why they make such lousy soldiers, from the perspective of the ruler. Nobody wants to die for the leader - everyone wants to be last man standing. Read a Middle Eastern history book about all the different regimes that have come and gone and it’s full of intra-regime intrigue - fathers killing sons, siblings killing siblings, sons killing fathers, grand viziers killing sultans, generals rising in revolt, etc.

The idea that the Saudi royals are feeding their subjects Wahhabism and making them radical rather than singing along to avoid being killed is a joke. In these places, every man thinks he could be sultan, and pointing to the irreligion of the incumbents is an excellent way to rally followers and raise the flag of revolt.