[UPDATE: Poster tibmag has gently noted that the appropriation of $21.3 billion is a broader aid package, not a lump sum to Saudi Arabia. Mea culpa. --MS]
From Reuters: "House jabs Saudi Arabia in foreign aid bill"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Friday took a symbolic jab at Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of fueling religious extremism and violence, as it passed a $21.3 billion foreign aid bill.
[...]
Decrying Saudi Arabia for teaching intolerance and financing terrorism, lawmakers voted 312-97 to cut the $420,000 the oil-rich kingdom receives to participate in U.S.-backed military and counter-terrorism training.
"I hope my colleagues send a strong signal symbolically that enough is enough," said Rep. Joseph Crowley, a New York Democrat.
[...]
Rep. Jim Kolbe, an Arizona Republican, said the measure would hurt efforts to foster Saudi Arabia as a partner in fighting terrorism. But his was a lonely voice.
Congress has passed similar measures in the past, but Bush has used a waiver to clear the funds to Saudi Arabia.
Am I reading this correctly? We give Saudi Arabia 'foreign aid'?
I will be be careful in what I say about this story, but this outragous, and sublimely stupid. As an American tax payer I am offend by this unproductive theft and waste of mine and everyone elses tax money. We'll get absoulutely nothing for it. Zip, zilch, nada.
Jim Kolbe is a dunce and hack of the worst kind with his inane comments about Saudi Arabia. What do we owe them? Answer: Nothing!! Why is this a one sided relationship? Why can't make any demands or set any stipulations in this relationship no matter how paltry?
Why does Saudi Arabia need foreign aid when they are rolling in oil money also gained in large part from us? The period since the second world war has witnessed one the largest , most obscene and unproductive wealth transfers in all human history, in the collective West relationship with the Islamic world. We have paid enough Jizya. It is high time politicians like Jim Kolbe find a new line of work; vote them out! In the vien of the just say no to drugs campaign of the 80's we need a Just say no to Jizya. Say no to Kolbe, he can collect aluminum cans out of the garbage for all I care ;just get his kind away from our money and decisions concerning our safety.
I guess we showed them (sarcasim)
There was a book published back in the 80's written by an American woman who had lived in Saudi Arabia about her experiences there. As I recall the name is Saud or Saudi.
One of the things she describes is the sudden influx and distribution of oil wealth, how the Saudis would quite literally ride up to the car dealership on their camels and trade the camels in for a car.
This vote looks to me like a perfect list of who should stay and who must go in the House.
abdulalshirk: "Why is this a one sided relationship?"
From an old Daniel Pipes piece:
http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=1G1:95841630&ctrlInfo=Round20%3AMode20e%3ADocG%3AResult&ao=
"WHAT LIES behind this pattern of obsequiousness? Where is the normally robust pursuit of U.S. interests? It is one thing when private companies bend over backwards to please the Saudis....but why does the U.S. government defer to the Kingdom in so many and unique ways?
"Oil" is likely to be the most common explanation proferred, but it does not hold. First, the U.S. government has never cringed before any other major oil supplier as it does to Saudi Arabia. Second, U.S.-Saudi ties have been premised since 1945, when a dying Franklin D. Roosevelt met an aging King Ibn Saud, on an enduring bargain in which Riyadh provides oil and gas to the United States and the world and Washington provides security to Saudi Arabia. Because this deal has even more importance for Saudis than Americans--survival versus energy supplies--oil cannot explain why the U.S. side has consistently acted as a supplicant.
Another possible factor is the proclivity of many Americans to strive to tolerate other people's customs and religious beliefs, which in the Saudi case involves such matters as the total covering of women, public executions and the absence of any pretense of democratic rule. But the lack of reciprocity from the Saudi side, decade after decade, suggests that something else besides an open spirit is at work; no matter how liberal, no one can endure such a one-sided relationship for so long unless there is a payoff.....
The same behavior exists among private institutions. .....
Why does such a pattern of behavior exist? What could prompt government or hospital staff to run out ahead of the Saudis themselves?
The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, helpfully hinted at an answer in a statement boasting of his success cultivating powerful Americans. "If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office", Bandar once observed, "you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office." (35) This effective admission of bribery goes far to explain why the usual laws, regulations and rights do not apply when Saudi Arabia is involved. Hume Horan, himself a former U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom, is the great and noble exception to this pattern. He says this of his former colleagues:
There have been some people who really do go on the Saudi payroll, and they work as advisers and consultants. Prince Bandar is very good about massaging and promoting relationships like that. Money works wonders, and if you've got an awful lot of it, and a royal title--well, it's amusing to see how some Americans liquefy in front of a foreign potentate, just because he's called a prince....
