> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of jon louis mann > Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 3:13 PM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: holy war > > There are times, as with Brin's argument that GWB follows orders > from Saudi Arabia, that I believe that reasonable people should not > accept such an argument. > > Maybe not direct orders, but there is collusion between the Bush family > and SaudiS that goes back generations. Here is one photo of the prince > and GWB (captions added) > http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushabdullahhands.htm > > We are not talking about holy war, but unholy alliance.
> Why didn't Bush invade Saudi Arabia and Pakistan;? After 9-11? First let's take Saudi Arabia. AQ became an opposition group against the government of Saudi Arabia in 1990/1991, in response to US troops going to Saudi Arabia to protect it. Bin Laden publicly denounced the government, which then revoked his Saudi Arabian citizenship. Now, I've heard this argument before, but I really don't understand it. Is the argument that, because citizens of Saudi Arabia joined a group headed by a man stripped of his Saudi citizenship (and disowned by his family), operating out of Afghanistan attacked the United States because they considered the US the enemy for sending troops to Saudi Arabia at the government's invitation, the Saudi government must somehow be involved. That the same government that invited the troops in was so angry at the United States for accepting the offer that they sponsored an attack on the United States. How about this hypothesis: the members of AQ, who denounced the government weren't agents of the government but enemies of the government. Now, it is quite possible that Bin Laden was paid protection money by various Saudies to keep him from attacking Saudi businesses, the royal family, etc. Appeasement was wrong, but it's not the same as support. Chamberlain didn't support Hitler, he just didn't stand up to him... After 9-11, the US quietly told the Saudi government that there needed to be a change: that the Saudi government needed to go after AQ. It was fairly gentle arm twisting mostly because the Saudi government was convinced that it was in their self interest. Since then, they've fought AQ tooth and nail....and AQ has declared that the Saudi government needs to be overthrown. Indeed, the Saudis have been ruthless, in a way we'd never let our military be, and they've been very effective in countering the AQ threat. So, why in the world bomb a country which is on your side? I thought we agreed earlier that it was reasonable to support moderate Arabs. Now, Pakistan is a different story. Indications are that they were playing footsy with AQ, at least looking the other way....and at most having an alliance of convenience. I remember the actions of the US with regards to Pakistan right after 9-11. You know the "you're for us or against us" line of Bush....that was really aimed at countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. The government of Pakistan got the message and, at least to some extent, cooperated. The Taliban thumbed their nose at the US.... So, a short oversimplified explanation of why we didn't use armed forces against Pakistan was that we said "do this or else" and they did what we told them. Afghanistan didn't, and they were invaded. Now, they have backslid on this....and it is not unreasonable to say that we cannot rely on them to attack AQ...and that we need to reconsider our options. >They both have weapons of mass destruction. The Saudies have WMD? Pakistan does, but that's a very complicated situation relating to the Indian/Pakistan conflict. Pakistan's gone to war with India three times, but they have given no indication that they want to conquer until they are a superpower. In addition, our intelligence vastly underestimated their nuclear program, as we did with India and Libya, and initially with Iraq. So, the nuclear power was a fact we had to deal with. Given that, any invasion by us, or India which has a vastly superior military would put cities in India at risk. Invading Iraq, however unwise, did not risk Jerusalem being turned to glass. It was a totally different situation. Now, the Bush administration vastly overestimated the risk from Iraq. The consensus among intelligence personal was that they were a mid to long term risk to global stability (timing depended on when France and Russia could get the sanctions listed). But, even the consensus view was far off....no one guessed that Hussein was hiding, even from members of his own government, the fact that he _didn't_ have an active WMD program. Putting the mistake of the consensus view on Iraq, India, Libya, and Pakistan together, one can conclude that there are large error bars concerning secret nuclear programs. For example, with Iran...it is possible that they will explode an A-bomb in a couple of years...and it is possible that they won't be able to for 10 years. We don't know. >There were no Iraqis among the hijackers!-) They didn't need to leave their country to fight the US, they just had to work with Hussein. > The company I work for does a lot of government contracts and flew > members of the royal family out of the US after 9/11. That was a good think, IMHO. We didn't need a mob incident based on stupid associations of the Royal family with the actions of their enemies. It's like blaming Lincoln for slavery. > Then there is the famous quote in The Formula (1980) ... in which > ArAmCo (Arab American Company) wants to suppress the formula for > synthetic oil, and Brando replies... "WE ARE THE ARABS! Ah, the magic of cinema. :-) You do know that movie is based on a magical view of chemistry, right? Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
