Saudi Arabian Immunity?

I'm sure there must be some very good reasons for the seemingly Saudi immunity from President Bush's wrath, even though the vast majority of 9/11 "terrorists" were Saudi citizenry. Right?

>>>>I'm sure there must be some very good reasons for the seemingly Saudi immunity from President Bush's wrath, even though the vast majority of 9/11 "terrorists" were Saudi citizenry.<<<<

There are reasons allright, but how "good" they might be depends on how closely you want to look at the relationship. My understanding is that the royal family doesn't represent the sentiments of most Saudis by a long shot when it comes to the amount of affection the country has for the USA. But we know this relationship is all about business$$$, not consistancy in applying human rights standards, or consistancy in identifying the roots of terrorism. Seems to me that if we want to develop any REAL credibility in these matters, we need to establish a serious and coherent national energy policy. Of course that would require long range thinking and maybe even a little sacrifice among consumers. How politically feasible is this in a country where everybody and their cousin wants to drive a big SUV, but still thinks they should be entitled to cheap gas? And how likely is this kind of progress to occur when the country's president has as much oil flowing in his veins as he does blood? The issue of our credibility in dealing with the Saudis is a small part of a much bigger problem.

Oil money is the problem as I understand it. Long ago the Saudi Royal family made a deal with the religious leaders of the country that was basically: Leave us alone and in power, and you can administer Islamic law and do whatever you want "educating" the people.

The Royal family is obviously corrupt since SA has a huge debt even with all the oil revenue (Congress would have trouble pulling that one off). The mullah's couldn't speak out against the Royal family so they have spent years bashing the US.

We are supporting a corrupt government in SA in return for lucrative development contracts for the oil fields and a steady flow of oil. That's what we do, and that's what we are trying to do in Iraq.

I believe that Bin Laden, being in the privileged elite, saw the corruption and decided to do something about it. I think that he used the hatred stirred up in SA as a weapon to attack the US which he saw as the root cause.

Naturally the government is quiet about SA. If it became common knowledge that our support for a corrupt regime in SA was a direct cause for 9/11, it would be bad for the oil industry and George's friends would be angry with him.

Also on SA, remember where the Ugandian dictator/butcher Idi Amin found refuge when he fled Uganda? First in Lybia and then for the past 10 years or so in Saudi Arabia!

Maurice

Guess what? That 900 page report just released about intelligence leading up to 9-11 has 28 blanked out pages. For reasons of national security, the White House blacked out the entire section entitled "Finding, discussion and narrative regarding certain sensitive national security matters." My understanding is that the blanked out pages are about the Saudi policy of supporting fundamentalism in the absence of repressing al-Qaeda's terror network despite US alerts to Riyadh since 1996. The report also confirms press revelations suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, an associate of two of the hijackers, could have been a Saudi government agent. It details his ties with September 11 suicide attackers Khaled al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. But of course these pages can't be read now; we don't want to embarrass our allies right?