SAUDI ARABIA: Friend or Foe? The Politics of Anger vs the Politics of Fear?
A Marriage of Convenience? Headed for Divorce? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec02/saudi_8-14.html RS YI Excerpt: "RAY SUAREZ: Well, what's behind that turning away from longstanding alliance? You mentioned the Defense Department, you mention leaks and vitriol. It didn't come out of nowhere. Where did it start? YOUSSEF IBRAHIM: Well, of course it started with September 11. And of course it started with the fact that we were attacked. And we were attacked by a group of people headed by Osama bin Laden, and the majority of these people in those planes were Saudi citizens. There is no denial of this. Now, does this mean that the Saudi nation is our enemy? I mean, we have in this country a lot of Christian fundamentalists, our attorney general is a Christian fundamentalist, Ashcroft. They are against abortion, some of them actually shoot and kill doctors in abortion clinics. Does this make all Christian fundamentalists criminals? Does it mean we have to wage war against all Christian fundamentalists? I think we are losing the point here in this campaign that has gone, as they say in Britain, a bit over the top. We need to discuss this issue rationally. Is Saudi Arabia, who has been our ally with 60 years, who has supplied us with oil, has kept the price of oil under control, who has resisted the radicals in OPEC, who has purchased weapons with us, who has given us 3,000 permissions when we conducted the war against Afghanistan to fly over Saudi territories -- isn't really our enemy. " Mr. Ibrahim later suggests that Osama bin Laden's attacks may be the beginning of the end for Islamic fundamentalism, but it won't happen at the end of an American gun... This was an intelligent conversation. If you follow the link, you might also want to check out the Lee Hochberg story on Policing Immigration. - Karen
