sierraone
03-20-2004, 11:16 AM
I am re-posting this in the hope of honest views. Please don't post if you don't bother reading this..
The big prize for democracy and the beginning of all peace processes would be a democratic Saudi Arabia. It all starts from there. The Royal Family has to sail off to the sunset - with their super-luxury yachts - establish the election process, political parties, human rights and all-encompassing general elections.
That is where it all has to start from: Saudi Arabia. A few facts:
a. Saudi Arabia is the richest moslem country. They have made an absolute fortune from the black stuff they are sitting on. It's economic and influential power is immense.
b. It is the most fundamentalist islamic state. It is the birthplace of Islam, home to Mecca and the Hadj and obeys strict Islamic law. The Koran was written there and Mohammed was born and lived there etc. There are public beheadings, amputations, very little in the way of justice and appeal. They have the greatest influence in the Moslem world.
c. It has zero democracy of any sort. No elections, no parties and lifelong hereditary rulers appointed by divine decree.
Being that strong Islamic and rich it is expected that it will sympathise/support anyone killing jews. They draw the line of course on Euro and Americans as you don't normally bite the hand that feeds you do you? To the US saudis are untouchable. Americans like the status quo there. The ruling family lives a lifestyle beyond anyone's dreams and supply us with lots of oil. If there was a democracy a new government might say maybe 'screw this' and put up the prices, make it harder for the west to obtain oil and depend always on the feeling of the public to be voted in or out. The Saudi public though have never heard of such a thing as democracy. They would be politically too immature to elect a working bureaucratic government. Then there is the fear of electing a person of anti-western sentiment given the strong islamic culture of the country.
At present the authorities work with us on terrorism and pursue the local cells and collaborate with the west as much as possible- they don't want to give up the $$$ do they?
Now that has been the state of being for the past 50 years and has worked fine until the end of the Cold War. The wests military machine was powered by saudi oil -hence no direct Saudi involvement in the Middle East wars- and the Warsaw Pact from Russian oil and double dealings with other Arabs - eg Saddam etc. And then 9/11 happened. Things are turning. The most scared people after 9/11 was the Saudi establishment. It happened at the presidency of a devout Christian, a republican patriot and worse of all, a Texan magnate who knows everything about oil.
All of us know that OBL and lots of his cronies are Saudis. We know now that Saudi funders pay suicide bombers' families big $$$ and Palestinian organisations to do what they do. Same goes for Chechens, KLAs, Morrocans, Algerians, Indonesians, Talibans, 'foreign fighters' etc. To pay up of course they want to see evidence hence all the gruesome videos from Chechnya etc that are flooding the internet. What do you think these are? out of being sick? No they are their 'receipts'. All these videos end up in some Saudi palace. Funnily enough it is the Caucasus where the Warsaw Pact was getting it's oil from.
But things might get our hand. The public may have too much of an anti-western sentiment by now. Muslims all over the world might want to see more attacks against the west for getting rid of Saddam, supporting Israel, banning headscarves, drinking beer and eating pork and women walking on beaches with bikinis.
Question is: How long is the West - inc. Russia - will put up with this? Also Russia didn't want to go to war as they were getting oil from Saddam. Same with the french. Saudis though wanted to get rid of him. So they OK'd George to go ahead and get rid of him thank you very much. Now they need Caucasus oil even more. Same with the French and Germans. Do you think the anti-war movement would be so strong if there was no government in the world that didn't want to get rid of Saddam? They got spurred on by 'old' Europe and Russia's goverments.
The possible solutions to end terrorism are:
a. everyone becomes a client of the Saudis. The saudis stop funding Chechens and all the rest and they go down the drain faster than toilet paper. But then who controls the alternative sources? Saudis may not be happy if it is not them. They will need mega-deals and agreements to stop funding terrorists. Then do they want Jews to stop getting killed? They love the money but they still hate Jews.
b. establishment of a new pro-western government in Saudi that stops funding terrorism. We would have to make sure that this goverment is not as Islamic and has the facade of a democracy. A bit like Turkey I suppose. Turkey though had to go through a very violent and oppresive regime - Kemal Ataturk - to get rid of the Islamics. He literally was hanging imams from telegraph poles. If you establish democracy you have to make sure that the Islamics don't get into power whether with elections of terrorism. Maybe covert assasinations who knows? I am sure Rumsfeld has thought of everything.
c. Before anyone says 'invade Saudi' that is out of the question. There is no pretence to begin with. Then the Islamic world is going to erupt. And until we organise who gets the oil we might starve.
d. Alternative power sources. Saudis will do anything to block them and anyway they are too little and too early to make any difference.
Bottom line is: things have to change in Saudi Arabia the whole terrorism will change. But is George such a 'crusader' to want things to change? Are the Saudis that Islamic to let things go wild? If Kerry gets elected the Saudis will be rubbing their hands I think.
