Saudi Bombing Blamed on Al Qaeda
Why the hell would Al Qaeda do this to one of their most lucrative and sympathetic sources of covert funding (ie the Saudi upper classes)?
I’m not normally one to harp on these things, but this is the sixth thread on this topic, including two others currently on the front page of GD:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=221772
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222251
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222263
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222281
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222505
Short answer for the OP - Despite popular conception to the contrary, al Qaeda despises the Saudi government ( and by extension the bulk of the royal family and its adherents and pet clerics ) and is both its most vocal critic and most ferocious enemy. Indeed al Qaeda per se arose initially out of Osama bin Laden’s opposition to the Saudi royal family after breaking with them over Gulf War I. They morphed slightly with the incorporation of Egyptian, Algerian, and other elements. But the downfall of the Saudi royal family probably remains among their most pressing ongoing goals ( the other major goal of tossing the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia being virtually inseparable with this in their minds ).
That certain wealthy Saudi elements, including perhaps a few disgruntled and/or particularly pious ( of the vicious sort ) members of the royal family support them, is almost besides the point. Destabilizing Saudi Arabia is likely viewed as more damaging to the royal house in the long term and thus worth some bad press. In this they may well be wrong, but they are fanatics and as such not always the greatest realists.
- Tamerlane
From your cite, maybe this:
From Washington Post
Or this:
Or…who the hell knows. I’m sure it served some purpose to do it. Maybe they hope to knock the Saudi’s out of the game. Maybe they hope that this will topple the Saudi government. Some of our ME experts will probably chime in with some better insites.
-XT
. . . which is why, IMHO, the US had to turn to Iraq rather quickly after 9/11. Should Saudi actually become destabilised to the point of the oil supplies being threatened, it’s crisis time for the NYSE and the whole structure of the western caplitalst economies.
That theoretical, gamer-scenario, leave-it-'til-another-day scenario suddenly came alive and urgent.
Another War for Oil?
Could we get some more help with this one?
Tamerlane is right as far as I can tell, if you just listen to what Usama says. He despises the “allies of the infidels.” Strangely, pulling US forces out of Saudi – HEY! Usama, they’re gone! – thus distancing our nasty infidel selves from the Mosques, didn’t even evoke ONE “thank you” card from al Qaeda.
There are apparently some highly-placed Saudis that support al Qaeda. But, given what a direct threat UBL is to the Saud family, I think that most of them feel truly threatened by the recent developments.
I’m starting to really not like Usama Bin Laden. Sure, he was cool at first with the whole “Commando Mullah Action Figure” look… :dubious:
And unlike Vietnam, pulling out of Iraq is a no no option. Should the US pull out, Iran, Turkey, well basically the whole Middle East and many muslims would have a stake in seeing Iraq turn into a Islamic Theocracy and he who is strongest among the Islamic factions would be the ruler (Dictator) among all others.
This would spread to neighboring countries with the winners in Iraq dictating how those countries should run thier version of Islam.
The general feeling is that all acts commited against anyone to achieve this is permissible and there are no innocents involved. This is permissible if in the long run will benefit the Ummah.
While this may not be Islamically valid, it is happening and being justified. Example: Suicide bombers against Israel are called Martrys. When challenged that its not Islamic, the usual retort is what else can the Palestinians do?
Osama’s hatred of the Saudi Royals is well established.
Seems like the real question is why do the Saudis continue to push the Wahhabi form of Islam that seems to feed the ranks of Al Qaeda so readliy?
Tam? Got any theories there? Or am I making some grossly incorrect assumptions about Wahhabi Islam.
**The Saudi Connection: Osama bin Laden’s a lot closer to the Saudi royal family than you think.[/b
http://www.hvk.org/articles/1001/410.html
Well, you’ve got your Wahabis, and then you’ve got your Wahabis ( and then you’ve got your wasabe - but we won’t go there ). Though Wahabis generally like to refer to themselves as “salafists”, ObL and his crew make a distinction between themselves ( who we can call the “jihadist-salafists” following Kepel ) and what they refer to as the “sheikists”, i.e. the religious establishment promoted by the Saudi government. Or to put it another way, the al Qaeda types are “more-Wahabi-than-thou”.
