They were just yammering on CNN or something about the recent terrorist attacks in Riyadh. Jesus, who cares what the group that did it calls themselves? Let's just drop all this "was it Al Qaeda? Or some other (insert some Arabic phrase)?" nonsense and call them something generic, like "the usual bunch of cretins." And their motives are no big mystery; I am sure I know why the cretins blew up stuff in Saudi Arabia this time. They want to get rid of all the Westerners there, and then all the rest of the foreigners, Muslim though all those Indians and Indonesians and Malaysians might be. The Usual Bunch of Cretins are Arab supremacists just like the Nazis were "Aryan" supremacists. They are just another flavor of terror pie, like Bin Laden and his Taliban crew, and that joker we just kicked out of Iraq. It's all from the same shelf of fly-specked, half-baked goods.
Posted by Andrea Harris at May 12, 2003 11:17 PMHmmmm...I wonder if those cretins are aware that the Saudi Royal Family wouldn't be willing to get rid of ALL the foreigners.
A sizeable number of the foreigners (a.k.a. "Third Country Nationals") are there to do one thing and one thing only: all the work that the Saudis won't do themselves. That amounts to anything you might term "menial labor."
Saudi Arabia would come to a screeching halt and crumble to dust in short order if all the foreigners left. I think they're just after the "infidel Westerners."
Posted by: Darth Cirrocu at May 13, 2003 at 06:38 AMWell, Andrea, there might not be an immediately perceptible point in identifying terrorist group affiliations to those of us outside the intelligence and counter-terrorism communities -- at least, I don't really care more than you do -- but a friend who works in that world assures me that learning those affiliations is vital to conducting a coherent and effective investigation. Apparently, Washington doesn't want to turn the entire Middle East into radioactive slag -- no, I can't imagine why either -- and tracing the group relations and loyalties is the best way to separate out the responsible gangs, their support systems, their sources of money and weapons, and so forth.
The terrifying thing is, when the majority of the people in a region support your use of violence to further your goals, that makes you indistinguishable from a government. Inasmuch as the degree of popular approval for and loyalty to these terrorist groups is in many cases higher than that felt toward "legitimate" local governments, the governments are essentially powerless to restrain the terrorist groups. To me, that spells war: a major, protracted, multiple-front war between the United States and a dispersed alliance of religious fanatics incapable of surrender, in which there isn't likely to be much regard for the Geneva Convention or any other standard of honorable, humane dealing.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at May 13, 2003 at 07:10 AMI think it's instructive that the terrorist attack in Riyadh happened just after the US announced that it was withdrawing US troops from Saudi Arabia. The terrorists intend to portray our purely voluntary withdrawal as a defeat inflicted on us by Al Qaeda - "We forced the infidels to abandon the holy places of Hejaz!! Thanks be to Allah!! - and all that nonsense. Perhaps we should move a couple of divisions right into Mecca and start up a disco. "Brittany Spears at the Qa'aba" or something Anything that can be spun as weakness is punished in the Middle East.
Posted by: Robert Speirs at May 13, 2003 at 08:54 AMTerrorism is the way that the Islamists fight wars – they tend to use this tactic when they think they have a chance to win concessions – right now, it seems that they would like to see an Islamist regime installed in Iraq – and they also want to influence this whole ‘roadmap to peace’ Once we give in on certain points (like taking our troops out of Saudi Arabia) they think that they can get more concessions out of us.
While the Saudi regime likes to say that they’re just paying ‘protection’ money to the terrorists, they continued to support al Qaeda after 9/11 and they’ll probably still continue to pay. Their relationship to al Qaeda seems more like Arafat’s relationship to Hamas. They pretend to oppose each other, but they agree about a lot of things. Funny how the other attacks occurred in Russia, a competitor in the oil market.
If we don’t immediately strike back at the terrorists and the people who fund them, attacks will probably continue. Maybe we should move the troops into Mecca and start up a disco – sure it will inflame Muslims around the world, but they’re already inflamed. Maybe if we bring it up a notch, they’ll spontaneously combust.
Posted by: mary at May 13, 2003 at 09:42 AM