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Bloviating Zeppelin: No Shit, Sherlock

Bloviating Zeppelin

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Monday, October 01, 2007

No Shit, Sherlock


When we first bought into Saudi Arabia, due to the discovery of oil in March of 1938, little did we know where it would take us. Saudi Arabia has a history of playing both halves against the middle and, truly, quite successfully so. Think of it: they have managed throughout the years to appease the West and various militantly-Islamist factions rather adroitly. Certainly there have been some rough spots in the road but, overall, they manage to still hold the World Trump Card: oil.

I read this recently at NewsMax and thought: no shit, Sherlock. Tell me something I don't already know. To wit:


1. Saudi Arabia Is ‘World-Class Exporter’ of Terror
The involvement of Saudi Arabian citizens in worldwide terror did not end with the 9/11 attacks — today thousands of Saudis are managing terrorist networks and orchestrating suicide bombings and jihadist attacks around the globe.

Saudi Arabia has become, in short, a world-class exporter of Islamic violence, according to Youssef Ibrahim of the New York Sun, who cites these alarming developments:

-- As many as 30 Saudis enter Iraq each day with plans to become suicide bombers and kill Americans and Shiite Muslims.
-- More than 1,000 Saudis are now training at an al-Qaida camp in Syria, while others are training in camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
-- Of the insurgents who fought the Lebanese army’s during the siege of the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, which claimed more than 300 lives, more than 30 percent were Saudis.
-- At least 800 Saudis are currently being held in Iraq or Jordan, charged with terrorist acts or intentions.
-- Outside the Middle East, Saudi jihadists are also operating in Somalia, Malaysia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Philippines.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, were Saudis.

Ibrahim pointed to a segment of ABC’s “World News Tonight” on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which detailed how Islamist terror originates and ends with “Saudi Arabia, its people, and its government,” Ibrahim writes.

The report “conjured an Orwellian image of a conveyor belt with human bombs placed on it running out of the House of Saud and reaching around the globe. Saudi-funded mosques and madrassas supplied ideological content, and wings of the Saudi ruling establishment stoked the fire of its infernal machine.”

Ibrahim raises the question of why the U.S. by and large “looks the other way” regarding the behavior of its so-called ally — and major source of oil.

The answer, he opines, lies not just in the well known “Bush-Saud Family” factor — the Saudi royal family’s links to the Bush family and associates — but in the “corrupting process” that reaches into “every segment of the American ruling establishment over three decades.” He asserts that many in Washington’s diplomatic and journalistic establishment have benefited from Saudi largesse intended to buy influence in the U.S.

Ibrahim concludes: “The result is that while Washington hears the music, it is not listening to the words.”

Let me posit this question now: do you faintly suspect that cash might be an issue?

At this point some will say that I am simply another Conservative Bush-Basher with an "agenda." Others on the Left might say that Bush is Evil Incarnate and thank Wicca or The Goddess or Gaia that I'm finally acknowledging this. I submit that it isn't even remotely this simple. Simple is, quite frankly, the very last word I'd use.

I submit that these are volatile, heady, confusing, disjointed times. I also submit this: that with our history, our many years of changing administrations, of the continuing imbalance in the temper of the times, in the fact that there are so many people on the planet, that there are so many differing belief systems, so many stressors, so many themes, inputs, views, pressures -- there is essentially no way that one person can deal with the accumulated mountain of prior historical precedents and "know everything" and, by that dint, make all the "proper" decisions. I am wondering how long our system of government can function.

Let's say: a Presidency declares Saudi Arabia a pariah; we pull all support, line our troops up along their border, cut off funding, freeze accounts, stop trade, point fingers, even send some teams in to kill certain royal members.

What would be the logical result? OPEC would retaliate and immediately. Oil supplies would be cut. Prices for gas would rise and then skyrocket. And then we'd simply be hamstrung. Gas stations would shut down. Lines would form for miles around the open stations. Then they too would limit their distribution. Everything we do revolves around oil. Everything. My ability to type on this keyboard. My ability to receive electricity through a generation station. Everything we need arrives by either truck or train. Those engines run on oil. We commute to work -- sometimes many miles away. Again, oil.

When we begin to triage what is important in terms of our ability to limit oil usage, then our economy, our ability to work, to produce a product, to live our lives, to walk through the door of our businesses, to rant on the internet, to listen to the radio, watch TV, play video games, enjoy dances, feed our children, turn a tap and expect some kind of acceptable water to pour forth, flush a toilet and expect it to re-fill -- all these aspects and more are affected.

Those fringe types who live in discarded Gillig buses, overpainted and rusting VW Transporters, doing their duty for AlGore -- and more Mainstream Global Warming Believers epiphanied by purchasing the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic Hybrid, riding their Specialized's to work, watching the Sundance Channel -- they are STILL buying into the repressive Oil Regime.

Folks: absolutely NOTHING GETS ACCOMPLISHED ON THIS PLANET THAT WASN'T ABETTED BY PETROLEUM PRODUCTS. NOTHING.

So: sure, drive a stake into the heart of Saudi Arabia. Makes you feel good. They kill Americans, right?

You ready to go back, as a result, to stone knives and bearskins? You read S.M. Stirling's "Dies The Fire" recently?


BZ


P.S.
The photo? King Ibn Saud with President Roosevelt on board a ship returning from the Yalta Conference in 1945. Can you blame Roosevelt for wanting to secure our future, even then?

12 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

I like to camp, a lot. Have desolation wilderness training. Horses are cool. The rat race sucks and frankly, there's not much on tv these days. I'm good. Kick 'em to the curb.

