White House v. White House concerning Middle Eastern Allies

The BBQ Pit
1

I could be wrong on this, but the United Arab Emirates strike me very much as Saudi Arabia writ small. We have security arrangements with both and regard them both as allies in the GWoT, they’re both dynastically ruled, both owe their economic strength to petroleum, both produced 9/11 hijackers, al-Qaeda has sympathizers in the citizenry of both countries, neither has recognized Israel, yada yada. UAE has about 1/5 the population, and 1/4 the oil production, of Saudi Arabia.

So it’s kinda interesting that yesterday, Bush would describe the UAE as:

And on the same day, a White House spokesman would say this about Saudi Arabia:

I guess it depends on whether we’re talking about whether it’s OK for Al Gore to give a speech there, or whether it’s OK to hand over working control of six of our major ports to them. Interesting which one prompted, shall we say, more critical scrutiny from the White House.

2

Personally, I think the nature of the UAE is largely irrelevant in the political storm that’s brewing. It’s yet another power play between Congress and the White House, where the former is pissed that the latter has done something without keeping anyone informed.

3

…and after that early bit of insight, the OP went rapidly downhill.

4

Wow! An Op from RTFirefly that actually makse perfect sense…

…if you accept the premise that UAE and Saudi Arabia are one and the same.

Unfortunately, they’re not.

Nevermind, nothing to see here, just another Bush Bashing wankfest, divorced from reality, move along children.

5

You are. Compared to Saudi, the UAE is practically a utopia.

Still a festering, corrupt, fundie shithole, though. Everything in perspective.

6

Given the choice between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, I’d stay right here, thanks. :smiley:

But if I had to go to one, the UAE is it. Keep in mind there’s al’Quaeda sympathizers in the United States. There’s terrorists and terrorist cells in the United States. Just because they aren’t all of 'em brown doesn’t mean they don’t plot violence to scare people. I don’t call Montana a pustulent boil on the rear end of humanity just because militias like to set up shop there. I don’t call Waco a land of dangerous wackos

7

…wackos hitting Submit too soon. :smack:

I don’t call Waco a land of dangerous wackos JUST because of Koresh. :cool:

8

RT, dammit, this whole fiasco has already made me agree with Bush on something. Now you’re making me agree with Weirddave, too? STOP IT!

Daniel

9

I’ve presented a certain amount of evidence in support of their similarity.

You’ve presented…well, nothing, really.

And I’m sure you know quite well that - at least, when Al Gore isn’t speaking there - the President’s attitude towards Saudi Arabia isn’t just friendly; it’s downright affectionate.

If it troubles you to actually present facts and stuff to back up your disagreement, no reason why I should regard you as worth responding to.

10

This is pure, unadulterated bullshit. If you style yourself a liberal, and you find yourself agreeing with racist twat Michelle Malkin , it’s time to take a step back and figure out if you really want to be in bed with such a person.
Or not. I really couldn’t care less one way or the other. But you know what they say about knowing someone by the company they keep…

From that very entry I linked to, comes this description of Dubai. I’d say it’s ever so slightly different than KSA:

Of course, she actually holds this against them, but then she’s a racist asshole. The other places that turned out to be ideal transit points were Florida, Hamburg, and some airport in Maine, as I recall. Perhaps we should ban ourself from doing business with anyone from these places?

11

The only “evidence” of substance is that they both produced 9/11 hijackers. Well, the US produced Timothy McVeigh. Maybe the US shouldn’t run US ports. And Britain produced the Shoe Bomber. And France produced Moussawi. Etc, etc, etc.

One key difference between the two is that the UAE does not have a state sponsored Wahabi sect (or anything like it). If Saudi Arabia were able to extinguish that dangerous fire, we would have little to be concerned about them from the standpoint of US security.

12

I give you points for the fact that the right wing condemns Gore for speaking in SA, but not Bush and his family being all cozy with these nutjobs.

I subtract most of your points for the fact that I can’t recall Bush or his people themselves saying anything nasty about Gore’s choice of venue.

It’s only the right wing talk show hosts who are hypocrticial windbags, but then, we knew that. Hardly worth a pit.

13

:confused: :confused: :confused: But it was right there in the OP’s fourth link:

So yeah, the OP is quite correct that this is “the White House v. the White House”. You may question how “v.” the two comments really are, but they definitely both come from the Administration.

14

Daniel, could you be more clear about why my OP bothers you? I sincerely doubt that a Bush White House spokesperson has ever previously said such harsh things about Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or any of the other Persian Gulf states that are friendly to us.

It also seems clear that, regardless of whether it’s a bad idea to hand over the operation of six of our ports to a UAE-owned firm (I’ve got no position on this, because I don’t know enough to have an informed position), it’s clear that a certain amount of due diligence is required enroute to approving such a deal, and that the potential risks and downsides need to be considered for a deal like this to a much greater extent than they would for making a speech.

Yet the White House seems to have that backwards: they’re brushing off concerns about the UAE’s links to AQ without any real explanation that I can see, while speaking of Saudi Arabia as essentially a hostile nation in the GWoT, rather than an ally with valid concerns about our treatment of Muslims, with respect to Gore’s giving a speech there.

Unlike Weirddave, who would probably find reason to go into his usual shtick if I said Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, I can’t imagine that you’re having problems with what I’ve said for reasons that don’t have substance. I’d consider it a favor if you’d make those reasons more clear.