Several surveys of the post-government careers of ex-U.S. ambassadors to Riyadh all raise eyebrows. Steven Emerson characterizes their behavior as "visceral, overt self-interested sycophancy." (37) National Review finds that the number of them "who now push a pro-Saudi line is startling" and concludes that "no other posting pays such rich dividends once one has left it, provided one is willing to become a public and private advocate of Saudi interests." (38) A National Post analysis looked at five former ambassadors and found that "they have carved out a fine living insulting their own countrymen while shilling for one of the most corrupt regimes on Earth." If you closed your eyes while listening to their apologies, "you would think the person talking held a Saudi passport." (39)
A Washington Post account gives some idea of the nature of the "rich dividends" reaped by former officials:
Americans who have worked with the Saudis in official capacities often remain connected to them when they leave public office, from former president George H.W. Bush, who has given speeches for cash in Saudi Arabia since leaving office, to many previous ambassadors and military officers stationed in the Kingdom. In some cases, these connections have been lucrative. Walter Cutler, who served two tours as the U.S. ambassador in Saudi Arabia, now runs Meridian International Center in Washington, an organization that promotes international understanding through education and exchanges. Saudi donors have been "very supportive" of the center, Cutler said. [Edward] Walker, the former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, is president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, which promotes understanding with the Arab world. Its board chairman is former senator Wyche Fowler, ambassador to Riyadh in the second Clinton administration. Saudi contributions covered $200,000 of the institute's $1.5 milli on budget last year, Walker said. (40)
Nor is this a new problem. Many ex-Washington hands have been paid off by the Kingdom, including not only a bevy of former ambassadors but also such figures as Spiro T. Agnew, Jimmy Carter, Clark Clifford, John B. Connally and William E. Simon. (41)
The heart of the problem is an all-too-human one, then: Americans in positions of authority bend the rules and break with standard policy out of personal greed. In this light, Hunter's report on the three main U.S. government goals in Saudi Arabia begins to make sense: strengthen the Saudi regime, cater to the Saud royal family, and facilitate U.S. exports. All of these fit the rubric of enhancing one's own appeal to the Saudis. So, too, does Hunter's comment that "the U.S. mission is so preoccupied with extraneous duties--entertainment packages for high-level visitors, liquor sales, and handling baggage for VIP visitors"--that it has scant time to devote to the proper concerns of an embassy. Likewise, his long list of high-profile ex-officials who visited Saudi Arabia during his sojourn (Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, Colin Powell, Mack McLarty, Richard Murphy) and "who were feted and presented with medals and gifts at closed ceremonies with the Saudi monarch" also firs the pattern. (42)
This culture of corruption in the Executive Branch renders it quite incapable of dealing with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the farsighted and disinterested manner that U.S. foreign policy requires. That leaves Congress with the responsibility to fix things. The massive pre-emptive bribing of American officials requires urgent attention. Steps need to be taken to ensure that the Saudi revolving-door syndrome documented here be made illegal. That might mean that for ten years or more after having extensive contacts with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an official may not receive funds from that source. Only this way can U.S. citizens regain confidence in those of their officials who deal with one of the world's more important states."
Good work, Caroline. Thanks for posting this.
We don't give Saudia Arabia any foreign aid. That foreign aid bill is directed towards many countries, including Iraq and Israel among others. Your analogy is a bit off...
$420,000, that might cover some of the maintenance costs of the Saudi king's private 747 Airliner.
Dumber...
...and Dumberer. It seems to be a contest in Washington to see who can be the worse representative of the American people.
The problem, with democracy is that more and more you have to have access to large amounts of money to be a successful politician, either your own, or someone else's (SA or a multinational).
Even if you are not personally affluent at the start the power and influence that comes with such a postion almost always sets the family up for a long time and if financialy corrupt, then an eternity.
The problem is corruption(how glib!) and ALL politicians are guilty of this even if it does not involve actual money( eg Bush appointing a judge who suits his political ideals as opposed to what then nation really needs...do not discuss this, as it is a random example and not an opinion). They appoint people they know rather than the best man and the whole system is rife with nepotism, cronyism and mateship. With such a system money easily tilts a choice one way or the other.
