Seymour Hersh: King's Ransom-How vulnerable are the Saudi royals?

The New Yorker ^ | 10/16/01 | Seymour M. Hersh

[vrwc54]

This is the article everyone is talking about. Yesterday on Special Report with Brit Hume, they said the story about the failure to shoot at Mullah Omar was true.

[AZFolks]

I heard a program on NPR today where a lot of what Hersh says was refuted, not by left wingers, but by some reasonable people from industry who have had significant dealings with Saudi and who have lived there. No one is to take this to mean the Saudis are not corrupt but it seems the author really overstated the case.

[vrwc54]

You actually listen to NPR? lol

[San Jacinto]

Saudi Arabia is a trainwreck waiting to happen. It is fertile ground for the next Taliban-like government.

[Elenya]

The House of Saud's days are undoubtedly numbered as they have outlived their usefulness to the obl gang. I'm expecting an islamic revolution there any day now. Nasty business.

I'm not sure what we should/can do. I would vote for getting the hell out of there and let them kill each other for a bit, but some will say these oil fields need attention...

[SamAdams76]

I'm sick of seeing so-called "allies" like Saudi Arabia taking our oil money and funnelling it to terrorists. Let's just invade and take some of the oil fields for our own use. Not the whole country mind you, they can keep their stinking wasteland of a country. Just take an area about the size of Israel with enough oil to last us about a hundred years or so. And build the worlds biggest military base around the captured oil wells with enough firepower to waste anybody who tries to do anything about it. What the hell? They hate our guts anyway. Might as well get something for it.

[magoo_70115]

Just drop that f*&king JAG into Kabul or Kandarhar and let him explain to them the necessities for adhering to the rule of law.

[Cicero]

The most interesting part of this article to me is the early part, about NSA intercepts of conversations among the royal family. It may be bulls**t, as I think some of the other details are, but it wouldn't be the first time the intelligence agencies have leaked to Hersh (why him, I don't know). What it says about the Saudis' support of terror is pretty much what we've been saying here--but which I don't think most people have heard before. Someone wanted to get the word out about Saudi corruption and threachery, via the New Yorker, which has become a mouthpiece for the liberal establishment.

[The Vast Right Wing]

The Saudi Regime needs to be removed. The are a bunch of corrupt butchers. We will need to find a new source for our petroleum needs. We should no longer provide he saudi regime with any military or economic assitance. the mess with us we kill them. nuff said.

[airedale]

The problem is that who ever replaces them as things stand now will probably be more militant and less supportive than the current regime.

[steveegg]

Vulnerable? More like complicit, at least IMHO. I think that they use Al-Qaida much as the French use the Foreign Legion.

[leadhead]

Like most New Yorker articles, this has enough truths to float the adgenda items. But,that said, no one can dispute that the Saudi Princes are immoral and corrupt.

Everyone would be best served if these bozos were told to steal all they could for the next sixty days and then let them invoke some obscure Bedouin custom of tribal choice of leaders.

They have a sort of parliment established and the have local province rulers/administrators. Use the framework that exists to develop a Middle East style Republic or Democracy.

The fruits of the oil fields could then be distributed Alaska style and everybody gets a bite of the cherry.

Now, after having written all that, reality bites me and I know that the Princes won't leave voluntarily. And, if they did, another bunch that wants to plunder will seize power. That, unfortunately, is the way it is there in an overt way; and here in a less obvious way. But at least here we get a better quality "bread and circuses".

Oh well, back to dreaming.

[liberallarry]

"According to someone who saw the (C.I.A.) report, it concluded that with only a small amount of explosives terrorists could take the oil fields off line for two years"

"If they do a similar operation (similar to the WTC) in Saudi Arabia, the price of oil will go up to one hundred dollars a barrel"—more than four times what it is today."

We've all been assuming the next terrorist attack will occur in the U.S. Maybe not.

"The officials also said that the Bush Administration, like the Clinton Administration, is refusing to confront this reality"

Either the author is full of s**t - or our administration is full of s**t. One or the other.

[tessalu]

There are many Muslims who would like to "take out" the Saudi Royal Family, claiming that they are not the "true Islam." I think that they are in more danger than they know.

[BunnySlippers]

Nice. Bookmark.

[Roger_W_Isom]

All I REPEAT ALL that is for Saudi Arabia to explode ladies and Gents is SIMPLE....

have Four to Eight jet airliners HEAVILY LADEN with fuel to ram themselves into MECCA and MEDIA during RAMADAN... Then you can kiss the Saudi "Royal" family(??????) GOOD BYE!!!! they'll be leavin inside the next 6 HOURS MAX!!!!

[zog]

--maybe it's the mossad with a boot copy of promis who's doing the bugging and leaking it to hersch? He then misdirects the source to the nsa to protect his principals. The nsa has nothing to gain by leaking this info, but israel does, quite a bit, and I'd bet two bagels they got the hardware and smarts to hijack into the nsa sometimes, and definetly into saudi phone calls..

[Roger_W_Isom]

In regards to post 14.... Look for SOMETHING to occur during Ramadan.... that way OBL could infiltrate his Supporters into Mecca....

[Roger_W_Isom]

In regards to post 11... IF just IF someone from the Saudi "ROYAL FAMILY were to DEFECT right now I DON'T think I'd be all that SHOCKED to see them bring DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE supporting your claim.... Its OBVIOUS that there ARE relatives of OBL that are CONTINUEING to support him CLANDESTINELY... and IF they are doing this WITH THE FULL AND SECRET SUPPORT OF THE HOUSE OF SAUD I WON'T be shocked people!!!

[Southern Federalist]

Here is my stab at reorganizing the Arabian peninsula from my armchair:

Put the Muslim holy places under the control of a pan-Muslim council, with Muslim representatives appointed secular states with large Islamic populations - so it's not all Arabs but includes the Turks and the traditionally Sufi countries of Central Asia and the European countries and the Unites States.

Put the Council under the presidency of King Abdullah, whose family were protectors of the holy places for 700 years or so, when they were booted out by the brigand Abdul Aziz, whose endless brood still holds sway. The Hashemites are not perfect but there's a vein of sanity in the family (and to be sure also a vein of insanity, as for example Abdullah's granddaddy) and their roots go back into Islam's glory days.

Organize the oildfields - which are going to peter out one of these years anyway - in a sort of public interest corporation whose proceeds go to establish a fund for the upkeep of the holy places and a pilgrimage-to-Mecca fund for indigent Muslims.

Probably a hundred reasons it wouldn't work. But it's fun to speculate. At least this would reduce the clout of the local Wahhabi Brute Squads.