[Fedora]

> Back to the original point though, it is fascinating that there is no interest in possible connections of various American officials, of both parties, to the Saudi government by the Left or the media.

I can think of several possible reasons for that--bribery, blackmail, financial blackmail (i.e., the Saudis have enough influence in our economy that they could cause a lot of chaos in the stock market), diplomatic concerns, protecting a covert operation, strategic deferrment of conflict with the Saudis until after other international problems have been dealt with, combinations of the above, other. . . What's your thoughts on the explanation for that?

> Leftists have spent much of the last two years arguing Saudi Arabia is a greater threat then Iraq, and have shown even less interest in who the Saudis may be bribing then who was on Iraq's payroll.

This raises something I'm curious about: what stake the Saudis had in Iraq's WMD program. During the first Gulf War, the Saudis saw Iraq as a threat and supported the coalition against them. This time around, they seemed--at least publicly--to resist the US campaign against Iraq, until war was inevitable and then they seemed to cave a bit and cooperate with us to the extent of Coalition use of Saudi bases (if I remember right). In between those events, were they temporarily allying with Iraq and piggybacking off of Iraq's WMD program?--that's my guess.

[Fedora]

From another thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1078415/posts

John Loftus has been saying this for weeks. The Saudis promised access to cheap oil for china's growing economy, plus money for the project. China is the root of all evil, stealing US nuclear secrets, providing the bomb for islam and north korea. they are the US #1 enemy in my opinion.

15 posted on 02/14/2004 11:04:24 PM CST by oceanview