Thus when you add the pressure of very large amounts of cash flow to the equation (eg petrodollars) and plush appointments with the oil industry after your term in office. then it is no wonder that the saudis get away with murder literally. They have almost bought the whole US goverment. An exagerration? Of course!! But by how much?
What is the solution? No idea. I have been thinking about this problem for as long as Plato did and I have no more ideas than he had.
Man is just a selfish creature but political man is a selfish corrupt creature. As soon as power is gained ideals decrease.
Why in the name of all that right does the Saud who is already swimming in wealth and petrodollars need $21 billion in aid. That calculates out to $84 per citizen of the United States: $336 from my house!
Our government is just crooked and sells out to those backward bedouins with the infinitely deep pockets. There is probably some payoff for business concessions or just plain payoff for congressional influence.
Sorry, Caroline,
I don't buy the semi-conspiracy theory that America's special relationship with Saudi Arabia is just due to the money they spread around. Because even freshman politicians who are newly elected and haven't been on the Saudi payroll yet (including, as you can see, much of Congress), and freshman Secretaries of State and many scholars of Middle East politics, have quickly come to endorse a special American relationship with Saudi Arabia--as soon as they learn something about the Middle East. Condoleeza Rice certainly does, always has, but I don't think it's because she's in the pay of Saudi Arabia.
The real reason is geopolitical. Throughout the entire Cold War, Saudi Arabia was staunchly anti-Communist and hence found itself on the side of the U.S. And as I have posted before, since 1979 it became U.S. policy to even ally itself with jihadist forces if necessary, against the growing power of the U.S.S.R. The Carter Administration actually dropped some hints publicly. I remember that in 1980, they said they hoped that the Muslim Brotherhood would be a counterweight to Soviet expansionism. (Conservative and Republican critics questioned whether the Muslim Brotherhood would be strong enough to do the job. They never questioned whether we should be allied with the Muslim Brotherhood in the first place.) So to the extent that the Saudis were encouraging Muslim fundamentalism, the U.S. actually viewed that as a preferable alternative to Communism.
The Cold War finally ended in 1990, only to be replaced by the rising threat from Saddam (we thought), which culminated in Saddam's conquest of Kuwait. The U.S. cashed in a few chips and got Saudi Arabia to agree to station U.S. "infidel" troops on their soil (quite a controversial concession from the Saudi king) as protection against Saddam's aggression. And, ultimately, as a staging area to invade Iraq and liberate Kuwait.
Unfortunately, Saddam remained in power and our troops remained in Saudi Arabia. And the U.S. remained in Saudi Arabia's debt as a result.
Only now, after Saddam is gone and Iraq is no longer a geopolitical threat, can we seriously contemplate detaching ourselves from Saudi Arabia. For the first time since 1947, we don't need them anymore.
"Only now, after Saddam is gone and Iraq is no longer a geopolitical threat, can we seriously contemplate detaching ourselves from Saudi Arabia. For the first time since 1947, we don't need them anymore."
-- from a posting above
The American government never "needed" Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia needed it. The Americans found the oil, and managed to pump the oil, and to load the oil on tankers, to destinations where other people, much more like the Americans than the Saudis, had found uses for that oil. Saudi Arabia owes everything to its American connection. Saudi Arabia sold oil to the Americans at the same price that everyone else had to buy it -- the market price. Saudi Arabia priced its oil based on its calculation of how to best maximize its own revenues and the value of its reserves.
A great deal of ARAMCO propaganda -- see J. B. Kelly's article "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies" -- went into convincing successive American governments that Saudi Arabia was a friend, an ally, a "staunch ally." It never was. And whatever aid the Saudis extended to the mujahedin in Afghanistan was given in order to support Islam, not in order to oppose Soviet Communism (the Saudis right now are making deals with Communist China), and the same aid would have been extended to help Islamic forces fight, not the Red Army, but local secularists. Similarly, Saudi Arabia opposed Iran not because it deplored Khomeini's anti-infidel murderousness, but because it saw Shi'a Iran as a threat to the House of Al-Saud (they are well aware that their own corruption, if painted as the work of "infidels," could bring about all kiinds of attacks -- and has). The Americans did not "need" the Saudis at any time; here and there their interests appeared to coincide fleetingly. Any optical illusion that resulted, to make anyone think we ever "needed" Saudi Arabia, and that somehow this "geopolitical threat" of Saddam Hussein (whom the Saudis gave tens of billions to, and supported to the hilt, during the Iran-Iraq War)being removed, we "need" Saudi Arabia no longer, simply is part of a refusal to realize how thoroughly snookered American governments and elites, sometimes out of cupidity, sometimes out of timidity, sometimes -- most often -- out of stupidity (the esdrujula explanation, about which there is more in the Archives), have been by the House of Al-Saud, and its sometime handmaiden, ARAMCO.
