Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains how the U.S. ought to be behaving toward the Saudis:
The Administration continues to believe it needs Saudi goodwill, and is afraid of offending it. This is wrong. This is getting it backwards. Saudi Arabia sells oil. All of its income comes from oil. Until recently it could play a bit with production; as the swing producer, it would try to calculate a market price X at any time Y that would maximize the total value of its reserves in the ground. It might miscalculate, of course -- sellers often do. They put the price too high (so that consumers would find other supplies of oil, develop other sources of energy, manage to conserve more, find the political will to support mass transit, tax gasoline, and so on) or too low (when it could put it higher without changing long-term demand). That's it. That has always been it. That is how Saudi Arabia sells its oil. Had we added a tax Z (rising in regular increments) on oil and gasoline, then the Saudis would have at any time Y had to charge a price that, if not exactly X-Z, would probably have been somewhere between X and X-Z. The consumers would thus have managed to grab some of that money for ourselves that would otherwise have gone to the Saudis and other sellers.What about the stocks, bonds, and money Saudi Arabia has in America? Couldn't the Saudis just pull it all out and harm us? Answer: No. For that money from those investments has to be parked somewhere. Suppose the Saudis were to sell everything and put their money into a French or German or Ruritanian bank Those French, those Germans, those Ruritanian bankers, would promptly buy up the artificially low-priced stocks and bonds that the Saudis had sold (money flows hither and yon, wherever its directors list).
But Saudi Arabia is completely dependent on the West to supply doctors and other professional workers. Its rulers depend, in the end, on access outside their country for medical care. They need access to every kind of Western technology: medical equipment and supplies, electronic playthings, the people who can in a pinch put out oilfield fires or pump the last drops from declining fields. The Al-Saud also have a good many illiquid assets -- real estate -- all over the West, including those escape-houses that the rulers have bought in such places as New York City. The Saudis just arranged to have 10,000 Saudis study in America -- doesn't that sound like they want access to our educational system? If their children were unable to come to the West, if they had all sorts of limits on the movement of their money and their own movements, they could be brought to heel.
But no one in this Administration is able to conceive of Saudi Arabia as anything other the shot-caller. Yet the Saudis can in reality call almost nothing, and are at our mercy -- if we only realized the thousand ways we have to pressure them and their rulers.
But what if there were some kind of revolution in Saudi Arabia, and the Al-Saud threatened with overthrow? It doesn't matter. For they behave as malevolently in the end as any group that were to follow, save Bin Laden himself. Indeed, if the loot taken by the Al-Saud were now spread around to everyone, that would leave less discretionary income to pay for mosques, madrasas, and Jihad propaganda everywhere.
And what about the oilfields? Instead of being inhibited by Saudi Arabia, officials should simply treat it roughly. When the Saudis claim that "we might lose control of the oil," say nothing, do nothing. Simply make plans to seize, in a case of necessity, the oilfields of Hasa, conveniently located right on the Gulf, for loading onto waiting ships. It may never come to that -- but the U.S. could and should proceed on the understanding that there is no need to worry about such a phony threat because, in the end, we would simply act on the basis of necessity. And we could make such an act palatable by immediately announcing that the oil revenues would be kept in trust and doled out to the poor in Saudi Arabia so that they would not be taken and used to fund "terrorism" (i.e. the Jihad) worldwide.
It would be easier to seize those fields, if necessary, than it has been for the past year and a half to create that absurd Light Unto the Muslim Nations in Iraq. That project will not and cannot work, and shows the obstinacy of people who once had an idea -- the more foolish and more obsequious and more timid in this administration -- and now the idea has them. Few seem willing to say, not from the Cindy-Sheehan-idiotic point of view, but from the only view that makes sense, that it is a tremendous misallocation of men, money, and materiel. And that it dampens army and civilian morale, and misinterprets the situation in Iraq. And that it presupposes the existence of an "Iraqi" people that the entire history of modern Iraq belies.
The President’s treatment of Saudi Arabia is one more example of his complete misunderstanding of Islam, and the larger problem. Bush turns out to be just as stupid as he can be. As stupid, and as obstinate. And all those who go silently along with him because they are politically afraid not to "support the troops" and to analyze things, are little better. From Rice's self-assured demands on the Kurds and the Israelis, from someone who has never studied Islam but has been a dutiful parroter of party-lines on Soviet Communism, and who always aims to please her bosses, to Karen Hughes with her little mis-mission as a "we hear your pain about us" and are "just here to listen" sob and sorority sister, the whole thing is a tremendous waste. It is a waste of lives and money, as well as time, while demographic conquest, Da'wa, and every other instrument of Jihad proceeds largely unchecked, and everyone runs about wondering what, what, what can they do -- it disgusts.
