U.S. Says Saudis Refuse To Freeze Bin Laden Assets

Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | October 11, 2001 | Unknown

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Saudis supply 60 percent of the world's oil.

[Drew68]

It is really quite simple if only we had the cojones to do this.

We simply *tell* the Saudis that they will cooperate with us. They will continue to sell us cheap oil and the will let us use their bases for offensive military actions. If they falter for a minute, we turn Medina into glass and tell them that Mecca is next. In the interim, we build liquor stores, nightclubs and churches in Mecca for our soldiers on leave.

The Islamic world will only hate us marginally more than they already do. So what. Let them hate us. It is only important that they fear us.

[Bommer]

I REALLY hate to say this, but it seems that Bush's war cry of "Your either with us or the terrorists" is paramont to his dad's "Read My Lips". Its clear that the Saudi's are not cooperating, yet we protect their fat asses and allow them to do business not only with us, but with Bin-Laudin. Will Bush keep to his words? No. The Saudi's own us...or do they?

The US can hurt the Saudi's by freezing their assets and not buying their oil. The US is THE #1 consumer of crude from the Saudi's. Once they lose their biggest customer, their crude price goes into the dirt! This would also impact OPEC as a whole and crash the rest of the oil market as a whole! South America would be beating down our door for the business and once Bush get the green light to drill in Anwar, the Saudis become inconsequencial!

[putupon]

We should freeze F-16 parts sales.

[Thebaddog]

It would certainly be worth a try to get along without their oil, but it will be a generation in coming. The whole problem would dry up and go away if we weren't going to them for oil.

Some friends.

[FReethesheeples]

In "real life," I fully understand & AGREE with you, as you might note by what I said later at #14.

In real life I know some elite & even famous Saudis & have a very high regard for SOME of those whom I know.

FReegards,

[seams2me]

Sure we can, if the environmentalists would let us drill for the oil under our own land.

[Bill Rice]

Qualify your opinion of "Disinfo", are you a Saudi?

[Capt.YankeeMike]

You are exactly right. They are oportunists, and view the US as weak, indeed. (and the way we negotiate with these people, they are correct to believe that) We need to drill Anwr, nuke Irag and make irag our next state, drill the hell out of that god forsaken desert, and tell the saudis to kiss our butt. but we wont, we are too PC. The way we let these ak-holes walk all over us makes me puke...

[Gasshog]

As long as this country is at the mercy of foreign oil this will never change

Perhaps the Sauds havent heard of the Caspian Sea oil reserves yet, which dwarf their now dwindling supplies - soon enough the West's dependence on Saudi oil will be diminshed and they WILL co-operate or else. The thin veil covering Saudi Arabia's involvment with the terrorists is begin to fall away.

[Spud_Muffin]

Thanks to the left's trashing of nuclear power over the past 25 years, NO, not without rationing and a tremendous disruption of travel and economic activity on a scale greater than in WWII.

Actually, we CAN. There is a new (sort of) nuclear technology called 'Pebble Bed" that will allow relatively inexpensive 'cookie cutter' reactors to be built with no chance of a melt-down (not that this has been a true threat, but people think that it is). These reactors could be built throughout the fifty states with the goal of moving from hydrocarbon-based power generation to a clean production. Once enough of our power generation is nuclear-based, electric vehicles become a reality.

Result? Cleaner air, cheaper transportation, and NO reliance on outside sources of petrochemicals.

Of course, we will have to get a grip on the enviromental lawyer types and their obstructionist lawsuits.

Live Free.

[Capt.YankeeMike]

the royal saudi family has most certainly had death threats from OBL followers.....

[Aquinasfan]

The Saudis are Wahhabis.

Wahhabis tolerate no other religion or Islamic sect.

[MagnusMat]

Interesting!

[aruanan]

Weak-kneed bastards.

"Even in times of peace there is an uneasy relationship between the secularist and religious right," said a U.S. expert on the kingdom.

Remember that secularist Islam represents far less than the tip of the Muslim iceberg. It does much more harm than good for people like Tony Snow to describe the folks like Osama as being a tiny aberration, not religious, and pursuing their goals for ulterior, non-religious motives. The Saudis know better than most Americans just how dangerous their position is.

[MagnusMat]

Interesting!

[Gridley_here]

What is the difference between islam and muslim?

Nothing significcant, they are interchangable names for the same religion.

And what religion did decendents of Ishmael? follow before Muhammed came along?

I beleive that "Allah" was the name of the pagan Moon God in Mohammad's day. When he started the Islam religion, Mohammad tried to make a religion that would be aceptable to the Allah worshipers, Jews and Christians alike. What he got was one that offended all three. That is why the Muslum religion was spread through violence, it was not accepted by any group at the time.

[Protagoras]

With friends like these, who needs Osama?

There are no friends in the world when it comes to nations. There are only other nations who see it as being in their best interests to align themselves for varying lengths of time with other nations.

Just my two cents.

[gaspar]

We can get along without Saudi oil but Japan cannot. We get most of our oil from the other Persian Gulf nations. The corrupt Saudi royal family is not long for this world, OBL or no OBL.