from above:
This appears to be a specific amendment to that bill addressing only the Saudis. From the House of Representatives website:
H R 5522 RECORDED VOTE 9-Jun-2006 1:57 PM
AUTHOR(S): Weiner of New York Amendment
QUESTION: On Agreeing to the Amendment
H.AMDT.997 (A013)
Amends: H.R.5522
Sponsor: Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] (offered 6/9/2006)
AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
An amendment to prohibit use of funds in the bill to finance any assistance to Saudi Arabia.
STATUS:
6/9/2006 11:50am:
Amendment (A013) offered by Mr. Weiner.
6/9/2006 1:57pm:
On agreeing to the Weiner amendment (A013) Agreed to by recorded vote: 312 - 97 (Roll no. 244).
These are your representatives which feel beholden to the Saudis with our tax funds . . .
NOES 97
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Barton (TX)
Biggert
Bishop (UT)
Boehner
Bonilla
Boustany
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Buyer
Calvert
Campbell (CA)
Carter
Case
Castle
Cole (OK)
Crenshaw
DeLay
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Dingell
Doolittle
Dreier
Ehlers
English (PA)
Etheridge
Fortenberry
Frelinghuysen
Gilchrest
Gohmert
Granger
Hall
Hensarling
Herger
Hobson
Hunter
Hyde
Inglis (SC)
Issa
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Kelly
Kildee
Kilpatrick (MI)
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Latham
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lucas
Lynch
Mack
McCrery
Miller (NC)
Northup
Nunes
Oxley
Pastor
Pearce
Pombo
Price (NC)
Putnam
Radanovich
Rahall
Regula
Rehberg
Reichert
Reynolds
Ruppersberger
Ryan (WI)
Saxton
Schwarz (MI)
Sessions
Shadegg
Sherwood
Simpson
Skelton
Smith (TX)
Snyder
Sweeney
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Watt
Weller
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Young (FL)
There's one more point I forgot to make. The jihadist movement in the Middle East has reached the point that it threatens to topple and replace more regimes. The Saudi royal family is weak, a U.S. ally sitting atop a native population much of which is secretly sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. If al-Qaeda ran a candidate for President of Saudi Arabia, that al-Qaeda candidate would probably win, just as Hamas won in Palestine.
This puts the U.S. in a real bind. Continuing to support the Saudi royal family, who plays footsy with Islamic radicalism, is bad; but if we withdrew support from Saudi Arabia, a really radical regime might take over in Saudi Arabia and lead to a true Taliban-like al-Qaeda ally. That would be a major disaster for U.S. foreign and defense policy.
Mea culpa alert!
Still $420,000 to them is ridiculous. Let them aid themselves.
abdulalshirk: you posted "we'll get absolutely nothing for it."
Actually, Americans will get plenty for it. It's called TERRORISM.
Hugh,
during the Cold War, I never read any "ARAMCO propaganda," nor was I employed by the U.S. Government. I was just a college student, till I graduated and got my first engineering job. Nevertheless, I was well aware of the enormous strategic significance of Saudi Arabia. Just by looking at a map.
U.S. policy toward the U.S.S.R. had been one of containment; and so the Soviets were constantly searching for ways to break out of the box the U.S. was keeping them in. A strategic goal of the U.S.S.R. had always been to break out into the Indian Ocean.
If the Soviets could have gotten their hands on the Middle East, it would have posed a threat to the entire region, from North Africa through India, including Israel. A communist takeover in Saudi Arabia would have enabled the Soviets to close the Persian Gulf to oil shipping, and even challenge the dominance of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. Combined with the Soviet takeover of South Yemen, this would have made the strategic position of Oman untenable, giving the Soviets just what they always dreamed of: dominance of everything from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.
Combined with the Communist takeover of Afghanistan, this would have gradually turned the Indian Ocean into a "Soviet lake," with a Soviet blue-water navy that would dominate the seas there.
