What you are reading is no illusion, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has said that Great Britain is not taking the “War on Terrorism” seriously. Well, I am in a word stunned. The pure audacity of that statement just has to make you smile, cause it is ballsy for any country to condemn another in such a way. Even more so when the country taking the pot shot is Saudi freken Arabia.
For those who don’t know because they either haven’t seen “The Kingdom” or went to school in Mississippi here is a brief history of how the Kingdom of Saud came to be. WWI ended and control of the Ottoman Turks over the Middle East was sadly over, thus giving the Europeans something to mess up while they were still obliterating any chance Africa would have being a functional continent. Thus arbitrary lines were drawn, and “spheres of influence” put in place so people knew who was in charge. One of these people who wanted a silly little thing like “self determination” was Abdul Aziz Al-Saud. Whose family had twice before attempted to be the country’s leadership, the first time great-grand pappy Saud got pwned by the Ottoman Turks, and the second time grand pappy Saud got lit up by internal rivals.
In each of these grasps at power the family of Saud had as their ally the practitioners of Wahhabism which is a conservative sect within Sunni Islam. The followers of Wahhab believed in a strict adherence to the precepts of Islam, against a “perceived moral decline and political weakness” within the peninsula of Arabia. It is this background that we have the ideology of Osama Bin Laden begin to percolate, as the ruling government seems to serve the desires of the West.
This idea is seemingly proven by two embarrassing and critical events in the Middle East. The first would be the complete an utter failure of a Coalition of Arabic armies to destroy tiny little Israel. This is significant because the people in the region still, somehow, feel they are superior to the West in general and Jews in particular, because thousands of years ago they made cities. To Middle East, “Thanks for the cool history about empires, and especially Persia since it would lead to the movie 300, but your time as being a superpower is past.” Cause to say they lost to Israel is a little bit of an understatement, they beat them so bad their great grandchildren still walk funny.
The second significant event that I am cherry picking for my thesis, is when the Saudi Government turns to the West, namely the big-bad United States, to protect them against the evil that was Saddam Hussein during the First Persian Gulf war. Especially when one takes into consideration the “offer” of the Mujahideen leader, and to this point I still believe Saudi citizen, Osama Bin Laden. Fresh off their defeat of the Evil Empire that was the Soviet Union, one would think the Mujahideen would at least be capable in a fight. So it was to these fundamentalist radicals that the rulers of the Middle East had become morally and politically weak and that the region could only be made pure by blood and fire.
So with the history lesson over, we can get back to what the English response to Saudi Arabia should be. “Expletive Deleted You” was probably the first thought that came into the Head of Prime Minister Brown. Especially since the Saudi’s say the Brits failed to act on Intel given to them. So to recap if I tell you “my kids may throw eggs at your car” and I have been giving them throwing lessons, and eggs, and you don’t move your car, it is your fault for it being egged. (My lawyers are telling me I have to say that I do not endorse the egging of cars, unless they are KIA’s cause c’mon, they deserve it)
One has to look at the credibility of the one giving information as the first stage of interpreting the data. I will not be the first person to buy stocks from, “the people who brought you ENRON.” Especially when the Saudis shoot up a bunch of criminals, place them in black SUV’s place them in front of an Oil Refinery and say, “We killed terrorists.” You get a nod for trying but the substance is a little weak.
This is almost as neat a trick as telling the world that a terrorist attack that involved 17 out of the 19 perpetrators was the responsibility of a dude that people just happen to know who he is. If there was an attack on Los Angeles and 17 of 19 criminals involved were from Mexico, we would not invade Cuba. No matter how many proud Republican Cubans say we should. We would and should want to place the accountability on those who are responsible, either by taking part in the act, or by inaction allowed the act to occur.
Telling Wahhabits to stop teaching kids to “find the Jew, kill the Jew” would be an excellent place to start. Such action would be critical of our friends, and we don’t like to do that as a country, especially this President who is BFF with Putin. The very same guy undermining US efforts with Iran. The friend that does you harm is better than the enemy that wishes to do harm to you. So we let the Saudi family slide on at least a berating that they must take hold of responsibility of what their people do. Instead we get distracted by FOX news which always lead us into the “Saudi Spin Zone.”
