Gov't Report Indicts Saudi Royal Family

[Shi Huangdi]

Ok, wiseasses, Saudi Arabis, is bad. What do you want to about it? Maybe we should invade! I am sure the Moslems would loooooove seeing US Marines storming Mecca...

Fact is, only opposition to the SA government is even worse.

[The Mad Monk]

Invasion wont be necessary.

Without our support, the regime will collapse on its own.

Unless the next government is stable (and let me assure you, it won't be), governance of that territory will fall to someone else.

No, not us. Look at the map.

See all those little countries ringing Saudi?

Imagine them not so little.

Especially Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and possibly Jordan.

[Shi Huangdi]

I'd really doubt that. Any government replacing the Saudi Crown would likely be Islamic Fundamentalist, and anyone trying to invade because of that would bring on the wrath of fundamentalists at home and in SA.

[The Mad Monk]

Which fundamentalists?

Which tribe?

Which family?

When the house of Saud comes down, the infighting is going to be fierce, even without our help.

With all that...sand at stake, the surrounding countries will have to move, if only to keep it from spreading.

[rev]

Imran -- you're correct in that things that are leaked by the administration are almost always leaked on purpose, but one can't forget that the report doesn't belong to the Bush administration. It's been shown and distributed to select members of Congress and people in agencies such as the CIA (which doesn't exactly have a rosy relationship with the Bush administration at the moment).

The Bush people don't want this report out for several main reasons:

1. An Iraq-al Qaeda connection has been strongly insinuated since 9/11 and was used in part to justify the war in Iraq.

2. It takes emphasis off of (again) Iraq and Osama bin Laden. Bush hasn't pointed even a pinky finger at the Saudis despite the fact that he promised to go after any nation that supported terrorism. If what the Saudis are said to have done is true, then it suggests that the Saudi government had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and may have helped plan or accomodate those attacks. If that's not supporting terrorism, I don't know what is.

[Imran Siddiqui]

rev, I actually think this may be part of some plan to isolate SA, especially after moving all the troops in the area to Iraq (which is another reason we won't leave soon). Now, I don't think we'll go to war against SA, but look for a cooling of relations. The cynic in me says some rhetoric will be brought up early next year, and the Bu****es will release their information that they have said they have been gathering to turn the country against SA and get some of that patriot backing again, this time for the election.

Actually, the CIA is the main people that don't want the administration report released. Apparently there is some stuff there about working with Saudi intelligence in the War on Terror and they don't want to compromise that cooperation.

[GePap]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Given that "Saudi Arabia" is really nothing more than an invention of the British Empire, I'm sure we can come up with something...

Minor problem: Saudi Arabia is NOT a creation of the Brits, unlike many of its neighbors. Most of Saudi arabia was never under Ottoman hands, but held by Arab tribes. Only the Hijaz was under Ottoman rule, but since the Hashemites begun the pro-Brit Arab Revolt from there, the Brits let the Hashimites maintain rule. It was King saud himself that united all of SA and kicked out the Hashimites from the Holy Cities and becmae protector of them. So saudi Arabia is a self-made state.

If the enemy is extremist Islam, then for now we NEED the House of Saud: the only ones that will replace them at this point are even more fundamentalist folks: US troops in the HOly Cities would be the worse possible thing, so only after the Sauds reform and create a middle, moderate precense in Saudi Arabi with some power can we then hope for the fall of the saudis without it beocming an even bigger problem.....

We need them to sow the seeds that would make their fal palpatable to the US..isn;t that just the kicker?

[The Mad Monk]

Where in this thread did I say anything about sending in US troops?

[GePap]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Where in this thread did I say anything about sending in US troops?

You didn;t, Pekka did.

[The Mad Monk]

You have an interesting quoting style.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

First of all, don't kid yourself: the leaks did not come from the Bush administration. The likeliest source is the Senate Intelligence Committee, where Democrats and Republicans alike have been frothing at the mouth for days about the administration's censoring of the report and its protection of the House of Saud.

So, we've invaded Iraq because they were supposedly doing the same thing that North Korea really is doing. Now it looks like we'll have bombed Afganistan into submission for a tertiary role in crimes funded and possibly masterminded by the Saudis -- to whom we will probably deliver a stern lecture. Can someone please explain again what this "Bush Doctrine" thing is I keep hearing about?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by GePap
Too much has been invested in the US-SA allience for it to simply die away as some people here fantasize.

Probably, but the American possession of Iraq gives a massive leverage against the Sauds now. I don't think American bases are that important to the Saudi economy (the weight of American bases on the local economy is often overstated by Polytubbies).
But the US should have another reliable source of oil (Iraq) shortly, if everything goes according to the plan. This will mean the US and the west will be much less dependent from SA, while SA will remain dependent from the US and the west.

In such a situation, you can expect the Sauds to obey pretty much any American whim.

[The Mad Monk]

Rufus, we're already moving the bases.

[The Mad Monk]

If it gets bad enough, we may be requested to send in "peacekeepers", but it is not necessary by any means. I would prefer we didn't, as it would allow us to avoid yet another charge of imperialism entirely.

However, this dosen't change the ultimate goal: the fall of the House of Saud, and the reduction or dissolution of Saudi Arabia as a sovereign territory.

It was a mistake to put that much oil under the control of a single political entity.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Rufus, we're already moving the bases.

But we were doing that before the report came out, and it could just as easily be seen as a security precaution (those bases were one of Al Qaeda's biggest grievances). I'll be eager to see what we do in light of the report. But if there is conclusive evidence of Saudi government collusion in 9/11, and we don't immediately recall our ambassador and break off diplomatic relations, I'd sure like to know why.