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Fitzgerald: Why we do not need the Saudis

Aug 16, 2008 8:52 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, four princes and other Saudi entities are immune from a lawsuit filed by victims of the September 11 attacks and their families alleging they gave material support to al Qaeda, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. — from this article

Two wrongs not making a right:

1) The Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. Its backers clearly did not contemplate the notion of the nation-state — a distinctly non-Islamic idea — protecting the acts of promoters of Jihad. They did not envision the money and other support given by institutions and individuals who, in turn, are supported by that state. They never thought of the attitudes and acts of that state, in collaboration with a fanatical religious establishment, as it uses tens of billions of dollars to further Jihad around the world.

2) Apparently there is a “terrorism” exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, but Saudi Arabia is not on the list of sponsors of terrorism. This is because the State Department, or powerful people within it, decided to keep Saudi Arabia off. But Saudi support for mosques and madrasas, where hate against Infidels is inculcated, is not in dispute. This teaching provides the atmospherics that lead Saudis, and others, to sign up for conducting violent Jihad by what they think of as qitaal and we correctly call terrorism. These atmospherics are created in the miasma emanating from the texts of Islam, — Qur’an, Hadith, Sira — and not from a “perversion” of Islam. The “perversion” charge is common although no one ever quite manages to offer even a single Qur’anic passage or story from the Hadith that has been interpolated, or made up, for the use of these “extremists” and “radical extremists” or “extremist radicals.”

Of course Saudi Arabia should be on that list.
No matter how often people talk about the “need” not to offend Saudi Arabia, such talk is wrong. It misses the point and all kinds of point. Saudi Arabia is hopelessly dependent on us, and on the outside world, for its wage-slaves, for its protection (of the regime especially), and for access to education and medical care. It is we, or rather, it is those in the capitals of the West, who as individuals — those who leave “public service” (ex-diplomats, ex-Congressmen, ex-intelligence agents), as well as journalists and professors who can benefit from showing the “right attitude” toward Saudi Arabia — have convinced ourselves, and convinced too many of those in power, that “we just can’t alienate Saudi Arabia” because we “need their oil.” It just isn’t true. It shows a misunderstanding of the oil market, and of Saudi dependence. It has allowed individuals who may benefit from being rewarded directly or indirectly by the Saudis to confuse their own private well-being with the well-being of the United States.

No favors need be done, none, in order to obtain oil from Saudi Arabia, just as no favors need be done, none, for one’s local gas station other than to pay the stated price for the gas. The whole relationship is wrong. See J. B. Kelly, at this website — “Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies” — for observations about the misreading of Saudi Arabia, which began long ago in the ARAMCO propaganda and at the State Department.

Which candidate for President will, sensing how deeply wrong is this decision, and how unpopular Saudi Arabia has become despite its vast propaganda campaign in this country (much of it hidden from view), will use this case and make it into a political cause celebre? Which candidate will point to this decision, and deplore openly the role of the State Department in protecting Saudi Arabia? In other cases, it has gone to bat for Iran, for Libya, for the PLO, though in all of those cases, too, that going to bat made no moral sense, and what’s more, made no geopolitical sense.

But the State Department’s so-called Middle East “experts” are stuck in a time-warp. They can’t free themselves from their own cliches and misreadings of Saudi Arabia, of both its “friendliness” (it’s nonsense) and its “power” over us. It has no power over us. We should first be clear about that ourselves, and about why it is so, then explain to the Al-Saud that we understand that better, and they will have to as well. And as a sign of that new understanding, on both sides, we want an immediate halt to the Saudi financing — about 100 billion dollars so far — used to spread Islam in the Lands of the Infidels, and to propagandize on behalf of both Islam and of Saudi Arabia. They don’t like it? Too bad. They’ll make noises about “selling our oil” elsewhere? The oil market is fungible. Saudi Arabia sells us oil at the same market prices as does (or would) any other producer, whether friend or enemy. And all those non-liquid assets various Gulf Arabs have bought in the West are…non-liquid, and can be seized, if the mood comes upon us, and we remember what we did to the assets of those deemed enemy aliens during World War II. Are not those in Saudi Arabia supporting, directly and indirectly, the worldwide Jihad, not “enemy aliens”? Why not?

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