Fair-Weather Friends

President Bush and King Abdullah 

Saudi Arabians are not really our friends ... at least not on a consistent basis. Years ago I thought that they were, but, after the Kobar Towers truck bombing in 1996 (in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) where 19 U.S. airmen were killed and hundreds wounded, I began to have my doubts ... particularly after the Saudi government there would not allow any on-the-ground investigation by our intelligence agencies (see: Espionage Information). Then, I began to suspect that the Saudi government was at least tangentially complicit. And this was just one of a pattern of such incidents there... see: Wikipedia Listing.

And also don't forget that Saudi Arabia has always been the alpha dog in the OPEC cartel.

Next, couple this with the fact that 15 of the 19 World Trade Towers terrorists were from Saudi Arabia (see: 9/11 Hijackers) and that Osama bin Laden himself was a Saudi ... and one begins to see a compelling pattern of duplicity on the part of our Sunni Muslim  "amigos." Saudi Arabia has also been a consistent funder of the madrasa schools throughout the Muslim world which have indoctrinated their students with a severe form of sharia law. (Our president himself may have attended a madrasa school when he was a child in Indonesia ... see: Huffington Post Story.) And there are many rumors that the Saudis, after the Shi'ite Iranians, are also heavy funders of radical Muslim activities ... see: Times of Israel Story.

Yes, occasionally, the Saudis have thrown the U.S. a bone as our fair-weather friends (e.g., giving the Clinton Foundation boatloads of money?) ... but, to me, this is just consistent with a Mideastern pattern of playing both sides of the street.  Now the Saudis' are warning of imminent attacks inside the U.S. from ISIS militants (whom Saudi Arabia may also be secretly funding) ... see: Yahoo News Story.

Is this just a ruse to get the United States to embroil ourselves once again in this Mideast morass ... so that things remain unbalanced and that these mega-plutocrats can hold onto their fine lifestyles? Might Saudi Arabia itself take the lead in defeating these extremists? That would be a first ...