And finally, all this combined with the Soviet coups in Mozambique and Angola meant that we could kiss Africa goodbye as well.
That's much more significant than that tiny pipsqueak nation called South Vietnam, in a much less strategic place--which the U.S. tried to defend at the cost of 55,000 American lives.
So the U.S. needed every ally it could get, to stop a Soviet breakout south.
It takes Saudi Arabia roughly 50.4 seconds to pump $420,000 worth of oil from the ground.
Daily output of SA : ~10,000,000 bbls
10,000,000 * $72/bbl = $720,000,000 proceeds from daily output
$420K divided into $720M = 1714
24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour = 1440
1714 divided by 1440 = ~.84
So -- it takes .84 minutes or 50.4 seconds to pump $420,000 in oil. (.84 X 60sec/minute = 50.4 seconds)
What a laugh.
It also takes the US economy less than 2/100ths of a second to churn out $420,000 GNP.
What a laugh.
It takes 31 minutes for US daily GDP to roughly equal Saudi Arabia entire daily GDP. US GDP is roughly 50 times that of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has only 1/10th our population.
When you consider that virtually nobody works in Saudi Arabia, and yet they benefit to the tune of roughly 1/5th the wealth generating capacity of the US per capita, the preposterousness of their wealth becomes evident. When one considers the fact that it takes over 100,000,000 hard working US citizens to generate the US GDP, while the flabby lazy hatred filled nazi bungholes in Saudi Arabia sit on their butts and plot our destruction, it becomes infuriating...
Something has gotta blow.
Foreign aid to Saudi Arabia? Sounds bizarre, doesn't it? Actually, Saudi Arabia received foreign aid from the US Treasury for many years through oil payments, by exempting ARAMCO from paying corporate income tax in the amount of most of the money paid for oil to the Saudis. In other words, ARAMCO could deduct the bulk of payments for oil from corporate income tax. The system was rather complex and is explained in several books and at these links.
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/kindly-making-arabia-rich.html
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/09/what-does-left-really-mean-in-2005.html
this system allowed ARAMCO to pay the Saudi royal family much more than ARAMCO would have paid otherwise.
As soon as I read this in the news I came here to check if it has been posted. Foreign aid to the world's largest oil exporter. I know it was a small amount but is the US government insane.
I used to think I would hate to see China as the dominant power. But seeing how ineffective and self destructive the US is. Maybe a powerful China won't be such a bad thing. Militant Islam=the US. If the muslims get their wish the death of the US they will being destroying their paymaster.
I still have hope that a Pat Buchanan like leader will take over the US. But it seems the next US election will be between traitor 1 and traitor 2.
I say again to America. Just go in and take the oil. It is insane to pay for that oil. That is American oil, not saudi oil. The saudis did nothing to earn that money - except squat on the land under which the oil is to be found. They didn't fight for that land. Didn't buy that land. Didn't develop that land. They did nothing to earn that piece of real estate. The fact that the west allows them to live there is payment enough. They should have no moral claims to anything found underneath the land.
The Americans found the oil, built the refineries, pumped it out, shipped it back to America in American ships, and then on top of that, they have to pay for it? Makes no sense. Makes even less sense when the money paid for that oil goes to finance terrorism. Sheer insanity.
Take the oil. With one stroke, America drastically reduces the terrorism problem and the gas problem. But of course, to take the oil, you need balls.
"The Americans found the oil, built the refineries, pumped it out, shipped it back to America in American ships, and then on top of that, they have to pay for it?"
By 1930 it was clear there would be large oil reserves in NE Saudi: that it was the Americans and not the British who opened them up was due to a breath-taking act of treachery by St John Philby, a British ex-intelligence officer, Muslim convert and adviser to ibn Saud. He advised the Saudis to deal with the Americans and not the British, an event marking the beginning of the decline of British influence in the Gulf area.
Since his son, Kim, was one of the most damaging spies this country ever produced I'm sure his naked betrayal of British interests was done just for the hell of it, in a kind of reverse patriotism.
see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_Philby
"I still have hope that a Pat Buchanan like leader will take over the US. But it seems the next US election will be between traitor 1 and traitor 2."
