Sure. Pyongyang, Tehran, and Baghdad make for a vacation to remember!
Um minty, isn’t that what DDG said? That binny hates America not that he wants to overthrow the Royal Family?
Everyone seems to think that OBL hates the Saudi royal family but there’s not actually much real evidence for it. Of all the bombing campaigns al-Q has carried out around the world, none of them have actually targeted the Saudi government.
Those bombing campaigns that have occured in Saudi itself have targeted westerners.
Even if the royal family did fall, there is no way that OBL is gonna march back to Riyadh and declare himself the new President of the Islamic Republic of Arabia. Don’t you think America might have something to say about this?
The new government would have to go out of their way to show that they have no links whatsoever to al-Q.
As for the WTC bombers being Saudi, hmm. I seem to recall that most Saudis involved in al Q actually come from one very small region in Saudi (the same region OBL comes from). So there isn’t necessarily widespread support in Saudi for al-Q.
I don’t buy the argument that the WTC attack was intended to harm the saudi royals. The reason for this attack was, as DDG says, because they hate America.
I’m no fan of my own Royal family (UK) but if I wanted to instigate a terrorist campaign against them I wouldn’t blow up a building in Hicksville, Alabama and hope for some chain reaction effect to destroy the UK royal family. I think I’d be a bit more direct than that.
So if OBL does want to destroy the House of Saud, I don’t think it’s very high on his list of priorities since he doesn’t seem to have done anything much to further that plan.
Hmm, where’s Collounsbury when you need him?
In addition to what minty green says it’s relevant that Saudi Arabia has revoked Bin Laden’s Saudi citizenship.
“As a result of his opposition to the ruling Al Saud family, Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship in 1994 and his family disavowed him, though some of his brothers have reportedly maintained contact”
“But, can I still have Conde Nast in on the conspiracy?”
Saudi Arabia does ban some Western products, of course, but far less than you seem to imagine.
Mc Donald’s for instance.
'Fraid not, Jojo. From the FBI link above (emphasis added):
I don’t think that anyone is saying that 9-11 was done solely to damage the Saudi Royal family. But I think it’s reasonable to believe that specific tactical decisions like deciding to do it largely with Saudis were designed to damage the Saudi-American relationship which clearly is a major issue for Bin Laden.
From the same article:
“Particularly infuriating to him is America’s coziness with the Saudi Royal family since the Gulf War. But bin Laden’s first public “fatwah” came only after the Gulf War. Specifically, he railed against the presence of American and European troops on the soil of the Arabian peninsula, site of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.”
For the record, I think we’re back in the realm of speculation when you claim that so many of the hijackers were Saudis because al Qaeda wanted to damage U.S.-Saudi relations. There are all kinds of possible reasons why the hijackers ended up being Saudis, including the very basic reason that they already knew each other. The planning for 9/11 was rather decentralized, after all–it’s not like bin Laden or the other top-level al Qaeda guys were micromanaging the operation.
True. I did say it was speculation in my first post (perhaps I made it sound a little more definite in my last post) though IMO it’s quite a believable bit of speculation especially as regards motive.
“it’s not like bin Laden or the other top-level al Qaeda guys were micromanaging the operation”
True but he could have given instructions to pick as many Saudis as possible and then left the details to his sub-ordinates.
Anyway my main point is that the 15/17 figure isn’t much by way of evidence that the Saudis support terrorism against the US. That might have been true if the hijackers had been picked by something like a random sample but of course that wasn’t true.
Minty, I think I was unclear in my previous post. I agree that OBL does hate the Saudi royals but I don’t think that had anything to do with 9/11 (except maybe in an extremely oblique way).
What’s so oblique about it? He wants to kick the infidels out of the Arabian Peninsula, so he attacks the infidels and tells 'em to get the hell out of the Arabian Peninsula. Makes sense to me, as long as you’re okay with mass slaughter of civilians.
Yes but what does kicking America out of Saudi have to do with deposing the Saudi royal family?
Well obviously since it was the Saudi royal family which asked for the US troops in the first place and wants to keep them there, deposing the Royal family makes sense as a means of removing the troops.
Right, CP. Overthrowing the royals would be the fastest way of getting rid of the foreign infidels.