The question America dares not ask: What role do the Saudis play?

MAIL ON SUNDAY | September 23, 2001 | Stephen Schwartz

[Wallaby]

fyi

[Texasforever]

I am not sure I buy this. The Saudi Royal Family presents itself as Sunni Moslems. The Sunni sect is in many regards moderate when compared to the Shiite sect. I had never heard of "Wahhabis". The Saudis do have to adhere to strict beliefs mainly because Mecca is within their borders. I just wonder if "Wahhabis" is a sub cult of some kind.

[Clinton's a rapist]

I notice that there is a significant drumbeat going on to somehow pin this on the Saudis, yet I can't really make sense of what it is they're supposed to be guilty of. Saudi Arabia has a government which, while it may not be our cup of tea, isn't made up of total whackos, unlike several that we might mention. Saudi Arabia gave us a base of operations during the Gulf War. Next to the United States, Osama bin Laden is probably most dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi regime. The Saudis kicked bin Laden out and froze his assets. Some Saudi youth apparently came back from the war in Afghanistan radicalized and spoiling for a fight. Some of the many Saudi millionaires and billionaires have apparently given money to bin Laden through Islamic charities, although the motivation is apparently often just to keep him off their backs, not to export revolution.

So, should we really be mad at the Saudi government, or is all this talk about Saudi Arabia just an attempt to drive a wedge between the West and the more moderate Arab regimes? Anybody care to give us an analysis?

[ambrose]

moderate Arab regimes

Isn't a "moderate Arab regime" about the same thing as an "honest Democrat"?

[Clinton's a rapist]

"Moderate" is a relative term, of course. But I certainly see the Saudi regime as moderate compared to the Taliban or Saddam's regime in Iraq, no question.

[NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh]

FYI:

"His annual operational budget is estimated as $125 million, which comes out of revenues from family-owned companies. His relatives are close to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. So as to save them and the Saudi ruler embarrassment, he has invested his stock in front companies registered in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Most of his investments are in satellite networks and cell phone companies.

Bin Laden is the first terrorist chief to operate in global strategic terms. All his operations (and there have been no more than a dozen,) are meticulously prepared and executed and always aim at damaging US superpower standing. His only regional or local targets are Saudi relations with the United States and the American infidel presence in the kingdom, which for him is anathema and profane."

NIX

[GOPforever]

No, we shouldn't be pissed at the Saudi government. Just like us, they can't control what ordinary citizens think or talk about at the dinner table. I can guarantee that the Saudi royal family "DOES NOT" want to give up power. It is in their best interest to side with America. It is their responsibility to rally the Saudi people to our cause, spy on Bin Laden sympathizers, jail them, freeze their assets and work closely with the CIA and MI6. Though...Saudi Arabia is the center of Islam...they may take a hell of a beating from terrorists to liberate Mecca and Medina from Saudi hands. If this war expands, they may face nations with organized armies coming at them. Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Iran and who knows else.

[ThePythonicCow]

Apparently the same Stephen Schwartz wrote the day after the attack, on Frontpage Magazine, at: We Should Have Known the following sensible call to fight back:

We Should Have Known
By Stephen Schwartz
New York Post | September 12, 2001

WE WERE HORRIFIED, in our newsrooms when one, and then two, airliners plowed into the World Trade Centers.  Then a third plane crashed, into the Pentagon.

...

It's time to stop blaming ourselves for the twisted fanaticism that leads to such acts.  It's time to stop telling ourselves that bombers, hijackers, and similar terrorists have legitimate grievances.   And it's time to stop letting these monsters hide behind professions of peace.

They do not seek peace.  They seek war.  They have brought war to the heart of our nation.  It's time to answer their aggression, to study, identify, and isolate them; to repudiate their absurd claims of righteousness; to educate ourselves and our children about the realities and responsibilities of American power in the world.   And it's time to help the majority of law-abiding Muslims, Irish, Colombians, and Basques who hate this plague and hate being accused of association with it.

It's time to fight back for real.  Without panic, without vengeance, but with determination and firmness, knowing we have the right to defend ourselves and our way of life.

It's a war, and peace promises and processes clearly do not work with this enemy.

Stephen Schwartz is the author of Intellectuals and Assassins.

