Posted on 05/30/2004 9:43:05 AM PDT by jerrydavenport
This whole hostage crisis in saudi arabia is all too confusing.
1- First of all inspite of all the bombings, killings and violence, we haven't got any demands from the terrorists as to what exactly they want tthe saudis to do.
2- Secondly saudi arabia hasn't cracked down on al qaeda. It hasn't been supporting the US led war in iraq. Why would al qaeda want to target saudi arabia?
3- Thirdly, each time we accuse saudi arabia and pakistan of complicity in terror, there are bombings both in saudi arabia and Pakistan. It seems too much of a co-incidence. It seems as if though they are trying to convince us that they are the victims not the perpetrators of terror, each time we accuse them of terror.
4- Finally, a few years back instead of cracking down on al qaeda and the wahhabi movement, the saudis arrested britons and canadians for bombings in saudi arabia and hinted that western govts and israel were behind the bombings to destabilize saudi arabia.
what possible motive could the west have had in saudi arabia.
if it wasn't westerners but al qaeda, why did the saudis arrest britons and canadians for the bombings?
5- Do the saudis see westerners as a threat because of western demands for democracy in saudi arabia?
6- Does the saudi govt want foreigners to come to saudi arabia or leave the kingdom? If the saudi govt wants westerners to come to saudi arabia, then why has it made travel from the west to saudi arabia so difficult?
7- What have the saudis done is the khobar tower bombings in the 90's to pursue the investigation? fight fanatacism at home. Clip al qaeda. Stop its funding. disperse it's network.
Why haven't the saudis done absolutely nothing against al qaeda in over a decade since the bombing? could they be the sponsors of it?
8- What have the saudis done since 911 to crack down on al qaeda?. Considering that most of the hijackers were from saudi arabia, it is very clear how serious the problem was. It's been over 2 years since 911. Why haven't saudis done anything since?.
9- if al qaeda has been behind the recent attacks that have spanned more than a year, why have the saudis taken it so lightly till now. What have they done to fight al qaeda over the past one year?. Have they closed down schools associated with al qaeda?, weeded out al qaeda sympathizers fromn the govt? what exactly have they done since the past one year to fight al qaeda?.
10- If al qaeda was responsible for these attacks, then why doesnt the saudis ask the FBI for help.
I am sure the FBI would be more than willing to help the saudis, since it might even provide the FBI with information against their own suspects.
if you look at the past one year and the fact that the saudis have done nothing to fight al qaeda. It seems they are either not inclined to fight it or incapable of fighting it. If that is the case, they should let american law enforcement agencies in to help the saudis out.
There are many questions the saudis seem incapable of answering. It only fuels our suspicions considering how treacherous the region is
I think your underlying assumption that the Saudis are the target is mistaken. The attacks are designed to disrupt the oil business and ultimately, the West. The terrorists want to damage us economically and making oil more expensive is one way. The fact that it damages the hated Saudi royal family is gravy.
How did three escape? Were they "let go" as part of the agreement?
Also, they were shaven. They aren't usually shaven.
That helicopter rescue sure looked easy enough so that a video-reporter was able to film it safely. Hmmmm.
..."...each time we accuse saudi arabia and pakistan of complicity in terror, there are bombings both in saudi arabia and Pakistan. It seems too much of a co-incidence. It seems as if though they are trying to convince us that they are the victims not the perpetrators of terror, each time we accuse them of terror."...
I agree with you the Sauds funded wahabbism, this is all a big Saud scam, they think that they can stay in power by making the alternative look worse. I don't believe a word I'm hearing out of Saudi Arabia over this.
As John said, AQ is targeting the US' oil supply but one would think there's better ways such as blowing up the wells and tanks themselves rather than holding hostages. I too wondered many of the same things as you.
The government wants enough foreigners in the country to run the oil business. It wants to fund enough Islamic craziness for export that all the hotheads shoot at us and the Israelis rather than at them. And it wants to vacation in Europe with a fat expense account.
The government are soft hypocrits from the point of view of the true believers. The true believers are insane nutjobs from the point of view of the government. The government pays protection money to the crazies. In return, they get to be regarded as a legitimate government, instead of the playboy mansion.
Are there elements of the Saudi government who are themselves anti-western Islamicist nutjobs? Certainly. Their interior minister is a ferocious antisemite. But others rather like their oil wealth and do not particularly want to get involved in a nuclear war against a superpower that is their largest customer and could take everything they have tomorrow.
When the hotheads kill foreigners there to work on the oil business, the government kills the hotheads. That is a no-no. If they attacked the government, it would chop off a thousand heads without batting an eye. If instead they only want money and a place to organize and teach, and go bomb things in Israel or India or the US, no problem.
You cannot begin to fathom the depths of the cynicism in middle east politics. They are not a monolith of true believers secretly cultivating deniability. Half of them don't believe a word of it, don't believe in anything but money. They use it entirely cynically. Think Alexander the VIth and Cesare Borgia.
They are have not been surrounded by examples of chivalry for centuries. They don't associate moralizing with actual moral action as you or I know moral action. Moralizing is murder rhetoric. Bribe taking accomodation is its practical contrary. Selfishness looks positively reasonable. The result is a bottomless cynicism. This in turn feeds the self image of the crazies, who think nobody else understands moral purpose of any kind.
The House of Saud is a target since they're not viewed as being legitimate. The attack is an easy way to continue roiling the oil market which ends up affecting us at the pump. And potentally affecting the economy and the election.
