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Saudi Arabia, home of the ultra conservative form of Sunni fundamentalist Wahhab sect of Islam. Home of 15 of the 17 hijackers on September 11th. Birthplace of Osama Bin Laden. The second largest supplier of US oil, and one of the more stable Middle Eastern nations, despite its vast income disparity.
With a less than stellar human rights record and a fairly frequent stream of honor killings, it begs the question, why is the United States focused so intently on other Middle Eastern nations when Saudi Arabia leaves a lot to be desired. In light of the US mindset seeking out terrorism where it hides, why is one of its birth places the most overlooked places in the Middle East?
Is it as simple as the oil or the large amount of US investment in Saudi Arabia? It isn't like the US has changed allies/enemies before, after all Saddam was once our ally and it didn't take long for that to change, so alliances aren't static, they change.
They might be a theocratic dictatorship, but they're OUR theocratic dictatorship. See, that makes it alright.
(And don't even get me started on 9/11.)
I'm not sure just how much "they are ours", I mean after all, everyone goes on and on and on and on about fundamentalist Islam this, Muslim crazies that, yet the whole event that has so far shaped the entire face of our nation and its foreign policy in the 21st century barely gets a mention.
Beyond me why so many would drive a 1000 miles out of their way to condemn the Palestinians who are in a conflict with another nation will at the same time drive right by the very people who gave birth and attacked our nation and not give a damn. I think most Americans would rather look in Canada for radical Islam and terrorist than the country that watered the first seeds, after all, we do drive a lot of SUV's here.
I cannot help but notice the similarities of the terrorists in 9-11 and Mumbai. In both cases, they were not officially sponsored by the government. So, the presumed excuse by Saudi and Pakistan is that they are not "state actors" and thus the country is not responsible. Yet, the terrorists had significant civilian support, and in case of Pakistan, even support from some elements of the secret service. It is amazing that we do not tend to focus enough on the countries where such terrorists are born. I guess, in the case of Saudi, they have oil and controlling or providing security to the king ensures we get oil, so we keep it low key. In the case of Pakistan, we look the other way (and give them aid) hoping they will help us out in the Pak-Afghan border (plus them having nukes also serves as a deterrent). We need to think long term.
Our relationship with Saudi Arabia makes a mockery of other aspects of our foreign policy. For example, who could actually believe that the Cuba embargo is based on a 'principled stance' in 'support of democracy' while one of our dearest allies is a repressive petro-monarchy?
And we're still waiting Maybe if we wait long enough we may get to see a war crimes trial take place
I wouldn't hold your breath.
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Maybe if we wait long enough we may get to see a war crimes trial take place