The institutional Wahabism promoted by the Saudi government is careful to condemn terrorism ( though they have a tendency to very carefully eel around the Israel situation in that regard ) and prop up the government that places them into positions of authority ( Saudi Arabia is rather like the old Ottoman Empire in its use of a semi-tame “court ulema” ). It’s a bit of a Catch-22 feedback loop - the Saudi government promotes the religious establishment, which in turn repays the patronage with support, but by kow-towing to religious conservatives they make them all the stronger a force in society, which makes it more important to pander to them. Saudi Arabia is not a true theocracy like Iran - the royals still hold the trump cards, not the clerics. But it is functionally pretty close to one, because the clerical establishment is necessary to the survival of the regime. All the more as one important pillar of the al Saud dynasty, the old network of traditional tribal loyalties and alliances in the Najd and to a lesser extent Hasa, is disintegrating in the face of modernism and another, patronage via oil wealth, doesn’t stretch as far as it once did. So the Saudis promote Wahabism because it serves their interest to do so. In addition genuine piety and commitment to at least some form of Wahabism ( whether or not it is the jihadist variety ) shouldn’t be ruled out completely.
Now prior to Gulf War I, both SA and the USA were all for promulgating a form of religious conservatism throughout the Muslim world as an innoculation against the spread of communism ( and incidentally giving the SA government additional political leverage and influence ). It worked. It also obviously bit both in the ass big time. SA had really little choice but to back the U.S. in Gulf War I, but that bit of realpolitik is what cost them their standing in the world of truly radical Islamism. Since then, we’ve gone from what analysts in Afghanistan started referring to as “orthodox” ( i.e. very conservative, reactionary Islam ) vs. “ultra-orthodox” ( the super-reactionary conservatives ), in that case represented archetypically on the one side by that major U.S. proxy Gulbuddin Hekmatyr, prime instigator of the Afghan civil war following the Soviet pullout, and on the other by the Taliban. In a sense you might say that these days the Saudi government probably tries to officially back more of the first, rather than the second. But it’s all rather confused by the fact that a) the above categories are pretty loose and can blend in to one another and b) in the Saudi government with its multifarious factions and nepotistic system, where the public and private blur mightily, it appears fairly easy for one group to work at cross-purposes to others. For example the Saudi “missionary” work in Afghanistan that helped crystallize the Taliban may have had ( almost ceretainly did have ) multiple sources - some it officially backed by the SA government, some by one or more internal factions of that government, some technically backed but in completely undirected ways with no accountability, some by wealthy/pious figures outside of it.
- Tamerlane
Interesting article, though I think he overstates both al Qaeda’s and ObL’s commitment to dynastic politics ( ObL has never, far as I’ve seen, expressed support for any part of the regime ) and possibly the Iraqi and Syrian connections, which though not at all implausible, remain uncertain as to their extent.
- Tamerlane
Of course, it didn’t. That’s how this kind of creature operates. Kill and make demands. Then, when your victims cave in to your demands, kill and make more demands. This is that these slime are all about. They do not want anything resembling justice, they want to rule the world.
They want justice. It’s just that some of their ideas of what justice is are different than yours.
Yet even when “their ideas of justice” are achieved, they come up with new ideas of justice.
Yeah, just like Pol Pot’s ideas of “justice” are different from my ideas of justice. There comes a point wherein a group and cause are so inveterately evil that they do not deserve to be considered as wanting anything that a sane individual would consider to be justice.
These jihad-freak-salafists are just such a group. Kill, make demands. When demands are met, kill more, make further demands.
Can we assume that an al Qaeda run govenrment would be essentially the same as what the Taliban created? That is, the absolute subjugation of women, the banning of movies and music, the complete exclusion of any religion other than Islam, etc.?
Maybe, but the fact remains that people do volunteer to join them, and they do have supporters and people who sympathize with them. It’s possible that all those people are insane or evil, but the fact remains, Al Qaeda is saying something that appeals to them.
And that means, the way to stop Al Qaeda from getting new recruits and having people who sympathize with them, is to find out what Al Qaeda says that resonates with those people and find some way to meet their needs.
Just saying “Al Qaeda is evil” or “the Khmer Rouge is evil”, or “The Nazi party is evil” is true, but it’s not helpful, unless we also find out why people join the organizations, and if there are any legitimate needs they have that aren’t being met outside these organizations.
Beagle said.
You are only starting to dislike him???
He was cool at first? Oh really?
I think we can reasonably conclude that. They are totalitarians, religious fanatics who consign everyone who is not of their particular whacked-out satanic perversion of Islam is part of Dar al-Hab.
Oh, yes. Then we found out he was political, and that disqualified him from being cool.