Robert Scheer - Mortgaged to the House of Saud - San Francisco Chronicle

[Coastie for Truth]

The only evidence you need that President Bush is losing the "war on terror" is this: On Sunday, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia said that relations with the United States "couldn't be better."

Tell that to the parents of those who have died in two wars defending this corrupt spawning ground of violent extremism. Never mind the ugly facts: We are deeply entwined with Saudi Arabia even though it shares none of our values and supports our enemies.

Yet on Friday, Bush's father and Vice President Dick Cheney made another in a long line of obsequious American pilgrimages to Riyadh to assure the Saudis that we continue to be grateful for the punishment they dish out.

"The relationship has tremendously improved with the United States," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh. "With the government, of course, it is very harmonious, as it ever was. Whether it has returned to the same level as it was before in terms of public opinion , that is debatable."

Other points from Scheer's article-->

* We protect the repressive kingdom that spawned Osama bin Laden, and most of the 9/11 hijackers, in exchange for the Saudis keeping our fecklessly oil-addicted country lubricated.

* After 9/11, Washington squandered global goodwill and a huge percentage of our resources invading a country that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, while continuing to pander to this dysfunctional Saudi dynasty.

Sheer states that Saudi Arabia is believed to have paid Bin Laden's murderous gang millions in protection money in the years before 9/11.

He further states that Saudi Arabia is reported to lavishly fund extremist religious schools throughout the region that preach and teach anti-Western jihad.

* Bush loves to use the word "evil" in his speeches, yet throughout his life he and his family have had deep personal, political and financial ties with a country that represents everything the American Revolution stood against:

-tyranny,
-religious intolerance,
-corrupt royalty,
-popular ignorance,
-women aren't allowed to drive.
-women who show "too much skin" can be beaten in the street by officially sanctioned mobs of fanatics.
-newspapers routinely publish the most outlandish anti-Semitic rants. -executions are held in public,
-torture is the norm in prison-the most extreme and expansionist version of Islam is the state religion.

Sheer opines that "It's hard to see how Saddam Hussein's brutal and secular Iraq was worse than the brutal theocracy run by the House of Saud. Yet one nation we raze and the other we fete. Is it any wonder that much of the world sees the United States as the planet's biggest hypocrite?"

Scheer notes that punishing Saudi Arabia in any way for its long ideological and financial support of terrorism was not even on the table in the days after 9/11. No way. Instead, within hours of the planes hitting the towers, the powerful neoconservatives in the White House rushed to use the tragedy as an excuse for a long-dreamed invasion of Iraq.

So, now we have had "two wars to make the Middle East safe for the Saudis." These wars cost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives, the price of oil is soaring — up 42% from just a year ago. Meanwhile the GOP passed and Bush signed a pork-laden energy bill that will do little to nothing to ease our crushing – and rising – dependence on imported oil. Scheer notes that Federal officials project that by 2025, the U.S. will have to import 68% of its oil to meet demand, up from 58% today.

Now, some totally committed and brain dead neocons (a Univeisty of Chicago or Johns Hopkins PhD degree doesn't mean that the holder has any sense) argue that the best rationale for invading Iraq was to ease our dependence on Saudi Arabia's massive oil fields. Duh! This might, they argue, allow for a more rational or moral relationship. But the dark irony ("Law of Unintended Consequences" - gets you every time) is that with Iraq in chaos and its oil flow limited by insurgent attacks and a bungled reconstruction, Saudi Arabia is now more important to the United States than ever.

As the drumbeat of devastating terrorist attacks in Baghdad, London and elsewhere continue, Bush prattles on – five times in a speech last Wednesday – about his pyrrhic victories in the "war on terror." This is a sorry rhetorical device that disguises the fact that the forces of Islamic fanaticism in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the world are stronger than ever.

Link to Scheer's website: http://www.robertscheer.com/
Link to San Francisco Chron: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/
Artilce in Chron: Wednesday August 10
Article on Scheer's web site: August 9

[wli]

1. the things the Am. Rev. stood against sound like a neocon's wet dream

Heck, they're already be the case now given the PATRIOT Act.

[cliss]

2. He missed one part:

It should have added, "Instead, within hours of the planes hitting the towers, the powerful neocons in the WH rushed to get members of the Saudi Royal family whisked out of the US on jets.

Even though there was a no-fly order across the country, these jets flew in defiance of the order to get the Saudis home safely. I believe there were members of the Bin Laden family on board".

----------------------
President Carter hit the nail on the head about 25 years ago. He warned that "we need to reduce our dangerous dependency on foreign oil". Did anyone listen?

[Colorado Blue]

3. When I was a little kid in school back in the 50's people

were aware of the oil problems - it had already been a motivating factor in BOTH World Wars.

Instead of building mass transit, however, or encouraging research into alternative sources of energy, the auto/oil industries prompted the building of superhighways and the average American now believes that cars come with one's birth certificate. Sadly, it's difficult to live without them although many of us deliberately choose cities with good rapid transit so we don't need the darn things.

It is absolutely infuriating to me that, 50 years later, we STILL haven't learned anything and are STILL guzzling gas and polluting at an alarming rate. And of course, the geopolitical complications are alarming as is the environmental impact.

A democracy we may be but the fact remains: key industrial players have enormous power over the lives of every creature on this planet. Without losing sight of the great benefits we have derived from these industries, there must be a way to integrate them into the life of the planet in such a way that they do more good and less harm. I don't pretend to know what that is: nationalizing key industries didn't work in the Soviet Union and would be anathema here, given the current political climate and the American love of competition and the innovations it inspires.

Any ideas? Coastie? Meanwhile the potential for disaster within Saudi Arabia must be regarded as a threat. The Sauds are by no means unchallenged within their own nation and any changes there could affect us all. There are forces within Arabia who regard the west as anathema and detest the Sauds for dealing with us. In any case we're in a strange position, as the article points out.