-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0,3604,602819,00.html
}}}>Begin
House of Saud looks close to collapse
Modern Saudi Arabia is supported by the US and Britain in order to
guarantee a steady flow of oil. Their war on terrorism could destroy
it
David Leigh and Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday November 21, 2001
The Guardian
While tabloid cheerleaders and spin doctors have been celebrating
the fall of Kabul and the retreat of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, the
mood in other parts of Whitehall is much more sombre. For senior
ministerial advisers know that the real cancer in the Middle East is
not Afghanistan, but Saudi Arabia.
Fears are growing that the important but anachronistic country
which spawned Osama bin Laden and many of the September 11
hijackers faces the real prospect of a coup. "The Saudi royals have
been paying off the terrorists with danegeld for a long while," says
one well-placed source. "There is a danger that well-educated
returnees from US colleges who cannot get work will make
common cause with the people of the souks and overthrow them."
This week, newspapers, including the Economist and Time magazine, published extensive
and flattering advertisements placed by the Saudi regime - a clear indication of its
concern about the future, as well as the bad publi
city seeping out about its past links with Bin Laden and the Taliban.
Modern Saudi Arabia is to an extent a perverted creation of America and its British
ally. Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, spelled out in his recent
book on American foreign policy its essentially manipu
lative approach to such Middle East states as Saudi Arabia. The US, he says, cannot
afford the region to be "dominated by countries whose purposes are inimical to ours".
Their economic "purposes" have been to prop up a re
gime which would guarantee a stable flow of petrol and oil to the US at relatively low
prices and recycle its petrodollars back to the west in the shape of construction
projects and arms purchases.
The Saudis control 25% of world oil reserves. The US has paid the royal family up to
$100bn a year for it.
The first bomb attack on the World Trade Centre in New York took place in 1993: Osama
bin Laden was in exile in Khartoum, nursing his rage against the Saudi royal family
and the US bases they permit on Saudi soil. In Brit
ain, the then government was more interested in money-making opportunities than in
registering these sinister signs and re-evaluating their relationships with a
frustrated Muslim world.
British MI6 intelligence about Iranian military planning was being circulated by
John Major to the ailing King Fahd in Riyadh, to help keep him on his throne in return
for more lucrative arms sales: the notorious Al Yam
amah weapons deal was already transferring �1.5bn a year into British pockets.
The Saud clan - now estimated to number more than 7,000 privileged tribesmen - are
still clinging to absolute power. However, much of their oil wealth has been frittered
away, and unemployment among young Saudis is rising
. Per capita income in the early 1980s was $28,000. It is now below $10,000.
The dictatorial Saud clan describe themselves as "guardians of the two holy places"
and preside over the vast annual pilgrimages to Mecca. They poured cash into the
Islamic University at Medina and similar schools across
the Muslim world, from Cairo to Peshawar.
The anti-modernist religion they promoted became a focus for guilt and anger among
young men frustrated at modern "corruption" and deprived not only of normal social
lives, but of all democratic political outlets.
In 1979, 200 armed fundamentalists, many of whom had studied Islam at Medina, took
over the grand mosque at Mecca. But 63 of the ringleaders were publicly beheaded in
selected town squares all over the country, and the se
eds of rebellion quickly led to repression. Shaheed Coovadia, who now teaches in the
US, studied at Medina. He says: "That incident was a turning point. When I was there
you couldn't move without permission. It was like l
iving in a police state. People even came to check your bed to see if you'd risen for
the morning prayer."
Providentially that same year, Soviet troops rumbled over the mountain roads into
Afghanistan to shore up a tottering pro-communist regime. The CIA had been covertly
undermining the Afghan government by arming fundamental
ist rebels - the mojahedin. In Washington, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's
national security adviser, was cock-a-hoop that the Russians had been drawn into what
he saw as his cleverly baited trap. The day Soviet f
orces crossed the border, he wrote to Carter, saying: "We now have the opportunity to
give the USSR their Vietnam war."
Young Bin Laden, son of a wealthy construction magnate, joined the anti-Soviet
campaign. He set off for Peshawar, as the most prominent of a Saudi contingent of poor
citizens, students, taxi-drivers and Bedouin tribesmen.
For the Saudi regime it was an outlet for an otherwise dangerous fanaticism. For the
US, the Afghan Arabs were useful proxy troops in the cold war. As Bin Laden himself
later described it: "The weapons were supplied by th
e Americans, the money by the Saudis."
Did the Saudi royals or the US have any qualms about arming and brutalising these
frustrated young fundamen-talists? Brzezinski had his response to that question ready:
"What is most important to the history of the world?
The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up
Muslims or the liberation of central Europe and the end of the cold
war?"
Nowadays, the west is less smug about its interference. It is
beginning to realise that the "stirred-up Muslims" may not have
finished their upheavals.
�David Leigh is the Guardian's investigations editor. Richard Norton-
Taylor is the security affairs editor.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
richard.norton-taylor@ guardian.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
End<{{{
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
