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

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (63302)	12/28/2002 9:51:59 PM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I find that astonishing. Why on earth is it classified? This is old news. We've known about it on this thread for a year now. My guess the reason the US government doesn't want to pursue the matter openly is that they're not exactly sure who in the Saudi family could be allies. As I said, the place doesn't have a government the way we think of it. It has instead, this huge family, and depending on how far out you want to count, that's several thousand people. And an awful lot of them are plotting and jockeying - some are medieval obscurantists and some are moderns. Until the greatest part of the family is convinced their present course is disastrous the country's policies aren't going to change fundamentally. Now take a look at your family or some other you know and imagine it owning a country on the basis of a marriage of convenience with a fundamentalist family. Imagine your gaga 80 year old great uncle has title and his nasty 78 year old brother is actually in charge and he thinks he knows better than a young whippersnapper like you or me and he's got the guns. Step the wrong way and you might just lose your head, young man. For a country like the US the picture is opaque without an awful lot of energy being put into research. What the US needs to do to get a clear picture of what's going on there is hire a bunch of medievalists (and Mormons for the genealogy). Who is related to whom? What is their personal relationship? What are the bitter family feuds? Who is a crackpot? Who is a serious player? Who might be? Who can you get close to? Who can you get close to who won't double cross you? Who has allies? Everyone is working for themselves and their part of the family. A Saudi "diplomat" is not a civil servant or government appointee, like in the Western world. He is an agent of himself and some part of the family. Real change in Saudi Arabia likely means family bloodletting. So how do you get most of the family to look up from their intra-familial concerns and really pay attention to their disastrous policy direction? It's resulted in a direct attack on the US. That should count as a disaster. Invade Iraq? Remove the umbrella of US protection? Refuse US visas and deport all Saudi citizens? Freeze all Saudi assets in the US? Bomb the place? You have to get their attention. It's like the mule and the 2X4. Families are really difficult. Look at the Osbornes...multiply by a few hundred or a thousand.