On preview: pantom, I’m not criticizing the deal itself. If Malkin’s noted the inconsistency between harsh White House criticism of Saudi Arabia because Gore gave a speech there, and the love they shower on countries like SA and the UAE at other times, that would surprise me.

John Mace, that may be the only negative similarity. (Hey wait, it’s not, but never mind that.) But the positive similarities are equally important here, such as our security relationships with both countries.

Apos, the critic I’ve quoted isn’t some wingnut with a radio show, but a White House spokesperson.

15

You described the UAE as KSA writ small, which is really only true in a very surfacy kind of way. The two descriptions coming from the White House of the two places is far more accurate, although I have to say I have no idea how Wehner managed to get his little missive out with that kind of a description of KSA. So the assumption behind your OP is not accurate. The fact that the White House is allowing that description of KSA to get out is funny.
However, it’s not the White House versus the White House unless someone in there notices that rather undiplomatic description and retracts it. Given that the Gore speech is only controversial with watchers of Fox News, I’m not going to be keeping track of whether they do retract it or not; it’s of importance only to those consumers of government propaganda, anyway.

16

All the Gulf emirates ( and big daddy Saudi Arabia ) are superficially similar, in that they are small, Arab, with somewhat oil-centered economies ( to greater and lesser degrees ) and are religiously conservative ( to greater and lesser degrees ).

However the UAE does not have Wahabism as a state sect ( the Maliki madhab predominates ) - you can find some Wahabis there ( mostly around the Buraymi oasis ), but they are relatively more laid back than their SA counterparts and they don’t run the country, witness the far less restrictive religious policies of the UAE vs. Saudi Arabia. This can be verified by looking at their respective religious freedom reports from the U.S. State Department. By Gulf standards ( which are admittedly very low ), they’re veritable liberals ;).

The UAE also does not suffer from many of the increasing social pressures that SA does - for example a quite small native population with 2-6% unemployment in the UAE vs. a surging population and 25-30% unemployment in SA. It also has diversified their economy with a little more success, though oil income is of course still key ( for a few more years at least ).

Your link claims ObL was socializing with members of the “UAE royal family” in Afghanistan before 9/11. However I’d like to know which, because their are seven emirates, with seven royal families ( well seven branches anyway - the al Qasimi rule both Sharjah and Ras al Khaymah, but they are different houses ). Like with SA, socializing between disstaff members of a overpriviledged family and ObL does not a government collusion make. It could just have been some younger sons donating cash to ObL. So barring more incriminating details, I don’t regard that as particularly significant.

  • Tamerlane
17

The UAE also has a secular courts for crimimal, civil and commercial matters. Islamic law prevails only in family and religious disputes. The legal system in Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, relies almost entirely on sharia.

18

I stand corrected: the two countries are different in a considerable number of ways. I’ve been given an education there.

However, I don’t see yet that any of those differences turn into effective differences with respect to security, alliances, terrorism, and the like: that somehow Saudi Arabia is a more hostile country than the UAE, and that Gore is somehow associating with a near-enemy by speaking over there, while the UAE is a trusted ally that can be counted on to run our ports.

Nevertheless, if it hadn’t been for the two statements with such radically different attitudes on the same day, I would have simply done a “White House v. White House on Saudi Arabia” which is a position that maybe I should just retreat to, so I don’t have to debate every difference of potential consequence between the two countries.

19

You are equating “repressive” with “hostile”. And you’re the one saying that SA is a “near enemy”, not the guy in your quote. We cosy up to repressive regimes all the time. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pointing out that Gore went to Saudi Arabia and made shit up about our mistreatment of Arabs/Muslims. What’s next-- a trip to China to talk about religious oppression and one party rule in the US?

What’s wrong? Can’t think of any good Bush-bashing today, so you had to scrape the bottom of the barrel? Give it up before you end up looking even more foolish than you already do.

20

That comes as a surprise to me. If I gave that impression anywhere, it was wholly unintentional.

For instance, I don’t regard Saudi Arabia as a hostile regime, but I do regard them as repressive.

No, I’m not. I don’t regard SA as an enemy of any sort.

But for an Administration spokeperson to call SA “a repressive society which is the home of Osama bin Laden and most of the terrorists who executed the worst attack on the American homeland in our history,” is all but calling them out for being behind 9/11 itself. I think summarizing his words as calling SA a ‘near enemy’ is quite restrained.

What did he make up, if I may inquire?

Until we are a good deal less dependent on oil, we have an interest in being diplomatic with these guys. Gore wanted to let them know that not all of America is into this whole “gather up Muslims and treat them abysmally on the basis of negligible evidence” deal. I’d say that’s the sort of thing someone ought to be telling them - and the world in general.

I think I’m holding my own quite well, thanks.

You know why I started this thread? Because, despite its being so hard for the Bushies to genuinely surprise me anymore, it really did catch me completely off guard that they’d say something like that about their buddies the Saudis, under any circumstances. But needless to say, the 180° is only temporary - it only applied for the news cycle after Gore’s speech. Then it’ll be back to buddy-buddy.

The total hypocrisy of taking a stand completely opposite of every fiber of their being, just long enough to slam an opposing politician, before re-reversing back to where they started, was pretty damned impressive, I thought, and worthy of note. It takes a lot of chutzpah, as well as having no morals whatsoever, to pull something like that off.