View of the Middle East from an American that lived in Saudi Arabia for 15 years.....

Did anyone ever consider that the WMD argument supplied by the Bush administration was a ploy to get public support instead of THE reason we were planning to invade Iraq?? Having spent the better part of my life living in Saudi Arabia, I have followed the events the past two years in the middle east as close, if not significantly closer, than anyone. I can tell you that the Arab World is a society where the thoughts of the masses can be easily controlled. In Saudi Arabia, not much outside of the Quran was taught to grade school students up until the early to mid-90's. As a result, very few Saudis are equipped with the knowledge to see things and analyze things for themselves. In fact, most Saudis don't believe they are in control of anything in their lives, instead believing that everything that happens, does so because God has pre-ordained it. A good example is the explanation a Saudi would give you for the way they drive (which is basically as fast as the car will allow, cops included. Saudi Arabia is one country where the cops will speed past you travelling more than 70 km/hr over the speed limit when they're not even in pursuit). A Saudi would tell you that if Allah wanted him to die in a car crash, Allah would have made his car lose control and crash. Therefore, I may as well drive as fast as I want to. On top of that, their law is the law of the Quran instead of two separate entities as we are used to in America. So if it is prohibited in the Quran, it is prohibited by Saudi law. Then you have the mosque. One of the most influential men in Saudi Arabia (and in the rest of the middle east for that matter) is the speaker at the local mosque. Almost everything that comes out of these men's mouths is taken as the word of God. I'm not saying all speakers at the mosques say bad, influential things about the west, but enough of them do and have been doing so for some time. The result is a very large segment of the Saudi population that believes that America is the devil and Americans are infidels. Now in the last decade, we've seen Arab people with these anti-west points of views organizing into well funded groups like Al-Qaeda. Now you have a largely ignorant people, that hate the west, that are now well-funded and trained to carry out their hatred towards the west in ways they were previously unable to. September 11th was only the second example, but by far the biggest statment to date, of these groups' hatred spilling over onto the American landscape.

So what I think is the Bush administration saw all the facts above that I saw in the time of lived in Saudi Arabia. They saw that a large faction of the uneducated Arab World now was organized and had the ability to carry out terrible attacks on our citizenry. Combine that with the fact that we are a free society that can not protect it's borders adequately to prevent such future attacks if we want to remain the free society that America has always been proud of. The Bush administration saw that America was a sitting duck. Being a sitting duck would not have been acceptable to our public or to the media as it damn well shouldn't be so the Bush administration started looking into actions they could take to try and delay the inevitable attack. The best one that they came across was Saddam Hussein and Iraq. In Iraq you had a ruthless billionaire dictator which the whole world all ready disliked and it just so happens that Iraq had the perfect geography-- it bordered Saudi Arabia to the south, Syria to the west, and Iran to the east, the three most problematic nations for the U.S. in the middle east, all three combining to finance the majority of the world's terrorism. Now here comes the part where those of you that want to bash Bush should be making your case. The U.S. decided that by occupying Iraq and maintaining a strong U.S. military presence there, they have a much stronger position at the bargaining table when it came time to try and achieve the goal America was trying to achieve (rid America of the threat of middle eastern born terrorism). The military action against Iraq was a message to Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia-- "We're in your backyard now and you see what we are willing to do to achieve our goals. It's your move now and we suggest you give extra thought to the military machine we have in the Iraqi desert just a few hundred kilometers away".

Now I think that is your justification for war in Iraq. Now imagine the President of the United States going to the United Nations or the people with that justification for the war. In our politically correct society, his administration and his plan would have gone down in flames. So the question is, did the administration do the right thing and it is maybe the toughest debate in the history of American politics. Is occupying a foreign land justified as a PRECAUTION against future domestic terrorism? While I'd say America has no right to occupy a foreign land without adequate proof, I'd also say there was no other way to get that proof without occupying the foreign land. So the administration's choice was (a) be a sitting duck by taking no action and be the good guy, or (b) be the bad guy, occupy Iraq, and just maybe delay and decrease the chances of another Septmeber 11th or something far worse. So Americans have to ask themselves is doing the nice thing the right decision here or is breaking all the old rules the correct course of action. I tend to think the Bush administration made the right move and I applaud them for being the rare administration that does the right thing and not the popular thing with regards to the country's well being.