-- from a posting above
Pat Buchanan cannot be mentioned as someone who could conceivably withstand Islam. Have you read his series of remarks, each one more stupid and disgusting than the next, about how there is no problem with Islam at all -- the only problem with Muslim states and Muslims everywhere, in Pat Buchanan's view, comes from American support of Israel. He appears not to know anything about the 60-70 million Hindus killed in Hindustan under Mughal rule, or today persecuted and beaten to death in Pakistan and Bangladesh, or merely persecuted in Malaysia and in Indonesia. He appears to know nothing about Muslim attacks on innocent Buddhists in Thailand (or for that matter on innocent 1,500 year old statues in Afghanistan). He appears to know nothing about the attacks on Christians by Muslims in Nigeria, or in Sudan, nothing of the situation of the Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans in Iraq, of the Copts in Egypt, of the Maronites in Lebanon. He appears not to know what prompted the Muslims of Turkey -- both Turks and Kurds -- to slaughter the Armenians in both 1894-96 and later on, from 19015 on, or why Armenian priests and their families were treated, reportedly, with special cruelty. He probably has no idea why the ancient Armenian cemetery under control of Muslim Azeris recently was erased from the face of the earth.
But Buchanan's failure to take into account, to even show a glimmer of awareness, of all the attacks, over 1350 years, long before the United States came along, and certainly long before the Lesser Jihad against Israel started, to even show a recognition of what the Qur'an and Hadith inculcate, and his failure to understand the history of Jihad-conquest, over those 1350 years and today, and into the future, makes him a guide to nothing and nowhere.
What the Buchanans of this world are now are security risks. For those who suffer, to whatever degree, from the mental disease (a disease that, in its search for the Total Explanation of Things, locating it in a particular persecuted tribe) of antisemitism, makes all such people -- possibly 10% of the Western population -- far more susceptible to Islamic explanations and inveiglements, far more likely to refuse to see what is staring them in the face.
This isn't new in Western history. Through the 1930s, those who suffered from the same mental disease were those who always found excuses for Hitler and the Nazis. After all, Hitler's antipathy to Jews found, in their bosoms, an echo.
No one who has followed the life and times of Pat Buchanan can fail to have noticed the peculiar blindness and viciousness that he exhibits whenever the subject of Israel or of Jews comes up. What can one say of someone who repeatedly attempts to defend a man, Ivan Demjanjuk, who was admittedly a guard in a Nazi Death Camp -- whether or not he was a particular guard known as "Ivan the Terrible"? Only one kind of person could do that -- the kind we call an antisemite.
And antisemites are unlikely, for obvious reasons, to wish to see beyond Israel as the fons et origo of Muslim hatred of the West. So don't tell them about what happened over 1350 years. Don't tell them about the Hindus, or Buddhists, or Zoroastrians, or Copts, or Maronites, or any others in time and through space. No, for them it is all about Israel. They will never be guides to the truth. They will hold out all the wrong prescriptions, and will never see things as they are.
Could such people as Mearsheimer and Walt, to take two examples of people who slithered into and up the ranks of academic life, conceivably see Islam for what it is and has been? Could they offer an explanatory model that fit not only all the past data, accumulated over 1350 years, and from Spain to the East INdies, or that will have predictive value when it comes to the behavior of Muslims in Western Europe, or in India, or in Indonesia?
Of course not. They are what they are. Recognize it, despise them, and make sure they are as marginalized as possible -- for they are, as others like them were in the 1930s -- security risks to the safety, not only of the West, bu of the entire Infidel world.
If the Soviets could have gotten their hands on the Middle East, it would have posed a threat to the entire region, from North Africa through India, including Israel. A communist takeover in Saudi Arabia would have enabled the Soviets to close the Persian Gulf to oil shipping, and even challenge the dominance of the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. Combined with the Soviet takeover of South Yemen, this would have made the strategic position of Oman untenable, giving the Soviets just what they always dreamed of: dominance of everything from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.
"Combined with the Communist takeover of Afghanistan, this would have gradually turned the Indian Ocean into a "Soviet lake," with a Soviet blue-water navy that would dominate the seas there.
And finally, all this combined with the Soviet coups in Mozambique and Angola meant that we could kiss Africa goodbye as well.
That's much more significant than that tiny pipsqueak nation called South Vietnam, in a much less strategic place--which the U.S. tried to defend at the cost of 55,000 American lives.
So the U.S. needed every ally it could get, to stop a Soviet breakout south."
-- from a posting above
The poster above seems to think that Saudi Arabia has been an "ally" of the United States. I repeat: Saudi Arabia has never been an "ally" of the United States. It has never considered American or Western interests, never furthered them or intended to further them. Sometimes its own interests, as it defines them, coincided or overlapped with American intererests. That is a very different thing.