HUGH: "If their children were unable to come to the West, if they had all sorts of limits on the movement of their money and their own movements, they could be brought to heel."
Hugh speaks of the "West" as if it is homogenous. In this and other essays, he clearly seems to believe that George Bush is in a position to dictate to the Europeans their policies vis-a-vis the Muslim world. Short of the dynamics that may be unleashed by a prospective nuclear war, this mindset is myopic and reflective of an inflated view of American power.
There are other problems postulated in the above essay, but I'll leave them for another day.
Muslims will always be waging jihad, best to let them fight jihad between themselves rather than having them all focused on the infidels. We can certainly stop Muslim immigration to the West and contain the threat to our homeland (fix the borders goes without saying), but even that is unthinkable for this administration. Too PI! Were we allowing Japanese and Germans to immigrate to America during WWII? No except for the few who were clearly our allies and could help us.
Here's a hint on how to deal with them: nuke Mecca and Medina and take back the oilfields, drilling rigs and refineries the West built and the Saudis nationalized, then make them pay reparations.
Basically this all sounds right to me, but I didn't notice any mention of the close Bush family friendship with the Saudi royal family, which might be considered scandalous, and is certainly influential.
For an alternative to the view that the Saudis (or Chinese or others) must park their money in the US, see
Dumping of US Dollar Could Trigger 'Economic September 11'
http://tinyurl.com/c7e8h
However, I am no economic expert, so please don't argue this with me!
Benjamin
I disagree with Hugh for the first time - not
on his intention or politics but purely on economics. Prices are set by supply and demand.
Taxing oil may reduce the demand slightly but that
would mean a sub-optimal allocation of resources
and would result in less efficiency elsewhere in the
economy. The best way to deal with them still is to
increase the political pressure on them which the US administration has been timid to do.
Benjamin,
The article made me shudder. Thanks for the glimps of gloom and doom. Our trade deficit with China alone is over $150 billion a year. Over the course of a decade, that is a transfer of wealth of over $1.5 trillion dollars.
You can't indefinitely consume more than you produce. Eventually, the bills come due.
Naresh,
No question taxes of any sort are inflationary and strangle economic activity. A progressively-increasing gas tax may reduce consumption by the Sunday driver, but goods still need to go to market and gas taxes on business-use will just be passed along to the consumer via price increases.
If funding madrassas that serve as recruiting grounds for terrorists and adhering to a vicious and irrational strain of Islam that demands the slaughter of infidels isn't sufficient reason to abandon the Saud family, then what is?
Any country that forbids beauty contests for women but has contests for goats is utterly deranged. If Saudi Arabia were an individual charged with a crime in an American court it could plead "not guilty by reason of insanity" and be acquitted. It has turned mental illness into a philosophy of life and, like a rich eccentric, it is tolerated when it should be sent to an asylum for the criminally insane.
Must the Saudis run naked through the streets while singing "I'm a Little Teacup" before this sick and evil culture is recognized as a form of mass insanity?
RE: Why is this technology not used? Take a wild guess, economic Einsteins! Keywords that should give you a hint: Bush, Cheney, Big Oil, greed, treason.
This problem has been around since the oil embargo of '73. No one else did anything
so get off the "bash Bush for everything bandwagon" All the ex-Pres get hugh speaking
fees from Saudia Arabia. Blame goes to everyone.
I said it before and I'll say it again > we are
in Iraq because of Saudia Arabia!
"I disagree with Hugh for the first time - not
on his intention or politics but purely on economics. Prices are set by supply and demand.
Taxing oil may reduce the demand slightly but that would mean a sub-optimal allocation of resources and would result in less efficiency elsewhere in the economy."
-- from a posting by Naresh above
While laws of supply and demand count for much, and one does not wish, where it is possible not to have, in the language of economics, or of a certain kind of economics (not economics that takes into account the non-economic aspects of life, not economics that takes into account the desire for more than mere rational allocation of resources but also the desire to protect one's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and speaking of happiness, not the kind of economics that fails to take into account the obvious notion that while the standard of living rises, the quality of life may in fact decline -- an idea not unconnected with Kahnemann's putting a scholarly or "scientific"and therefore, in this Iron Age, made acceptable that which many have known through history -- that at a certain point the accumulation of wealth has costs (human costs) which outweigh those gains, and lead not to an increase in happiness for those involved, but a decrease.
In my own felicific calculus, I would be willing to accept a "sub-optimal" allocation of resources by taxing oil and gasoline at the pump because 1) I am no more a complete believer in the "free market" than I am in other ideologies; there are times when that "free market" should be fiddled with. One example: the Hungarian government had (and may still have) a "trash tax" on junk music for teenagers, the revenues from which are used to support sympthony orchestras. Such a tax requires some shared understanding as to what constitutes trash and what is not -- and that can only come from a self-assured group, not necessarily composed of the rich, who are willing to make such choices. Think of the BBC Third Programme, and what it used to carry, whatever the supposed desires of some, and what the BBC now routinely carries.
