You can't know unless you read it. But
don't stop there. There is wisdom and idiocy everywhere.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 11:17
AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Riots in
Riyadh?
All
I was saying is that the Bible has never had any meaning for
me.
But
what if I am wrong?
arthur
Yes, everything is really about a small country
4,000 years ago in the middle of a desert. Can't we get
beyond this? There are other ways and we can learn from
each other.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 10:51
AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Riots in
Riyadh?
In my more gloomy moments it seems that the Biblical
prohecies seem to be unfolding inexorably.
Armageddon. ...
arthur
US policy is being used for a narrow set of interests: the
Christian evangelicals seem determined to create a clash of religions --
Christianity vs Islam. Oddly, a branch of them, the
Christian-Zionists, have added to the portfolio an Israel-first agenda.
Given the Christian-Zionist belief that all non-Christians will be
destroyed, it seems strange that some elements in Israel have embraced
an alliance with these Christian-Zionists, but then the Israelis
probably don't think that God has that in store for them, so don't
much care for the beliefs and values that lie behind Christian-Zionism,
happy to settle for the political support the Christian-Zionists offer
Israel.
In case any of you missed it, by Christian-Zionist I am referring
to people like Tom DeLay -- see the very interesting speech he gave to
the Israeli Knesset recently.
Right now, the Christian evangelical and Christian-Zionist agenda
is powerfully placed within the Administration: Rove, DeLay, Feith,
Perle, Bolton, Reed...et al. US policy toward the rest of the
world generally and the Arabs and Muslims specifically has been hijacked
by these folks, and is now working against the interests of the country.
Sometimes these US policies are justified by the 'war on terrorism' --
one of the inventions of the Christian evangelicals -- but the sad fact
is that the 'war on terrorism' is actually aggravating the terror
threat, not diminishing it. This is a pedantic way of saying that
Americans will die thanks to these Christian
evangelicals.
As the rest of the world reacts to what they see as a US out of
control, we will see a broadband resistance to the US take shape. Not
only will there be further terror attacks on US interests, but trade
relations will suffer, and cultural ones. I don't know if you ever had a
desire to take your art overseas, but the chances of that happening have
taken a nose-dive in the last two years. Then, also, we have the
trillions of dollars that this 'war on terror is costing us, or rather
costing future generations. And the impact on US civil liberties, e.g.
the 'sneak and peek' and unlimited uncharged detention policies pushed
by Ashcroft and the President.
The Christian evangelicals simply do not care about these costs
to the US and our interests: they give their religious goals precedence
over US interests.
The American public is gullible. How many Americans have ever
traveled to the Muslim or Arab worlds (other than in a tank)? How many
Americans even know Arabs or Muslims who live in this country, as their
neighbors? Hell, how many people even on this
list???
Americans are patriotic. Combined with their gullibility, this
leaves them open to being exploited, to being conned into giving their
support, if only a passive support, for policies that would readily
appear inimical to a populace that was more knowledgeable, thoughtful,
and skeptical.
While the gullibility of Americans is
saddening, the pernicious behavior of those who are willing to exploit
this gullibility is nothing short of
criminal.
Could you
speak more about this?
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003
3:17 PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Riots
in Riyadh?
Excellent article -- thanks for posting it,
Keith.
If Turki al-Faisal is criticizing US policy and actions
openly, this is indeed serious. I figure it will take the US and UK
about two decades to repair the damage they have done to themselves
overseas.. What an unnecessary penalty we have to pay for the
ignorance and narrow-focus agenda of the US
administration.
The Shah tried the White Revolution, and found that it led to
greater demands for civil liberties and economic freedom, not fewer.
Then with US advice and advisors, he created SAVAK, an instrument of
secret and not so secret repression. And so he was overthrown and a
counter-revolution swept into power, instead of the moderates who
led the anti-Shah effort. I don't think the Saudis will go
this way; the Saudi populace is more united and coherent than Iran's
(and smaller), and they have the tribal structures of governance,
which are accepted generally by all, to fall back on. Specifically,
I am referring to the diwanniya and succession
practices.
There is no intrinsic reason that the US and Saudi Arabia
should not get along. Attacks on Saudi Arabia have been pretty well
organized by those who want generally to poison US relations with
the Arab and Muslim worlds. These same people have orchestrated a
series of actions by the US that is designed, in my opinion, to harm
US relations with these countries, and so to set the US and
Arabs/Muslims against each other long term. Unfortunately, no one in
the US government seems ready to denounce these
efforts.