 

That's fantastic. Did you read anything BEYOND the first line of the post? I doubt it.

 

I'm not going to say this point of view is wrong, but I am going to say it sounds more like an X-File or a cheesy Hollywood plot more than reality.

 

All fair comments Glych. I should have prefaced my post by giving some of my other personal views. In addition to living in Saudi Arabia, I've traveled to every continent and have seen first hand the majority of the world's civilizations. Not very many Americans get off our little island and see the world firsthand since our country is so far away from the rest of the world and people just can't afford the trips. Having watched American news, I strongly feel that Americans can not depend on getting their information from the news agencies since they are as political as our freakin federal govt. CNN is extreme left, FOX is extreme right, MSNBC plays both extremes. Extremism is not truth and to get the truth about world events, you have to be able to take the information and analyze it for yourself instead of allowing Bill O'Reilly or Wolf Blitzer tell you what you're supposed to think. Add to this that the vast majority of Americans do not have a strong enough background in history and world events/cultures past and current to analyze the facts and you get a public that has to be told the news instead of interpreting the news for themselves. Now we have the Bush administration, an administration that understands the American media machine and understands that the best way to control a situation is to keep it to yourself. In my previous post I stated the rather obvious when I alluded that nothing in this country is as it seems (using Bush's WMD justification for the Iraq war as the prime example). I was trying to tell you that, based on my firsthand knowledge of the middle east (primarily Saudi Arabia since I lived there, but I visited many countries in the mid east during my 15 years there), the middle east is probably the most dangerous foe to America, even more dangerous than the Russians in the Cold War. Why? Because (1) they do not like the west and it's not just because of the Israeli-Palestine issue although that doesn't help. The typical Saudi really does believe that all non-Muslims are infidels and hellbound, basically devils walking the earth before they spend eternity in hell. Most would like to see Islam encompass the globe some day as the world's lone religion. Many of these people have formed a religious mafia known as the Matawah who see it as their role in life to keep the middle east completely free of western ideas since such ideas poison their people and distract them from the Muslim religion. When you think about it, a lot of things Americans take for granted and do for fun are completely outlawed by Islam (alcohol being the most recognized). I've seen the Matawah beat an English woman half to death with a whip in public simply because her ankles were showing and no one did anything about it because that's normalcy in that part of the world, stone age as it should seem to the rest of the world. (2) In addition to not liking us in the first place, the Saudis are a largely undeducated population that is easily influenced (see my original post). So you have a largely uneducated scoiety that hates us, is easily influenced, and I might add, has the money to do strike out as what they see as western culture destroying the fabric of their strict Muslim society (this is the reason a Saudi would give you for their wish that the American military leave their country. It is also the reason that the internet and satellite T.V. are all but outlawed in Arabia outside of govt. use).

Obviously, you can see this a subject I am very passionate on and I could write forever. While the majority of Americans seem confused (as they should be) and have turned their confusion into anger at the current administration I have been angry too. But my anger comes from the fact that I know if Americans really got the true story about the middle east, they would start asking the right questions. I can't blame your average American for not knowing what's going on. They haven't seen the world for themselves and lack a strong understanding of history and, therfore, can't interpret the 10,000 agendas of the news media for themselves. The president is being tight-lipped knowing that giving the true reason for war in Iraq would not be acceptable in our politically correct society (that's not even mentioning the ways the democratic party would use his justification against him to get him out of office next year). Even if there wasn't the polical agendas of the news media and political correctness, Bush probably still wouldn't say the truth because of our oil relationship with Arabia. You see, Glych is right and wrong when he says the Saudi Royal is simply a Bush administration puppet. The truth is, both parties make their decisions not based on a political relationship with each other, but with an economic one. The Saudis have more oil than any coutnry in the world. The U.S. buys the vast majority of it. Without the U.S. buying Saudi oil, the Saudi economy would collapse. Likewise, the American economy is completely dependant on the Saudi oil relationship. Commerce would come to a halt without the large amounts of CHEAP oil that the Saudis sell to us. So I would say that Bush and the Saudi royals are simply on the same page knowing that as bad as relations are right now, nothing is more important than maintainging our economic relationship. Back to Bush telling the truth about the war in Iraq. Bush is walking the tightrope when it comes to trying to portrat a good image of America in the middle east. While the Saudi govt. has our best interests at heart in order to protect their own, the royals know their population is completely anti-west. I would imagine they are walking the tirghtrope too, but will fall some day, maybe very soon. They are playing the game of protecting their oil relationship with the U.S. while at the same time, trying to keep their public from rising up and overthrowing them (thus the reason you see two-faced actions by their govt. time and time again: Ex) arresting Al-Qaeda operatives to appease the west, while on the same day, releasing some terrorists from prison that were invloved in the Khobar Tower bombings against U.S. troops in 1995).