In this case, the revenues that the OPEC oil states receive are not merely a matter of economics. Those revenues are used to fund mosques and madrasas and propaganda, to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in arms and to fund arms projects, and to employ a vast army of hirelings all over the Western world. Those hirelings until recently were quite effective -- now, with events making obvious what was always there but was paid little attention to, especially during a Cold War where Islam was seen not as a menace but merely as a "bulwark against Communism," Attention is being paid, but not clearly enough, not focussed enough on the tenets of Islam, on the long history of Islam, on the attitudes that in Muslim societies (which can also be recreated in the Western world, among immigrant communities) are the inevitable result of those teachings and atmospherics, even for many who seem outwardly to be unaffected, do not attend mosques, but nonetheless owe their ultimate loyalty, it seems, to Islam and the umma al-islamiyya.
Oil for the consuming nations is not merely a matter of "optimal" allocation of resources because the revenues from that oil support what is a mortal threat to us, to our laws and customs and understandings.
And to our physical security.
For that reason, it would be good to regard with alarm and fury the inability of the elites of the oil-consuming Infidel nations to come up with the kind of programs, the subsidies (we should be subsidizing mass transit all over the place -- it does not have to "pay for itself" because there are other benefits from lessening the use of private cars).
How does one put a dollar value on the tree I see outside my window? That view is worth something to me. So is the view of the night sky, and even of stars. What about the dollar value of not worrying that in schools a false view of Islam will be taught my children? That there will be Muslim pressure at every level, in every area, of American life, to change things so that step by step, our own history is effaced or erased and we are taught that Islam is just one more lovely addition to American life, one more celebration of pluralism and diversity, when anyone who studies Islam knows that it is dead set against real pluralism and real diversity. What dollar value should one put on the freedom from fear when one enters the subway, or the train, or goes to the airport, a fear that increases with the numnber of Muslims who must be monitored, or who cannot be monitored sufficiently? What is the dollar value to me, or to you, to know that Muslims will not be able to build more mosques and madrasas in Western Europe, and will not, inevitably, in 20 or 30 or 40 years, be present in such numbers, and exercise such pressures, that Western Europe will no longer be part of Western civilization, and that even the art in the museums may be vandalized, or destroyed, or hidden from view, or forced to be sent for safekeeping across the seas, to America, for fear of what might happen to it?
All of these things have a value. The fact that neither I, nor economists, can set the precise amount of that value does not mean that it does not exist. And that, too, has to be taken into account when discussing "optimal" and "sub-optimal" allocations.
There is more to the matter than that.
Much as you all above, I am sick of being sold out to Islam. 10,000 SA students being admitted to our country!? How many will take flight lessons? The only apparent solution is to initiate our own jihad in our own defense. There is no one currently in DC who will do it. My delegation and president do not answer my letters. 1st time comment, reader for almost a year. Trump/Tancredo in '08 if we survive that long.
Hugh:
If you noted, I had said there is plenty of blame to go around and not just Bush.
Politics is maddening, I would not last one
week as a politician as I can't play their games.
I would have to shoot myself first.
But also, things are not always so transparent
and I do believe the day is coming when Saudia
Arabia will get its due.
But it requires monumental changes and the political process is notoriously slow.
Sorry, the above Post was in reply to US_infidel
and not Hugh
RE: The Green River Formation, a geologic swath stretching into Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, contains an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of oil, according to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
America should underwrite the cost to develop
the oil shale. This is one of the reasons OPEC
had kept us hooked on their oil by low prices.
During the oil embargo of 73 the oil companies
lost millions when they invested in oil/shale and then the price of oil came down.
The answer is there if the government would make
that a national security issue on underwrite
the risks to the oil companies.
The answer is in our own "backyard" !!!!!!!!!!
RE: (we should be subsidizing mass transit all over the place)
Mass transit will never work in a country the size of ours and it is no coincidence that
our standard of living increased with the advent of the highway system. Mobility of resources and
people which fluctuates with the free market needs.
Alternative sources (ie: oil/shale) or alternative
fuels are the answer.
Hugh: Good ideas, provocative.
The Saudi bastards should be removed. Agree.
No Islamic theocracy should own or control the gas station.
Their removal is easy, simple and simply accomplished:
THE RULE IS THAT MONEY FOLLOWS POWER AND NOT THE REVERSE,and the Saudis know this, which is why they liberally shower Wahington with our petrodollars to try and win influence and head off the inevitable.
They are gone AS SOON AS Washington decides they are gone.
Which is why we fight for the hearts and minds of the West.