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A bit of a digression but it does explain binLaden and the Saud royals. Last week Arnaud De Borchgrave of CSIS and UPI was on CSPAN and due the fates or serendipity, I turned to that station while surfing to find him giving a detailed talk on his recent visit to Pakistan, during which he also related a tale of meeting with one of the Saud Princes just after the Gulf War I while visiting him in London.

This is the gist of his information. I ordered a transcript tape of the program so it is fairly accurate:

The Saud Royal Family run the country of Saudi Arabia like a corporation with the thousands of male and female royals being "served" by those of other nations whom they can employ. Witness the recent meetings with Pakistan to supply their nuclear needs. (Why you ask would a country of an abundance of oil need nuclear power???)

They can equip a military with men and equipment of the best calibre, but cannot operate it themselves and have to hire people for that purpose as well.

After Gulf War I, De Borchgrave was in London and met with one of the Saud princes, who at the pre-war era was the Minister of Defense for Saudi Arabia.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, binLaden approached this particular prince and offered to launch a strike against Hussein and the Republican Guard to remove them from Kuwait.
binLaden had suggested he was well schooled in military maneuver and planning as he had experience with Afghanistan and the Russians with much success.

The Saud prince related to De Borchgrave that his response to binLaden was a greivous error in that he said "No", he would be requesting the assistance of the U.S. and any coalition forces they could get together.

Thus began the blind hatred by binLaden for the western infidels invading his country and surrounding neighbors.

I found it an interesting story, but as the creator of the story is an arab a people who are inclined at the present time to "fudge" a bit on their recollections of events...I will give it a 10% bit of fluff too...although De Borchgrave seems a legitimate and credible reporter and there is no reason for him to dress it up.

Could that have been the master switch to unleash all of binLaden's hatred for the infidel west? I wonder.

The tape I ordered from CSPAN is extremely interesting and I neglected to write out the Saud Prince's name, but perhaps will have time to rewind it and have a second look.