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

To: Ilaine who wrote (36099)	8/6/2002 11:09:55 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What's the biggest deterrent to attacking Iraq? Losing our buddies in the House of Saud. Our Friends the Saudis have not been behaving like friends lately, CB. They finance al Qaeda and Hamas, they have quietly refused to cut off the money and have welcomed the returning fighters home. They have thrown us out of our air bases and we are now duplicating the command center in Qattar. They all cheered on September 11th (the reports from US military personnel who worked with Saudis were very striking on this point). They are the chief source of the Wahabbi fundamentalism that is one of the animating ideologies of Islamism. Their own media spew Nazi-level anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. Their own reaction to threats to themselves is always to buy them off and point them elsewhere. Like at us. It is the very antithesis of Jacksonianism to keep pretending someone is your friend when he behaves like an enemy. Advocating taking over Saudi oil fields and confiscating Saudi money because many Saudis support Islamism and some Saudis support terrorism is bone-headed, ham-fisted Ugly Americanism the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. Well, this is the first time I have seen this line of thought break out of the pages of National Review and into the WaPo. But judging from what I've read, especially Tom Friedman, who is a good observer and no kind of hawk, if there is one country on earth where you can say that most people believe as Osama bin Laden did, they just failed to practice what they preach, it's Saudi Arabia.

To: Ilaine who wrote (36099)	8/6/2002 12:43:41 PM
From: Rollcast...	Respond to of 281500

"Coming from Richard ("Attack Iraq") Perle." I believe Perle was not the source of that report. Sounded like it was a report made to a group which he chaired... <What's the biggest deterrent to attacking Iraq? Losing our buddies in the House of Saud.> More likely to cause our "buddies" to tread more carefully... it could even cause the more pro-American branch of the royal family to regain control.

To: Ilaine who wrote (36099)	8/6/2002 3:46:26 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "Advocating taking over Saudi oil fields and confiscating Saudi money because many Saudis support Islamism and some Saudis support terrorism is bone-headed, ham-fisted Ugly Americanism the likes of which we haven't seen in decades." Like when Austria declared war on Serbia because of terrorism, and conveniently decided to take their territory as well? -- Carl