Saud News
More Sunday thumbsuckers like this, please. Times of London, again bringing some clarity to the table, looks at the Saudi problem:
… wealthy Saudis remain the chief financiers of worldwide terror networks. “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” said Stuart Levey, the US Treasury official in charge of tracking terror financing.
Extremist clerics provide a stream of recruits to some of the world’s nastiest trouble spots.
An analysis by NBC News suggested that the Saudis make up 55% of foreign fighters in Iraq. They are also among the most uncompromising and militant.
Half the foreign fighters held by the US at Camp Cropper near Baghdad are Saudis. They are kept in yellow jumpsuits in a separate, windowless compound after they attempted to impose sharia on the other detainees and preached an extreme form of Wahhabist Islam.
In recent months, Saudi religious scholars have caused consternation in Iraq and Iran by issuing fatwas calling for the destruction of the great Shi’ite shrines in Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, some of which have already been bombed. And while prominent members of the ruling al-Saud dynasty regularly express their abhorrence of terrorism, leading figures within the kingdom who advocate extremism are tolerated.
Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, the chief justice, who oversees terrorist trials, was recorded on tape in a mosque in 2004, encouraging young men to fight in Iraq. “Entering Iraq has become risky now,” he cautioned. “It requires avoiding those evil satellites and those drone aircraft, which own every corner of the skies over Iraq. If someone knows that he is capable of entering Iraq in order to join the fight, and if his intention is to raise up the word of God, then he is free to do so.”
The Bush administration is split over how to deal with the Saudi threat, with the State Department warning against pressure that might lead the royal family to fall and be replaced by more dangerous extremists.
“The urban legend is that George Bush and Dick Cheney are close to the Saudis because of oil and their past ties with them, but they’re pretty disillusioned with them,” said Stephen Schwartz, of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism in Washington. “The problem is that the Saudis have been part of American policy for so long that it’s not easy to work out a solution.”
Urban myth? Someone tell Michael Moore! Anyway, it’s a good read. Whole thing. Like Pakistan, a vital, problematic and conflicted partner in this business and another case that demonstrates we are closer to the beginning of this war than we are to the end of it.
Topics: GWOT, saudi arabia
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:24 am on Sunday, November 4, 2007
5 Responses to “Saud News”
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November 4th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I have disliked and distrusted the Saudis since the oil embargo in the 70s. I hate the way they’ve wormed their way into our banking system, and it’s a known fact that they are funding mosques and Islamic schools all over the world (particularly here in the US). They are the kind of “friend” you can’t turn your back on. Iran and Pakistan may be the hot spots right now, but the time is coming when we’ll have to reckon with Saudi Arabia.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
The dangers we face from those players who act in an overt manner are nothing to the dangers we face from those who are infiltrating our culture; a culture made ripe for takeover by the ideology taught in our schools. Few here recognize how long this has been going on.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
“The Bush administration is split over how to deal with the Saudi threat, with the State Department warning against pressure that might lead the royal family to fall and be replaced by more dangerous extremists.”
That’s the money quote. Way back when we told looked the other way when the Shah placed pressure on his “religious extremists”…then we decided we couldn’t look the other way anymore…and the Shah got himself overthrown.
Press too hard…you end up with another Iran…don’t press hard enough…you end up with another Iran.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Now if the US had a competent intelligence agency it could develop contacts with Arab criminal gangs and hire in a clandestine manner contract hitmen to kill the leading terror financiers in the Wahhabist Entity. The word could then be spread quietly that if you cross Uncle Sam you die, if you play ball you live. That is the way the game has to be played here. Waiting for the Al-Saud to take action is like waiting for the Greek Kalends. If you think of Saudi Arabia not a s a normal nation state, but rather as a mob concession, and take your guidance from Vito and Michael Corleone, you’ll be much more accurate in your assessments.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:59 am
I remember reading about Truman worrying about the Arabs after the war, that was what made supporting an Israeli state so problematic even then.
Bush did not create this situation with the Saudis, the Royal family has been there for decades and the US has dealt with them all these years for fear that if they fall something worse would come forth from the vacuum. It is a case of the devil you know. I think all we can do is keep pressure on them and try to make them understand that these nasty little killers they have helped create can be as dangerous to them as they are to us.