In the wake of the 9-11-01 massacres, an article in the Rolling Stone took a stab at explaining why Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were so mad at the US. The main thing, they said, was that there were infidel troops in Saudi Arabia, uncomfortably close to the two holiest Islamic places, Mecca and Medina. After the recent bombings in London, there was a message from the group that claimed to have done the bombings. They demanded that foreign troops leave “the Arabian lands.” Newspeople seemed to assume that meant Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring Saudi Arabia.
So, how many troops from Christian nations are in Saudi Arabia, and how close to Mecca and Medina are they?
This is a factual question, folks. I’m not inviting a debate about the war or whether Al-Qaeda is right to be peeved.
And, in terms of distances, the US troops were stationed near the Persian Gulf, to the northeast of Riyadh. It’s about 600 miles away from Mecca as the crow flies.
Thank you, friends. I apologize for my post-and-run. When I clicked “Post New Thread,” I looked up, and the sky was dark. I shut off the computer during the severe thunderstorm. Later, I had to right my pepper plants and restore my tomato cage to vertical. The chives and oregano were beaten down, but they’ll be okay. I was washing and cutting the 19 tomatoes that were knocked off, and I remembered the thread I started before the storm.
I’m not sure what the context of “Arabian lands” was precisely, but there are and have been larger numbers of western troops on the Arabian Penninsula, including Qatar, just offshore in Bahrain and so forth.
I believe a major part of the rationale for al-Qaeda wishing the removal of the troops is not just that they are in the same country as Mecca and Medina but that they help prop up governments on the penninsula, especially the Saudi government, which a-Q perceives as not properly Islamic and unworthy of control of the holy places.
Hardly any nowadays. We used to have the Secret Air Base near Riyadh (well, really near noplace, but nearer to Riyadh than to Kansas City), but that more or less closed when all the airplanes went north.
So we have a USAF telephone colonel and a five-striper who come by once a month to drink our coffee and give tests to officers who need to go to Texas to study. Other than those two, that’s about it.
Trying to keep this from straying into GD territory, but I don’t think that’s their chief complaint at all. Bin Laden’s position is that the Americans are part of a continuing crusade against the Arabs. It’s not just that the Arabs are oppressed, but that this western imperialism has served to seprate the Arab world into small, segmented countries. This prevents them from amassing exercising political or economic strength and prevents the emergence of a singular Arab state, which would be a super power.
For example, in his November 2001 letter explaining to the American people why Al Qaeda
The Rolling Stone article said Bin Laden sees himself as the kind of leader that Islam gets every few hundred years. He wants to remake it and bring back the sort of dominant position he says the Muslims were in before the infidels took over. His quest is much broader than merely scaring the US and its allies. So said the article, anyway.
I’m not a Muslim, and certainly not a Ladenist, just so you know. There are other forums where I might opine, but not here.
My comment was solely addressing the issue of western troop placement in the region, I didn’t intend to suggest that’s the only thing al-Qaeda has their knickers in a twist over.