These are things we don't know. Just a few thoughts of mine.
The big prize for democracy and the beginning of all peace processes would be a democratic Saudi Arabia. It all starts from there. The Royal Family has to sail off to the sunset - with their super-luxury yachts - establish the election process, political parties, human rights and all-encompassing general elections.
That is where it all has to start from: Saudi Arabia. A few facts:
a. Saudi Arabia is the richest moslem country. They have made an absolute fortune from the black stuff they are sitting on. It's economic and influential power is immense.
b. It is the most fundamentalist islamic state. It is the birthplace of Islam, home to Mecca and the Hadj and obeys strict Islamic law. The Koran was written there and Mohammed was born and lived there etc. There are public beheadings, amputations, very little in the way of justice and appeal. They have the greatest influence in the Moslem world.
c. It has zero democracy of any sort. No elections, no parties and lifelong hereditary rulers appointed by divine decree.
Being that strong Islamic and rich it is expected that it will sympathise/support anyone killing jews. They draw the line of course on Euro and Americans as you don't normally bite the hand that feeds you do you? To the US saudis are untouchable. Americans like the status quo there. The ruling family lives a lifestyle beyond anyone's dreams and supply us with lots of oil. If there was a democracy a new government might say maybe 'screw this' and put up the prices, make it harder for the west to obtain oil and depend always on the feeling of the public to be voted in or out. The Saudi public though have never heard of such a thing as democracy. They would be politically too immature to elect a working bureaucratic government. Then there is the fear of electing a person of anti-western sentiment given the strong islamic culture of the country.
At present the authorities work with us on terrorism and pursue the local cells and collaborate with the west as much as possible- they don't want to give up the $$$ do they?
Now that has been the state of being for the past 50 years and has worked fine until the end of the Cold War. The wests military machine was powered by saudi oil -hence no direct Saudi involvement in the Middle East wars- and the Warsaw Pact from Russian oil and double dealings with other Arabs - eg Saddam etc. And then 9/11 happened. Things are turning. The most scared people after 9/11 was the Saudi establishment. It happened at the presidency of a devout Christian, a republican patriot and worse of all, a Texan magnate who knows everything about oil.
All of us know that OBL and lots of his cronies are Saudis. We know now that Saudi funders pay suicide bombers' families big $$$ and Palestinian organisations to do what they do. Same goes for Chechens, KLAs, Morrocans, Algerians, Indonesians, Talibans, 'foreign fighters' etc. To pay up of course they want to see evidence hence all the gruesome videos from Chechnya etc that are flooding the internet. What do you think these are? out of being sick? No they are their 'receipts'. All these videos end up in some Saudi palace. Funnily enough it is the Caucasus where the Warsaw Pact was getting it's oil from.
But things might get our hand. The public may have too much of an anti-western sentiment by now. Muslims all over the world might want to see more attacks against the west for getting rid of Saddam, supporting Israel, banning headscarves, drinking beer and eating pork and women walking on beaches with bikinis.
Question is: How long is the West - inc. Russia - will put up with this? Also Russia didn't want to go to war as they were getting oil from Saddam. Same with the french. Saudis though wanted to get rid of him. So they OK'd George to go ahead and get rid of him thank you very much. Now they need Caucasus oil even more. Same with the French and Germans. Do you think the anti-war movement would be so strong if there was no government in the world that didn't want to get rid of Saddam? They got spurred on by 'old' Europe and Russia's goverments.
The possible solutions to end terrorism are:
a. everyone becomes a client of the Saudis. The saudis stop funding Chechens and all the rest and they go down the drain faster than toilet paper. But then who controls the alternative sources? Saudis may not be happy if it is not them. They will need mega-deals and agreements to stop funding terrorists. Then do they want Jews to stop getting killed? They love the money but they still hate Jews.
b. establishment of a new pro-western government in Saudi that stops funding terrorism. We would have to make sure that this goverment is not as Islamic and has the facade of a democracy. A bit like Turkey I suppose. Turkey though had to go through a very violent and oppresive regime - Kemal Ataturk - to get rid of the Islamics. He literally was hanging imams from telegraph poles. If you establish democracy you have to make sure that the Islamics don't get into power whether with elections of terrorism. Maybe covert assasinations who knows? I am sure Rumsfeld has thought of everything.
c. Before anyone says 'invade Saudi' that is out of the question. There is no pretence to begin with. Then the Islamic world is going to erupt. And until we organise who gets the oil we might starve.
d. Alternative power sources. Saudis will do anything to block them and anyway they are too little and too early to make any difference.
Bottom line is: things have to change in Saudi Arabia the whole terrorism will change. But is George such a 'crusader' to want things to change? Are the Saudis that Islamic to let things go wild? If Kerry gets elected the Saudis will be rubbing their hands I think.
These are things we don't know. Just a few thoughts of mine.