[Yellow Rose of Texas]

GW Bush went to college with the Saudi Princes. He took them home for the holidays on more than one occasion and they have stayed friends. These gentlemen still go to see Mrs. Barbara Bush, so I seriously doubt the Saudi Royalty has anything to do with exporting terrorism, or supporting it financially.

Sounds like disinformation to me!

[ThePythonicCow]

This sounded suspicious to me as well. However looking up "Wahhabi" (Google.com) leads to the following entry at Encyclopedia.com that seems consistent with at least the basic facts of this report.

Wahhabi Pronounced As: wähäb , reform movement in Islam, originating in Arabia.

It was founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab (c.1703-1791), who taught that all accretions to Islam after the 3d cent. of the Muslim era-i.e., after c.950-were spurious and must be expunged. This view, involving essentially a purification of the Sunni sect, regarded the veneration of saints, ostentation in worship, and luxurious living as the chief evils. Accordingly, Wahhabi mosques are simple and without minarets, and the adherents dress plainly and do not smoke tobacco or hashish.

Driven from Medina for his preaching, the founder of the Wahhabi sect went into the NE Nejd and converted the Saud tribe. The Saudi sheik, convinced that it was his religious mission to wage holy war (jihad) against all other forms of Islam, began the conquest of his neighbors in c.1763.

By 1811 the Wahhabis ruled all Arabia, except Yemen, from their capital at Riyadh. The Ottoman sultan, nominally suzerain over Arabia, had vainly sent out expeditions to crush them. Only when the sultan called on Muhammad Ali of Egypt for aid did he meet success; by 1818 the Wahhabis were driven into the desert. In the Nejd they collected their power again and from 1821 to 1833 gained control over the Persian Gulf coast of Arabia. The domain thereafter steadily weakened; Riyadh was lost in 1884, and in 1889 the Saud family fled for refuge into the neighboring state of Kuwait.

The Wahhabi movement was to enjoy its third triumph when Ibn Saud advanced from his capture of Riyadh in 1902 to the reconstitution in 1932 of nearly all his ancestral domain under the name Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism remains dominant. Wahhabism served as an inspiration to other Islamic reform movements from India and Sumatra to North Africa and the Sudan.

[MissAmericanPie]

Saddam wanted to use bio weapons so as not to destroy homes and business, so muslims could move right in. This piece claims that radical Islam is preached in 80% of mosques here in the USofA and I believe it.

You would have thought that President Bush's people would have beat the bushes to find true moderate muslims to be seen on television with, but noooo, couldn't find any. So he posed and pleaded for tolerance for muslims while standing next to some of the most radical heads of charity organizations that collect money for terrorists.

Then the Muslim cleric that spoke at the National Cathedral was as little as five years ago yelling "Death to Israel", and being grateful to Hildabeast that her hubby was protecting their charities from audit by the IRS in exchange for contributions.

I don't know about anyone else, but if these muslims are the best our government (the government that let them into the country), can come up with to present to the American people as examples of moderate Islam, then I am horrified.

[Texasforever]

Thanks for the info. In almost 10 years that I lived off and on in Saudi Arabia I had never heard of it.

[Wallaby]

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

Jaamat al-Islamie may be behind terrorist acts in US TASS September 12, 2001, Wednesday DATELINE: MOSCOW, September 12 In the opinion of Russian secret services the Islamic fundamentalist organisation Jaamat al-Islamie, in view of its financial and organisational potentials, may be behind terrorist acts in the USA, experts of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) told Tass on Wednesday. They stressed that the masterminding and sponsoring a chain of explosions of residential houses in Moscow and Volgodonsk two years ago had been traced to that radical group with the headquarters in Afghanistan and branches in the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Some 230 people were then killed by the explosions. Comparing the terrorist acts in Moscow and in the United States, the FSB experts noted that alongside extreme cruelty both cases were clearly underlined by the attempt at intimidating the state and society by terrorists seeking to achieve their political ends. Experts believe that the above-mentioned organisation, because of its financial and organisational resources, is capable of preparing and staging the broadest and coordinated terrorist acts in any point on the globe.

