Posted on 06/09/2004 10:26:41 PM PDT by Dick Holmes
Just as the Shah of Iran was different than Khomeini.
The Pavlavi monarchy was not perfect, but it was far better than the alternative for the people of Iran and the national interests of the United States.
Why not? The Iranians who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran came from state-funded universities.
A little Saudi payback for Libya's recent rapprochement with the West?. And perhaps giving out too much info about the Pakistanis and their Saudi connections. AQ Khan network a little more official and leading to Saudi more than thought?
And a good way to get Alamoudi off the hook in America?
Keeping with my usual...
Sanctions on Libya were fruitful in increasing Saudi welath as were the Iraqi sanctions...
As are the very professional disablements of Iraqi pipelines today...attributed to "insurgents"...
Those students were supported by the Ayatollah, not the Shah. The Shah was long gone by then. Your comparison does not hold.
The "House of Saud" is not a singular entity. It constitutes many royals with different interests.
Document, how King Fahd and Prince Abdallah funded the murder of 3000 Americans?
"A little Saudi payback for Libya's recent rapprochement with the West?."
Tonight Loftus claims that the Saudis want to discredit the Libyans because Gaddafi is going to spill the beans about Saudi's interest in nuke development.
"...because Gaddafi is going to spill the beans about Saudi's interest in nuke development."
Nothing in that part of the world surprises me a bit. "What a tangled web we weave" when the object of an alleged assasination states that he wants to "protect" the alleged assasin! There is no telling how broad the alliances are against the US in that part of the world. Sounds like the Arab bonds are stronger than the self-protection instinct.
There are those who refuse to acknowledge Saudi perfidy.
I'm not sure why, if it was anyone else, they'd be screaming.
But the Saudis own too many Americans, and their propaganda is extraordinarily effective, helped by those in America to whom the deaths of 3000 matters not one whit.
Mash here
This is interesting. As is this. And this.
And furthermore, even if Saud clan "is not a singular entity", one would think that the head of that clan would be keeping an eye on what the lesser members are doing; if not out of concern over the immorality of their behavior then at least to avoid embarrassment.
I don't think too many folks think that America is a safe place. A safer place than most, perhaps, but after 9.11, we know we're not safe. Our enemies are within our borders.
I knew this before 9-11-tried to report information that I knew-was blown off by a federal agent. 9-11 was exactly what I was afraid would happen. I reported it during the Clinton administration.
The desperadoes are Saudis, nurtured in an extremist environment that the government itself has long fostered. They are linked to al Qaeda and sympathetic to their countryman Osama bin Laden -- which has predictably stirred speculation about the stability of the kingdom. Bin Laden and his followers have made clear that they are committed to overthrowing the House of Saud. Given the increasing audacity of the terrorists, the country's swelling ranks of unemployed malcontents and the apparent indecisiveness of the senior princes, it might appear that the insurgency could indeed bring down the regime or at least ignite a civil war.
Yet forecasting the demise of the Saudi monarchy would be premature at best -- and probably wrong.
The ruling princes are skillful, ruthless when necessary, unconstrained by the niceties of civil liberties, and connected by marriage and business ties to a huge percentage of the population, which secures them support and loyalty. The family history is one of alternately accommodating and crushing the religious militants whom the kings have used as allies -- except when they defied royal authority.
This balancing act has defined the internal politics of the kingdom since the 1920s. In 1929, when the religious zealots known as the Ikhwan challenged the authority of the country's founder, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, he killed or exiled most of them, despite their earlier efforts to help him unify the kingdom. When armed extremists took over the Great Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the regime showed them no mercy, publicly beheading 62 men in eight cities. Self-preservation is the first law of the House of Saud.
Exactly right.
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