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


To: c.hinton who wrote (243295)9/27/2007 4:37:05 PM
From: Nadine Carroll  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 281500
 
Actually i would imagine it is more complicated than you would have us believe......yes they do not order up.... however they have a very strong and active lobbying arm...some say the most powerful and active.

...definitely the most powerful, if you ignore the existence of the others, like say, the Saudis, those poor innocent naifs...

There are lots of powerful lobbying arms in DC: the media conglomerates have theirs, the defense industry, chemical industry, agriculture, the Saudis, China, other foreign powers. If you focus on one and ignore the others, then it becomes easy to declare, hey presto! they are the most powerful.

It would be just as easy to focus on the Saudis' looooong track record cultivating good friends at the State Department and declare them the most powerful. Certainly no other foreign lobby every had anyone to compare to Prince Bandar al Sultan, who sat in the DC for over 20 years, more like a proconsul than an ambassador, spending freely and cultivating access with the Bushes and everybody else you could name.