The
following, by our best foreign reporter, John Simpson, with a
long-time experience in the Middle East, can be read as an adjunct
to my previous posting (Crystal ball gazing on Saudi Arabia) with
the FT's interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
There have
been reports of small riots in Jeddah and other smaller towns in
Saudi Arabia from time to time, and there have also been small
riots in Riyadh, the capital, using football matches as excuses,
but John Simpson writes here of what seems to be the first serious
riots in Riyadh. If, as I suggested previously, a future riot
starts getting out of hand, then that will give the opportunity
for someone to mount a coup d'etat -- probably someone in the
military.
KH
<<<< SAUDIS FEAR THAT
BRITAIN SEES THEM AS THE NEXT IRAN
John
Simpson
There was silence among the orderly lines of men
sitting cross-legged down the length of a hall in the King Abd-al
Aziz Mosque. Someone looked at his watch. Another man fiddled with
the box of food in front of him, caught the disapproving looks of
his neighbours, and stopped.
Then came the stuttering of a
microphone, and expectant movement in the lines. The instant the
muezzin's voice proclaimed the end of the day's fasting, the
hungry men pulled their boxes open and started eating. The warm
evening air was filled with the smell of chicken and saffron rice.
Iftar, the evening feast, had begun.
The holy month of
Ramadan is a bad time to visit Saudi Arabia if you want to do
business. This year it is worse then usual: to the irritation of
the Saudi government, the British Foreign Office and the American
State Department have warned people not to come here unless they
have to.
Half a column-inch in the newspapers here hints at
the reason: a senior al-Oaeda figure, Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, has
sent out an e-mail promising "devastating attacks" during Ramadan.
This is presumably part of the information the British and
Americans have based their warnings on. It looks to me as though
al-Ablaj is talking about Iraq, but now that people have taken to
suing their governments for not telling them the obvious, the
State Department and the Foreign Office tend to warn first and ask
questions afterwards.
This has, of course, got up the nose
of the Saudis in no small way. The government here maintains that
it has a very firm grip on the security situation. Six hundred
suspects have been arrested since April, and 3,500 Muslim clerics
have been sent for "re-education". At Friday prayers two days ago,
the sermon I heard could have been written by the Ministry of
Information, it was so politically correct.
The irritation
with Britain and America is widespread throughout officialdom,
from Saudi Arabia's urbane ambassador to London, Prince Turki
al-Faisal, to his relative Prince Sultan, the minister of defence.
Last Thursday, choosing his words carefully. Prince Sultan told a
group of generals who came to offer their Ramadan greetings that
there was a smear campaign against the kingdom. "We are neither
terrorists nor parasites," he said.
In other words, he was
responding angrily to accusations in Washington that Saudi Arabia,
the recipient in the past of so much American military support, is
somehow behind the new wave of anti-American
violence.
Here, most people seem to take it for granted
that the United States has shifted decisively away from Saudi
Arabia as a result of the September 11 attacks. They see the
invasion of Iraq as being America's way of securing a safe supply
of oil for the future, and assume that the shifting of US military
bases from here to Qatar and Iraq symbolises the parting of the
ways.
As for the British attitude, it is a source of
annoyance rather than anger. The Saudis expect a greater
sensitivity and understanding from the British, and feel that they
haven't had it. Senior government figures scan British statements
anxiously for any sign that London believes that Saudi Arabia is
going the way of Iran, a generation ago; and they feel they can
spot them.
Having watched the course of the Islamic
Revolution in Iran, I think the similarities are exaggerated --
and yet the danger is clearly there. The Shah, too, tried to
re-educate his clergy, but he did it the hard way and simply
reinforced their anger and willingness to be martyred. In the
teeming slums of Teheran his soldiers shot down the demonstrators,
while he himself vacillated between toughness and
conciliation.
The Saudis are aware of the precedent, though
they feel that the experiences of a Shi'ite state have little
relevance to them. Perhaps they are right, but history never
repeats itself precisely. Two weeks ago, hundreds of Saudis
demonstrated for economic and political reform in the streets of
Riyadh; since demonstrations are illegal here, the police
dispersed them with tear gas and arrested a hundred or
more.
As in Iran in 1978, the opposition comes as much from
liberals as from fundamentalists, and they have a tendency to make
a brief, tactical alliance, though it doesn't last long. Like the
Shah, the Saudi government is experimenting with a little
ultra-cautious liberalisation: press restraints are marginally
fewer, and there will be limited elections next year.
These
are nerve-racking times for the Saudi government. It feels
abandoned by its friends and increasingly threatened by its
enemies, and the princes who control most of the ministries cannot
agree on the right way forward. Maybe Ramadan will pass off
without the attacks the Americans and British have warned about;
even so, the political choices here won't be any
easier.
John Simpson is the BBC's World Affairs
Editor
Sunday Telegraph 2
November >>>>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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