Dear jerrydavenport,
You sure ask a lot of question for someone from new jersey. I'm sure your problems with hostesses can be fixed if you just take a little more time and stop to consider their feelings before you yell at them. Like the time I was a hostess at a little diner in Brooklyn called Tone's Steakhouse and Pizzaria. You know how you hate people who take one bite out of the pizza and they yell because the top of their mouth gets all burnt. They would always want a water right then and there. Didn't they think about this before they took the bite. And then they start yelling just because I'm the hostess and their mouths are open and you see that little piece of oregano stuck in the front of their tooth. It's just sitting there stick right in the crack between the front teeth. And you want to take a napkin or your fingernail and pick it right out before it drives you crazy?
Rosanne, We are trying to get some questions answered about HOSTAGES.
Hostages? You mean people held against their will. Nevermind.
But seriously folks,
"A man who said he was among the freed hostages told Agence France Presse that the militants had cut the throats of nine hostages. "The nine had their throats cut when they tried to escape at night by the stairs," said Nijar Hijazin, a Jordanian computer engineer, according to AFP."
This isn't spin. It's a first hand account of what happened. These people we are at war with are fighting on the front lines against globalism. They are the tip of the spear for groups like J18 and the WTO protesters. ANSWER is likewise constituted, wishing for the US to 100% no-interventionist or do anything to harm the balance of nature. For these groups stateside, non-interventionism is the answer even if there exists tangible evidence (taliban al qaeda - Afghanistan) and a growing body of evidence of the most sensitive, difficult to decipher kinds, (Feyedeen black ops - Iraq), it's still no pretext for any response to continued acts of war made upon the USA. Ergo they are loosely allied with the enemies of the US governing state, both the military and her innocent civilians. It would certainly make sense for things to be this way.
The far left embodies all that these fading religious Arab tribesmen hold dear, fanatical naturalists, their literal reading of the Koran imbues within them beliefs holding preservation of the environment always over and at odds with the demands of humans for quality of life improvements. Basically, the preservation of the way it used to be.
Faced with greater energy demands required in a successful growing economy, there's bound to be conflict before resolution.
The good news: One side doesn't have to win for the problem to be resolved. For any peace through non-military means to occur, there has to be a fair division of resources and preservation of societal structures (Islamic sovereignity) AND a rewriting of certain pasages in the Quran resoloving the issue of world wide domination as the natural conclusion as it is presently philosophically presented. You can't get one without the other. In return, the west must set forth a framework for dividing it's resources for use in the economy and the pursuits of humankind to advance it's culture and science, and an ecological preservation for the enjoyment of all mankind.
The bad news: They couldn't get this to work after 20 year's worth of Star Trek episodes, so I don't give it much of a chance working here.
The other path to resolution is for one side to win. When the US "won" through the application of total warfare as was the case in the war against Japan, she showed herself to be a magnanamous victor. The US helped engineer a society second only to the US in total wealth and production. For this the US gained a trusted ally of the highest order. Japan is second only to Great Britain and the Commonwealth as trusted allies. And the US fought with the British as well. So there is precedent.
The President is correct to state that democratization of the region is the first step to reconciliation. In the meantime, the greatest threat to the US is if the far left at home and the radical muslims abroad have formed an alliance, an alliance the home grown leftists have been duped into believing is permanent. This is what makes remarks by ANSWER founder Michael Berg, father of slain Nick Berg, so chilling. "They killed their best friend".
You don't want your nation done in by sympathetic natural citizens, or as we used to call them, traitors. I'm not optimistic that won't be the case when the US is once again befelled by a great terror strike.
recently there were news articles tying the insurgents in iraq to saudi arabia.
This whole hostage drama might have been staged to show the saudis as the victims not the perpetrators.
The islamic world is an extremely treacherous place.
it's very hard to tell who your friends or enemies are.
the fact of the matter is that its been more than a decade since khobar towers, more than 2 years since 911, and almost a year since the recent violence in saudi arabia began, why haven't the saudis taken steps against al qaeda?
if they aren't harboring them, then haven't they taken any steps against this group over a decade period?
This isn't about globalization. This is about pan islamism.
As for globalization, i'm from the right, but very much against it.
globalization in the past meant americans controlling other countries and economies, a practice that was good for us.
But recently globalization has foreigners moving to america, taking americans out of work, while other american jobs are shipped abroad.
today globalization means exactly the opposite of what it meant a decade back. It has come to mean a loss of american jobs and a redistribution of the wealth of the developed world amongst the third world countries. A notion i find akin to the marxist ideology.
This is something i am very much against. because first of all you are giving american others, secondly, if you transfer our technology to the third world and they couple that with cheap labor of theirs, it would drive us out of business.
Very simple...the Saudis don't understand the lessons of Munich in 1938...they are about to get one.
As for the US...I'm not sure we do either. We will find out November 3rd.
That is so tempting.
I would come up with a really delicious reply to that last line, but I'm sure that it would immediately be yanked by the admin. moderator, so I'll take a pass.
As for the Khobar Towers bombing; it's been nearly a decade and the trials of the Hezbollah-there are many of them, not just the Lebanese version, though that's by far the largest and most popular-members who were caught have still not begun.
Louis Freeh was intimately involved in this case. The original 4 conspirators supposedly confessed their crimes-complete with full diagrammatic schema on a green chalkboard-on national television back in S.A. They were swiftly beheaded, which was a bit of a problem for the FBI, seeing as how they hadn't had the opportunity to question any of them. Again, see Louis Freeh.
If you want any more information, feel free to send me an e-mail, either through FR or my 'contacts' page.
indeed, how did they escape? it doesn't seem possible.
Note further their superb access to military uniforms.
Note that the FBI never claims good thorough assistance from the Saudis.
Note that the Saudis have not imprisoned one single funder of terror.
I think it has something to do with a strange double entendre, but I'll have to check.
Get back to you on that.
The britons as far as i can remember were just a publicity stunt and subsequently released. Lemme check on that
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