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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (35159)	7/28/2002 2:52:24 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I was under the impression that you and others considered the Guardian to be less than a respectable newspaper John, as I have said before, the Guardian is no rag, but it is overtly political. Meaning, it has some good reporters and you can get good stories out of it, but there are certain drums that the paper will beat, whether or not the evidence is really in. Therefore, you need to apply political filters to any story that touches one of its left-wing hobbyhorses. But if the Guardian runs a story that it does not have any position on, I would tend to trust until I read something that tells me not to. Unrest in Saudi Arabia falls into this category imho. Also, if it ever prints a story that runs counter to its biases, I will believe that too. With the stories that run with its biases, I will cast a suspicious eye on the evidence presented. When I say that the New York Times is becoming Guardianized, I am refering to this process of making a good newspaper serve a political cause. So if they report on the situation on the ground in Riyadh, I'll believe them. But I will mistrust the next story that says Global Warming Is Here, oh my! or Bush is Really Toast This Time. -g-

To: JohnM who wrote (35159)	7/28/2002 3:09:13 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Debka is also reporting a failed attempt on the life of King Fahd by returning members of Al Qaeda. Debka is also a very political source, but it's diametrically opposed to the Guardian. DEBKAfile’s Gulf sources speak of a failed attempt on the life of the ailing king Fahd in Jeddah, on or around July 14, shortly before he departed for his summer vacation in Geneva. This incident added fuel to the running feud between the Sudeiri faction of the royal house, led by Fahd and his full brother, defense minister Prince Sultan (the leading contender for the succession against Abdullah and father of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar), and the group led by their half-brother, the regent Abdullah. B. Riyadh now shows an angry face to the Gulf Emirates siding with US action against Baghdad. The Saudis have stopped attending Gulf Security Cooperation Council meetings, refusing to sit at the same table as rulers they look down on as American collaborators. Saudi-Qatari ties have been effectively severed, with Qatari notables no longer welcome in the oil kingdom, while Saudi relations with Kuwait have likewise soured. C. On the flip side of the coin, Jordanian military and businessmen are suddenly welcome in Kuwait for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War when Jordan sided with Iraq. Jordan and Qatar have also struck up a warm friendship. The report of an attempt to murder King Fahd is the talk of the moment in the Gulf. It is claimed that on July 14, the monarch’s bodyguard fought off a band of 5 to 7 intruders, who gained entry to the palace courtyard in Jeddah through one of the main gates after setting off a large explosive charge. Three of the would be assassins were killed; the rest fled when armed reinforcements poured in from neighboring princely palaces, together with a contingent of the special Saudi counter-terror force. The bodies were identified as Saudi members of al Qaeda who fought in Afghanistan, escaped through Iran and arrived home last January. The identity of one of the dead assailants seriously heated factional tempers in the royal family; he is said to have been a member of the Wahhabist Uteiba tribe, loyal adherents of crown prince Abdullah. For some months, the Sudeiri princes have warned Abdullah that his permissive policy toward returning al Qaeda fighters - and the lavish living allowances awarded them from religious institutions and charities - would lead to trouble in the kingdom. Some have hired out as bodyguards protecting the princes of Abdullah’s faction, religious leaders and tribal chiefs in the Jeddah district. Sudeiri prince Salman, governor of the Riyadh region, was fiercest in his criticism. He warned Abdullah that by making Saudi intelligence and security services grant the returning terrorists clearances as bodyguards for official personalities, he was effectively opening the door to al Qaeda’s penetration of the national security agencies. The nub of the argument, according to DEBKAfile’s Saudi experts, is that while the Sudeiris perceive Abdullah’s patronage of al Qaeda veterans as a major threat to their own security, the crown prince believes he is taking out insurance for his regime’s survival. The differences between the two factions appear to be irreconcilable. They have brought King Fahd out of semi-retirement and induced him to return to political life. Visitors at the palace in Geneva report that, while confined to a wheel chair, the king looks brighter and more alert than he has been for a long time. Among his Arab visitors this week were Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan, both of whom congratulated him on his safe escape. On Saturday, July 27, the Saudi king had two secret visitors from his Sudeiri clan: Prince Salman and deputy defense minister Abdul Rahman, the strongman of the military establishment. This unfolding showdown in the oil kingdom has not been lost on President George W. Bush in Washington. Confronted with crown prince Abdullah’s flat refusal to participate in the US offensive against Iraq or allow its use of Saudi bases (as reported repeatedly in DEBKA-Net-Weekly in recent issues) , the Bush administration has turned back with a will to America’s traditional allies in Riyadh, the Sudeiri princes, favoring them against Abdullah’s sternly Islamist camp. The standoff between the two has yet to be resolved. It also has a Palestinian offshoot. Despite the clear anti-American, pro-al Qaeda stance adopted by the Saudi crown prince, some Israeli political circles are echoing the view current in some West European capitals that Abdullah’s peace initiative is still alive and the Saudis are working for a ceasefire with the Palestinian Tanzim, the Hamas and the Jihad Islami. Some European publications have even run an upside down picture of the reality in Riyadh, labeling Abdullah as the leader of the pro-American faction in the Saudi royal family, and Sultan and his brothers as the sponsors of al Qaeda. To keep the record straight amid a welter of misinformation, DEBKAfile ’s Palestinian sources reiterate that no Saudis are involved in Palestinian issues at the moment – certainly not in any attempts to broker a ceasefire. They are far too busy with the trouble in their own house.

To: JohnM who wrote (35159)	7/29/2002 2:17:20 AM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

that piece struck me as a bit over the top. There are clearly some rumblings beneath the surface, but my Saudi expert friends assure me that the regime will be able to keep a lid on things comfortably so long as oil stays above the high teens a barrel, thus giving it the ability to continue buying off key interest groups. I'm not a particularly big fan of Eric Rouleau, but in the current FA he has a report on the state of things in Saudi Arabia that folks might find worth a look. I'd take the first part (about how it's all Israel's fault) with a grain of salt, simply because that's the line the regime itself wants to push, and focus on the rest of the piece, which talks about some of the domestic stresses there. tb@equalopportunityrecommender.com