The New York Times <sorry no link> has just reported that Saudi Arabia has made a “non official” decision to have US troops leave S.A after the Iraq war. They have plans to institute democratic reforms and remove much power from the conservative clergy and elect a National Congress type body. Since US troops on Saudi soil was Osama Bin Assholes big complaint with the US will this mean there will be a terrorist “truce” or will he just come up with some other justification to continue his reign of terror?
A Colombian President came up with the same conclusion, ‘hey if we give FARC some space they’ll sure leave us alone’ Wrong, because this just gave FARC more time to attempt to destroy the Colombian government. Its all about power.
So unfortunately they won’t stop until the US is destroyed.
I doubt it’d dissuade Bin Ladin. He’d justify attacking the U.S. because we attacked him and Iraq.
His goal is to destroy the U.S. and he doesn’t really need a justification to do so: like all fanatics, reason is not part of his plan.
If all of our soldiers left S.A. tomorrow, OBL would just find another lame reason to attack us. (For example, he could pretend that he gives a rat’s ass about the plight of the Palestinians.)
The mods might want to move this as there doesn’t seem to be a factual answer. Even if OBL hisself replied I wouldn’t take it at face value. Probably belongs in IMHO or GD.
Padeye, yea your probably right it should be in IMHO ,i thought about that after i aready posted it. My bad.
If that did happen, bin Laden would probably have a whole list of things to dislike the USA for, like the Israel-Palestine conflict, US “imperialism”, cultural invasion, strong-arm foreign policy, and general disregard for the rights of other soverign nations.
So, he might have less to complain about, and i guess some members of Al-Quaeda might decide that hey, maybe they don’t hate the USA so much now. But i wouldn’t count on it.
Today there was an article in the Toronto Star about the same thing. By Patrick E Tyler of the New York Times, it begins
I don’t think this would affect ObL directly, but the lessening of support for Wahhabism might reduce his economic support.
I’ve often thought that this was one of the greatests argument for the encouragement of fuel conservation and a much higher average fuel-use efficiency in the USA (and elsewhere): by reducing the amount of oil used, the US could eliminate its import of oil from the Arabian peninsula, and, hence, the reduce the indirect economic support for anti-US redicals. Whether that would work is another question.
As long as the US supports Israel we are most certainly going to be their sworn enemy.
And actually, Al-Queda is such an extreme group that as others have said as long as the US exists they will target us. A quote I’ve often heard is that they will not stop, “Until Islam rules the world.”
Here’s the text of Bin-Laden’s 1998 fatwa.
Number 1 in his list of “three facts that are known to everyone” is:
Naturally, he becomes quite exercised in his peroration, and at some length.
My own opinion is the Saudis have the toughest balancing act around, trying to stay on top; if we weren’t there, they would want us there.