It is characteristic that the possibility of such terrorist acts from the air was first publicly announced in 1996 by ideologist of Wahhabism in Chechnya, Movladi Udugov. He made threats to Moscow, saying that separatists will put a suicide terrorist on board an airliner and target it for the Kremlin. It is characteristic that the possibility of such terrorist acts from the air was first publicly announced in 1996 by ideologist of Wahhabism in Chechnya, Movladi Udugov. He made threats to Moscow, saying that separatists will put a suicide terrorist on board an airliner and target it for the Kremlin. Regarding the second anniversary of the explosions in Moscow, Volgodonsk and Buinaksk, the tragic anniversary for Russia, the FSB experts stressed that all those implicated in the explosions had been identified. It was Wahhabi Achimez Gochiyayev who trained the terrorists and masterminded their actions in Russia on an order from Chechnya, from Arab terrorists Khattab and Abu Umar. Gochiyayev's assistant Saitakov was eliminated by federal troops in Chechnya. The same fate befell Arab mercenary Abu Umar. There is information that Gochiyayev and his associate Krymshamkhalov are now hiding in the Pankis gorge in Georgia. Those who set off an explosion in a residential house in Buinaksk have been arrested and convicted. Punishment will surely be inflicted on all other criminals who are still at large, the FSB experts say.

[ThePythonicCow]

I don't know about anyone else, but if these muslims are the best our government (the government that let them into the country), can come up with to present to the American people as examples of moderate Islam, then I am horrified.

Perhaps Bush is trying the same tactic on the majority of Muslims as he tried on the Democratic leadership in the Senate - a "new tone".

To some extent, I think he is right to start off this way. We will be in serious deep doo-doo if the bulk of Islam becomes more entrenched in their anti-Americanism. He, and we, need to let as many Muslims as possible, here and abroad, have the opportunity to be a little more tolerant of us, not less.

Far better for us, and civilization, if the moderate Muslims split from the radical, than if they all polarize against the damn Yankees.

[NetValue]

This article puzzles me. It may be a very good piece of disinformation trying to pin the target onto the backs of the Saudis for their past support of the US. But, then again, it may be a reality..........

[aristeides]

The Saudi royals may not have wanted something like these particular attacks of Sept. 11, but they may have been intimidated into provided financial support to the organizations that carried them out. One of the speakers on yesterday's talk shows -- I wish I could remember which one -- said that Middle East governments like the Saudi have made a "devil's bargain" with those organizations, purchasing immunity from attacks on themselves by tolerating their fundraising activities. You know, I suspect the Clinton administration purchased its own immunity with a similar deal.

[aristeides]

I have long read about Wahhabism being, as it were, the official religion of Saudi Arabia. That much of this story I can confirm.

[Voronin]

This article is a breath of fresh air but nothing new. The question 'What is the role of Saudi Arabia?' could also be re-phrased as the 'SUV question'. What the author does not state is that Wahhabism was introduced to Chechnya after the end of the first war (1996).

Some of you say that it can't be true because the Saudis are our allies, so I ask you, how is it the USGOV regularly criticises states such as Cuba, North Korea, China - but we hear next to nothing about Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait et al??? Oil is our strategic interest and overrides all other priorities with regards to the latter mentioned states.

None of the 'stans can be described as 'democratic' etc., some of them being virtual dictatorships, but what about the Kuwaiti royal family promising votes for women after the liberation and all the other empty promises made? What about how Saudi Arabia is governed (and how many of you actually know (and why not)? These are not democractic or free regimes. Do we deliberately avoid facing these facts by calling it 'culture' or looking the other way?

Wahhabism is a stain on Islam but our media helps not. How many of us actually have ever just picked up the Koran 'to see what it is all about'? I certainly haven't, as most of what I know about Islam is from multiple 'sound-bites' and nothing much deeper. It is our duty to find out. Ignorance is not knowledge.

VRN

[MissAmericanPie]

If that is the case then that shows a deep ignorance of the Muslim mind set. Blood is thicker than water, you can hear it in their demands for "proof", their reticence to mouth all but the most quickly uttered, "this is a tragedy", and weakly profferd condemnation, in regards to the events in NYC and DC, and their plea for understanding of why America is hated, and why muslims don't deserve to be held in suspicion or targeted for retribution.

In watching these worms squirm, the horror that sould hit all citizens that love their country, is the governments acceptance and insistance that people that do not love this country, some who would even harm this country, be welcomed into this country to set up a miniature homeland, and the insanity of them in forcing this presence, and demand of acceptance and tolerance, upon natural born citizens, whose own good natural instincts tell them that this is inherently dangerous and unacceptable.