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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (35393)	7/30/2002 11:13:35 PM
From: Hoa Hao	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

For starters, there is the Saudi National Guard, a distinct different military arm from the regular army. Any political upheaval will result in one side "inviting" the US in on it's side. The other side gets labeled "fundamentalist" Who cares if fundamentalists take over SA anyway. The Iranian Shah fell, and the Iranians still sell oil. Saddam would dearly love to sell more oil. Who ever takes over in SA will still sell as much oil as they can in order to get as many Yankee greenbacks as they can. Still worried?? Do your patriotic duty, stock up on oil for your car just in case.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (35393)	7/31/2002 2:07:38 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Steven Rogers; Re: "The big unpredictable factor in the Saudi equation, of course, is where the Saudi armed forces would line up. For some reason it is in my mind that the military leadership is largely in the pro-Western camp, but I don't remember why I think that, and I certainly won't proclaim it as likely to be true." Even if they're in the pro-western camp, they'll mostly still resist us at the borders. National sovereignty is important to the military mind. And orders are orders. Hell, to sink the French fleet the British had to first kill hundreds of Frenchmen in 1940 (operation Catapult). I think it would be rash in the extreme to expect that the Saudi military would assist the US in a take over of their oil resources. And as soon as you start killing Saudi military personnel, the response by the survivors will be to fight back. This is human nature. The only way the US could get into Saudi Arabia without their military fighting against us would be at the invitation of a subset of the Saudis that already had some sort of territory under their control. Sort of like Chiang Kai Shek, and probably with the same eventual result. -- Carl