JDG wrote:
Lastly, in regards to Saudi Arabia - I agree with you that Saudi Arabia is a real problam. I think, however, that it would have been suicidal to
American interests to apply pressure to the Saudi regime so long as Saddam Hussein remained in power. Quite simply, one Party is for the
transformation of the politics of the Middle East, the other Party is for
the status quo, or at best incremental change, in the Middle East.
So the guy who planned the attacks was Saudi, 15 of 19 terrorists that carried out the attacks were Saudi, the money that financed the attacks was Saudi and we now find that the Saudi government may have had some involvement, but it would be suicidal to "apply pressure" to the country most responsible for killing 3,000 innocent people? What would it take to force us to need to "apply pressure"? Killing 10,000? 100,000? If they nuked DC would that be enough?
Instead, we not only didn't "apply pressure" to the Saudi's, we let many of them scoot out of the country after the attacks and we shielded them from the official investigation. We insured that they received a minimum amount of pressure. We _protected_ them.
And how would it have been suicidal to focus the blame for the attacks on those responsible and take decisive action against them in Saudi Arabia and in Afghanistan? Surely if we can fabricate an Iraqi connection with Al Qaeda, vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons as well as an advanced nuclear program, we could have based a case against the Saudiâs based on _real_ evidence. Instead we attacked a country that did not help finance, plan or carry out the attacks and had, in fact, very small role in supporting terrorism.
Now we're tied down in a Viet Nam style quagmire that's at least as bad as anything that would have happened to us if we had attacked the country that was responsible for the attacks, and probably a lot worse. We're stuck in a situation wherein if we use our overwhelming military power to subdue the insurgents, we'll further alienate the entire country (not to mention the entire region), but if we do not, we allow the insurgents to run rampant. Itâs a no win situation just like Nam.
No, we didn't attack the Saudi's because 1. Bush had made up his mind to go after Iraq well before 9/11 and 9/11 was seen as a way to justify it and 2. The Saudi's with their trillion dollars worth of U.S. investments and their oil are our "friends" and can do no wrong.
Maybe if they nuked NYC _and_ DC?
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
