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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?

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.

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