:)

But I can still have cocktails right?

Sun Sep 30, 07:27:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Ranando said...

If you want or need something bad enough, you go take it.

Saudi Arabia, IMO, is our #1 enemy.

If we pulled our support, they're dead with-in a day or two.

It's time to inform them once again of who the boss really is.

Sun Sep 30, 07:35:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Jenn: don't think so. I suspect you might get just a tad hot in the summer -- and just a tad cool in the winter. Our shit has be somewhere, after all. Where do we stack it? In a trench? Our next door neighbor's yard? Where does our water come from? The ocean? Our magnificent Fornicalia rainfall? Not quite.

BZ

Sun Sep 30, 07:36:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Ranando: I beg to differ; I believe the polar opposite would be true. They are a culture used to going back to camels, dates, feudalism, tribalism. They would retro just fine. They would pull out swords, knives, rifles, and re-carve their own nomadic identities.

BZ

Sun Sep 30, 07:39:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Ranando said...

That's what's great about where we live, we can differ.

As far as camels and dates, great the sooner the better.

Sun Sep 30, 08:08:00 PM PDT  
Blogger A Jacksonian said...

In the article on Rep. Hoyer looking for moderates amongst terrorists, and you asked why it is important... did you, by chance, notice this bit from the US Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee in 1998:

"1) State Sponsorship
Until about 1952, small local groups with little or no outside support composed the extremist movement. The largest group was the Muslim Brotherhood. It was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan El Banna. When Abdel Nasser came to power in Egypt in 1953, he promoted his Pan-Arabism policies. The Pan-Arabism policies became very popular among the Arabs. The Saudis, fearful of this policy, began to financially support the Muslim Brotherhood to destabilize Nasser's regime."

Then tracing the lineage of MB to HAMAS, Turabi, multiple Pakistani groups, and one little off-shoot would be started by a cleric by the name of Zawahiri... meets up with a guy by the name of bin Laden.

Wherever Saudi funding goes for Mosques, schools or other such things, you will soon find MB and various 'charities', all going to a large array of organizations fomenting terror from folks that matriculated through MB.... which also gets funds, backing, training and such from the Saudis.

Every place that I have found Saudi funds going to Mosques, be it in the Caribbean or S. America or Africa or SE Asia or Japan... literally, everywhere... you will find radicals and the overturning of localized and integrated Moslem leaders with outsiders and radicals.

That is why any outlook of DIME will *not* confront this: US Foreign Policy is not serious about the Saudis or any religious freedom. Freedom of religion via the principles of 1648 and Westphalia are one of the cornerstones of our system of nation states. The US stopped being serious about that in the early part of the 20th century and decided that *trade* is better than *freedom*.

Now we pay dearly for thinking that for decades.

We are now too civilized to address this, because if we do, then a host of nations, starting with the Saudis, but including Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and many others with State *enforced* religions start to become the *problem*. The Saudis got cash, and is a huge problem. So does Iran, although they are killing their economy. Any place where local trade is enough to support radical Islam, it does so, including Indonesia.

The US is just plain stupid on trade that does not back up our goals as a Nation. It is, literally, getting us killed. Free trade, apparently, means not holding anyone accountable to anything and, thusly, the world gets worse. Believe it or not that was not started by the R party but the D with Pres. Wilson. The R adapted and adopted it with industrial backers... now the officially sanctioned religion of the conservatives: free trade makes everything better.

Really?

What about Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Russia, China, Pakistan, Columbia, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico... all of those are: terrorist supporting, terrorist hosting, or just brutally repressive. Some are all THREE under this lovely free trade gospel of the R party, which complains so much about the Leftists and Economics via Marx being a religion that they do not see their *own* straight-jacket conformity as a religion. It *is*.

Lovely narcotic this 'free trade' concept unattached to Nation or freedom or liberty... lulls you to sleep... right up to the moment someone utilizing it kills you on the cheap. Luckily, you made it cheap for them to do so... good going on that 'free trade' business! Thank you to the R and D parties for turning economics into religion, and using it to stifle America and let killers arm up on the cheap with no worries anyone will do anything about them.

Unfortunately this economic outlook appears to be a death cult bent on societal suicide. With the another fanatical set of religious folks looking to kill us along the way...

Mon Oct 01, 04:59:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Dionne said...

I went ahead and saw "The Kingdom" this weekend which was all about Saudi Arabia. The movie is good and not PC, I recommend it. I talked about it this morning on the radio show.

Mon Oct 01, 09:30:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

Don't have a heater nor air conditioning now. :)

Mon Oct 01, 10:29:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Saudis are in the same situation that Iran was in when the Shah had US support ripped out from under him. The same will happen to Sausi Arabia if we fail to support the govt there. The govt of SA may not be the best but its a damn site better than what would be the alternative. If you think they export a lot of terrorism now just wait till the US pulls all support for the govt there.

Mon Oct 01, 10:43:00 AM PDT  
Blogger bigwhitehat said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

Mon Oct 01, 12:10:00 PM PDT  
Blogger bigwhitehat said...

Camparing and contrasting the house of Saud, Iran, and al quaida all with the Pasha of Tripoli would make an interesting post.

Think about it. The US congress was ready to start allocating extortion money for the Corsairs. The opposition, led by Jefferson said not no but hell no.

It would be an interesting read.

Mon Oct 01, 12:11:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Goldangit folks, these are GREAT comments, THIS is why I LOVE the blogosphere!!

BZ

Mon Oct 01, 02:57:00 PM PDT  

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