House of Saud in 'panic' over al-Qaida

WorldNetDaily.Com ^ | Posted: December 6, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern | © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

[endthematrix]

It was the 23% I was talking about. The ones with disposable income who fund jihad fighers around the globe through "Islamic Charities."

[highlander_UW]

It was the 23% I was talking about. The ones with disposable income who fund jihad fighers around the globe through "Islamic Charities."

That's fine then. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't an equal sign being drawn between Arab and muslim, especially regarding the growth of Arab population within the U.S. as that would be a false assumption.

I suppose we could look on the bright side. Zakat is only 2.5%.

[endthematrix]

I was kinda quick to post and use my newbie HTML skills to use. Just want to say Saudis are NOT the only terror funding around. Also, it does not take BIG $$ to use terror anyway. Look at those sad West Bank suicide bombers-they use hard to fine scrap wire and old pipe with some gunpowder. Old cheap tech is just as deadly.

[highlander_UW]

I agree entirely. In fact, I had considered making that point to those calling for cutting off the funding as if that'll stop all terrorism. How much did it cost Timothy McVeigh for his bomb? A few thousand dollars for fertilizer and a rental truck? We do not have the ability to harden all targets within the U.S.. The only defense is to try to keep them from getting here...and I have no confidence in that given our porous boarders.

[lentulusgracchus]

It might work if we offered India a "nuclear umbrella" of Tridents......16 launch vehicles times 10 MIRV's each equals a substantial fraction of the total Chinese nuclear ICBM + IRBM forces. Plus, forward basing of the Tridents would allow for longer patrols. Then there are the cruise and carrier-borne weapons aboard the Fifth and Seventh Fleets.

Might be doable.

And yes, I'm aware that the Saudis were originally Wahhabis, that they nominally still are and that the more religious among them literally are; but most of them have become rather more worldly than Wahhabism permits, and are even as worldly as Cairenes, who are known for their bon-vivant secularism in the Arab world.

A good example of the worldly Saudi prince would be Prince Bandar, a sometime F-15 driver in the Royal Saudi Air Force and lately ambassador to the U.S. and noted figure in the DC social whirl. Bandar is reputed to be one of the best people in the Kingdom and the ideal ambassador to the West, but he's been in eclipse since King Fahd's fell ill and especially since 9/11.

[lentulusgracchus]

Census: U.S. Arab Population Is Surging

According to the CIA Fact Book, we have about half as many Arabs as the UAE or Oman, 50% more than Qatar, and twice as many as Bahrain. That means we should be ranked somewhere in the list of countries in the Arab world.

[lentulusgracchus]

what's scary about this, and we really don't want to see nuclear war, is that there are few options in dealing with these guys ...

Nice visuals, but I don't think we need them. The British showed us how to deal with fanatics in the 19th century: you bait them to a climactic battle, as at Omdurman, thrash their asses to a fare-thee-well, and then either you nail their Mr. Mojo, or they'll kill him for you, especially if he's been running his mouth and claiming to speak Truth in God's Name, like the Mahdi did and Osama the Slammer Target does still.

Kill Bin Laden, and this all goes away. The logistics are still there, but nailing their mojo makes turns them all back into cobblers, taxi drivers, and goatherds. That's how you deal with a fanatics' crusade. You dispel the magic and kill their shock force, and everyone else takes it to the house.