Several examples. In the Yemen, Nasser supported so-called Marxists (their "Marxism" as J. B. Kelly wittily noted, was merely a thin veneer over their Islam), while the Saudis supported so-called "monarchists." That's how it was presented to a credulous Amercian public (see Time Magazine, see My Weekly Reader -- they are at roughly the same level). In fact, the Saudis opposed Nasser because they worried about his designs on them - that's all.
The Saudis also interfered in Oman, trying to disturb the peace of the one semi-decent Arab state in the Gulf, with a decent Arab ruler, Sultan Qaboos, by supporting the Dhobar Rebellion. They made demands on Abu Dhabi (the Buraimi Oasis dispute).
Later on, they briefly allowed American airmen to enter, and treated them with contumely as hired hands -- as many Americans who served there remember bitterly. Why? Was it because Saudi Arabia was our ally? Of course not. It was because the Saudis then saw us as necessary to protect them from either Saddam Hussein or possibly from Iraq. In the same way, the meretricious al-Thani ruling family in Qatar has given the Americans use of a base, even as some members of that family collude with terrorists, and the Al-Thani not only give Al-Jazeera a home but subsidize that organ of Muslim propaganda. Kuwait, too, allows the Americans to have a military camp. Why? Because the Americans came to remove their great enemy, Saddam Hussein, and because still, the threats from Iran and Iraq are unclear, and better, if you are a statelet in the Gulf, to have the Americans -- whom you can give a base too, and still work against, still boot out, and still conduct a foreign policy that is completely detrimental in other ways to the Americans (those Americans will never complain).
For the poster above I have one question, to be answered after you have read J. B. Kelly's essay "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies" (it is likely on-line). That question is this: tell me exactly in what way Saudi Arabia has evern done anything to do something it would not have done anyway, in pursuit of its own interests (i.e. the interests of the Al-Saud family), in order to show that it was an "ally" of the United States in blocking Russian plans, as you put it, to seize the Middle East.
What kept the Russians out were a number of things. Chief among them was the catastrophe suffered by Egypt and Syria, both of them Soviet-armed, in 1967. It was Nasser's successor, Sadat, who realized that the Soviets were not worth courting, that the Americans had the money and the better weaponry, and the influence over Israel, and that is why he severed the connection with the Soviet Union. And it was Israeli power, repeatedly demonstrated (as with that air battle in which the Syrians lost 82 planes and the Israelis none), that caused the Soviet Union all kinds of trouble with its supposed allies. That was what helped to block the spread of Soviet influence. Not Saudi Arabia, our "ally." Our "staunch ally."
So hugh basically what you are saying is that Pat Buchanan is as bad as every other western leader we have ever had. Name one leader who has shown any acknowledgement of the past sins of Islam mentioned above.
Reading your post Buchanan does sound like an idiot but at least he wants to create strategic alliances with Russian and other countries that we have a similar culture with. Then there is Bush and Clinton who want to destroy European Civilization to a point where it will never be able to recover.
Hugh you have brougt up a good point to the failings of the alternative leaders we have. I can't vote in america. But I think with elections coming up in the states soon it would be a good idea for this site to either endorse or at least keep score on how senators and representatives voted on jihad issues. I think its time people like us become a special interest group.
Tom Tancredo for President!
"So hugh basically what you are saying is that Pat Buchanan is as bad as every other western leader we have ever had. Name one leader who has shown any acknowledgement of the past sins of Islam mentioned above."
-- from a posting above
No, I'm not saying "Pat Buchanan is as bad as every other Western leader we have ever had." I'm saying he is much worse, because the evidence strongly suggests his venom toward Jews (and Israel) has led him to a crazed view of the matter of Islam, where he is attempting to convince people -- quite idiotically -- that the only problem between Believers and Infidels is the support of the American government for Israel. That explanatory model simply fails to account for almost all of the data, data which I supplied, data that comes from all over the world at this point, and which has been accumualting over 1350 years, and the explanations for which can be found in the texts of Islam. Buchanan would lead us astray, because he is more interested in having the West abandon Israel (god knows what he thinks would happen if Israel disappeared and Jerusalem, and the Christian Holy Land, were re-captured by Muslims, now far more powerful than they were in the past, and far more whipped up through modern technology that helps to disseminate the message of Islam).
He's terrible.
