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

To: JohnM who wrote (95213)	4/20/2003 5:13:10 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I think I need to be able to think my way through intelligent politically conservative arguments for empire. Read the review. Sounds like "made for the TV series." The arguments for what we are doing will be written in book form by people you can't abide. So I doubt if you will find anything you will read that really lays out what the admin is doing. I read the interview with Swartz in the Atlantic. Makes the Saudi situation sound even more dreadful. I don't know if you read the article by Fukuyama that I posted, which recommends we get our remaining troops out of SA. Makes sense to me. The argument on Wahabism is sounding to me like the Muslim Brotherhood took advantage of the ready made wahabi recruits. I am leaning more and more to thinking the root Philosophy of Terrorism is from them, with Qutb at the core of the thinking.

To: JohnM who wrote (95213)	4/20/2003 10:01:25 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Finally, read the article on Saudi Arabia in the most recent issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Very interesting. It's not a pro Bush argument nor is it really a neocon argument. But it is certainly an alarming one and a must read one. Funny. The piece is not an "argument." It is simply a description of facts by someone who is quite knowledgeable in his field. I suppose in your world it's the rare piece that doesn't have a political slant/argumentation. We tried to tell you about Pollack's objectivity to no avail. ;) Like Pollack, the author on the Saudi piece is also ex-CIA but was a lot more senior and substantially more experienced in his field, which encompassed the entire ME. If I recall correctly, he was the CIA's ME Chief Muck-a-Muck for a number of years. Unlike Pollack, however, this guy has no solutions. I'm not sure--short of of taking over SA and/or doing something serious about reducing or eliminating our dependency on ME oil--that there are any. I have a few observations. I list them in no particular order of importance: 1.- The ease with which Western economies and the House of Saudi cards could be brought to their knees by a determined group of terrorists is ridiculous. The author all but lays down a plan--blow up Platform 4, Ras Tanura, the pipeline to the Red Sea, etc., etc.--and it will hit the fan in a big way. Why print and make available what is essentially a road map for our economic destruction for the nutsos to see? There is no guarantee, after all, that they are aware of the effect a well planned operation could have. Why does an ex-CIA chief feel the need to exhibit his grasp of detail by telling them exactly how to cripple us? I suppose the piece was reviewed by the CIA as it no doubt vets a lot of what ex-CIA types write so I suppose he didn't say anything that wasn't already public knowledge. However, I must say that the piece had an chilly eery insider's feel to it. I suppose it's possible that the CIA could actually be trying to arouse public consciousness about how really vulnerable the House of Saud actually is. If that's the case, it has done a great job. There are many Saudis, including well-place ones, who according to the author would just as soon destroy the Kingdom's riches rather than let the House of Saud stay in power. This perhaps was the scariest revelation from my standpoint as it tells me that there are a lot of baby Bin Laden's out there. 2.- Most importantly, why did the author refer to the excess capacity controlled by the Saudis? It is turned on and off in a mutually beneficial way to help US interests in times of crisis--not everyone is aware of this and there is no guarantee that the terrorists have this bit of critical knowledge. This capacity is the critical aspect of our relationship with the Saudis. If it didn't exist, we would not give them the attention they get. Why give the terrorists a notion of how important that capacity is and how easily it could get damaged, putting us at the mercy of the rest of the world's oil producers? 3.- The things the author talks about cannot possibly have been news to all post-Carter Presidents. Why haven't we been serious about energy alternatives?