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 ...

Pot Boiler

The Middle East is in disarray with insurrections the theme of the day. Egypt has already capitulated to the rioters (whoever they are). Syria is shooting its own citizens pall mall. Libya is in full civil war with air cover provided by the United States and some Piper Cubs from the European Union. Bahrain has been taken under the wing of the benevolent (hah!) Saudi Arabia. Iran, we think, is also experiencing street demonstrations … diminished daily by those demonstrators who were not smart enough to hide their faces from the ever-preset I-Phones. (I say “we think” for less real news leaks out of Tehran than Roentgens from the Fukushima nuclear plant.) Yemen is a turkey shoot with tribe against tribe, North against South, Shia against Sunni, and the government sparing with its own shadow. Israel stands ready to punish the Gaza Strip militants for their indiscriminate shelling of southern Israel. And what about Tunisia where this whole thing started ... are street vendors there now allowed to ply their trades?

How will this all resolve itself? Who knows … certainly not our ever-alert intelligence agencies? (Perhaps Jamie Gorelick, if she takes over the FBI, will fix things by decreeing that intelligence agents can no longer talk to each other.) However, I am not afraid to step into this Muslim morass and sort things out with some intrepid predictions:

- Yemen will detach itself from Saudi Arabia and float out to sea, never to be seen again.

- The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood will change its name to The Faithful Friends of ElBaradei.

- Muammar Qadaffi (and his family) will flee to Venezuela where he will be given the Universal Freedom Medal by Hugo Chavez.

- Bahrain will be annexed by Saudi Arabia as a “protectorate.”

- Shi'ites will kill lots of Sunnis and Sunnis will kill lots of Shi'ites

- In the midst of all of this, President Obama will embark on a five-week “trade-mission” trip to China with 50 close-friends, his family … and a shipping container full of dollars.

- Israel will be chastised by the U.N. for not allowing more of its citizens to be killed by Hezbollah.

- The Main Stream Media will determine that this was all George Bush’s fault.