What about others? Has every Western leader everywhere been terrible? I don't think Pim Fortuyn was. I don't think Geert Wilders is. I don't think Fogh Rasmussen is. I don't think the head of the People's Party in Norway -- a minister -- is. I don't think Philippe De Villiers is, or Nicolas Sarkozy. I don't think Fini is, or some of the local mayors and political leaders in Italy. I don't think Pavel Kohout in Czechoslovakia is. I don't think Aznar is, or his former minister Gustavo...something (a Basque name). I don't think Douglas Murray, who is only in his twenties, if he survives and thrives in England, is. I don't think Tom Tancredo is bad either. No, I think he's very good.
About Canada -- surely Harper is better than Martin. Surely having Maurice Dantec in Montreal to influence Francophone writers is a good thing. Surely having Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Washington will be good.
Sursum corda.
Tom Tancredo is a member of the American-Turkish Interparliamentary Friendship Group. He has lobbyed in the past for increased aid to Turkey. As far as I am concerned he is not any better than anyone else.
What next are we going to debate who's better Jeffrey Dalmer or Charles Manson. Better is good enough. It sounds like you are desperate to name a politician who is better than the current group. I am still convinced Pat Buchanan is the man.
woops meant to say better is not good enough. In other words for a politican to be endorsed they should stand for something. not just be better than shit.
Pissedoffcanadian wrote: Then there is Bush and Clinton who want to destroy European Civilization to a point where it will never be able to recover.
I'm not so sure I would agree with your assessment of Bush. For starters, Bush has a great ability to communicate on the level of the "average joe." The media, historically intellectual left, makes fun of his intellect fairly frequently and some of his more prominent word gaffes (nucular instead of nuclear springs immediately to mind)could certainly give that impression. I suspect, however,that much of that is a front that hides a pretty agile mind. You might not like his opinions - I often do not - but he HAS opinions that are his own. And his opinions for the most part did not magically appear on the coattails of a lobbyist yesterday.
And then we must look at the other choice the American people faced: John Kerry. Well, I lived in MA for quite some time. I've known about Kerry's career in government and followed his voting record for a couple of decades. Let me tell you this: John Kerry changes his mind faster than most of us change our underwear. He does not hold a single opinion out of true conviction. Every single stance that he makes, every public comment, every vote is the one that he or his handlers think will garnish the most votes, meet with the most public approval or buy him the biggest returns. John Kerry would be the absolute dead last man that I would ever trust for a millisecond with the future of the US, to say nothing of the world.
I voted for Bush - twice. And I am from a strongly Southern Democrat background that has never once to my knowledge ever voted for a Republican president other than Eisenhower, who was a personal friend of my mother.
Is Bush the ideal President? No, but then I'm not sure we have ever once had one that is. Lincoln surely was a greatly hated man in his day.
Several days ago one of my daughters and I actually agreed on something other than women's rights politically. We both think that Islam is the problem and Bush should be impeached. NOT because of his actions regarding Islam/Iraq, however - because of his illegal alien amnesty. The only problem with that scenario is that the men who would be charged with his impeachment fairly universally deserve impeachment themselves.
If you want to blame the destruction of Western civilization on someone, blame those who have been the driving force behind political correctness, "inclusion" and multiculturalism.
For decades we in the West have thought of political beliefs as a "spectrum" - a line. PC, however, demonstrates that it is a circle. The "liberal left" closed the circle the day that they started to preach "correct" speech & thought - as fascist and totalitarian a concept as there has ever been.
I would like to add Bolton to Hugh's list of qualified political options. Imagine, if you will, Tancredo/Bolton '08.
gallopinggranny I couldnt vote as I am Canadian but I really wanted Bush to win the second term. And if you think the american media hates bush you should see the Canadian. I do agree with your assessment about political correctness. But Bush has turned into a big disapointment. He is no Clinton and he is probably better than Kerry but he is no Eisenhower or any other president before him. Actually since Eisenhower I don't think there is a president I actually liked. Reagan might of been the best but his hands werent exactly clean with dealing with Islamists. What I am saying is another Bush like president will be a disaster. We need someone who can actually reverse the tide. Just not being as bad as the next guy isnt good enough. for western civilization to be saved we need someone to fight back. Other than attach Iraq Bush has done nothing. Also it is time to pull out of Iraq. Let these animals fight themselves.
Corporate welfare... my tax money at work... This is part of the price for being nice. :-(