I'll stop there for now. I'll end by saying that I realize none of you know me and will be skeptical at my credibility. I can only promise you that everything I've said above is true. When you've seen the middle east as I've seen it, you'll realize that when Americans are asking "Why the war in Iraq?" they are asking the wrong question. The question is when will the next terrorist attack on our country be and how bad will it be? The middle east CAN NOT and in many cases it seems WILL NOT do what's necessary to control their people because (1) they're not equipped to, and (2) doing so would alienate a large faction of their population meaning no re-election or a possible overthrow depending ont eh country's governmental system. The U.S. can not sit back and wait to see what happens next even if it means going against the will of the world as we seem to currently be doing. Americans have all ready voiced their opposition to tighter security around the country (see business man who can't wait the extra hour at the airport due to security checks) so the only choice is for America to take an aggressive action to rid the threat of middle eastern terrorism which America is currently doing. I would argue that we are hardly doing enough. The U.S. needs an alternate fuel supply now more than ever and I'm not convinced that we are pursuing one aggressively enough. The oil lobbies in Washington have always been among the most influential lobbies. Without the alternative fuel supply, the U.S. will continue to allow the Saudis to run things in Arabia and as I mentioned above, part of running things in Saudi Arabia is not alienating the public to the point where overthrowing the king becomes the public's only option. I can promise you that the middle east is the biggest threat we've ever seen to this country and if we sit back and let nature take it's course, we will very soon experience things that make September 11th look like a day at the circus.

 

Why was it this one? Read my post above. It's about geographic strategy, plain and simple. With Saudi Arabia asking America to leave, the U.S. has no base from which to control the Arab world and it DOES need to be controlled for American interests, not just economic. When people say "It's about the oil" they're right if they say it's about protecting the Saudi-American oil relationship upon which both of our economies depend and they're wrong if they think the war is some form of corporate piracy.

 

While it's true that Venezuela is the 2nd largest exporter of oil to America, the Venezuealan oil reserves are only a grain of sand compared to the desert of oil that the Saudis sit on. Venezuela could not meet U.S. oil demands without Arab oil and even if they could, they could not offer us the cheap price for oil that the Saudis are offering.

Israel will always be a factor in U.S. politics with regards to the middle east it seems. I agree that we should have let that Cold War policy die long ago no matter what would have happened to the Isrtaelis as a result. I do not, however, think the U.S. government's recent actions in the middle east are an attempt to preserve Israeli sovreignty though. These actions are offensives whose ultimate goals are the eventual changing of the middle eastern society. Part of the Iraq issue is "let's see if we can't get a thriving, successful democracy in Iraq as a model to the rest of the middle east". Personally, I don't think this is a realistic goal, but the actions of an administration that realize that, if Americans and America are not willing to give up some of their freedoms in order for the country to police and protect itself, then the only option is to get rid of those that would try and harm our people and economy from abroad. You can do that by annihilating the middle east, not a realistic goal unless you want to change our flag from the stars and stripes to the Nazi eagle. A better alternative is to change the way the middle east views the west. That requires changing the social structure of the middle east and unless you are going to occupy all the countries of the middle east, your best bet to achieve your goals is to make an example in the middle east and that is what the administration is hoping Iraq will be. At the same time, you create a large base in Iraq which borders the three most problematic countries in the region in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Combined with the fact that all of these countries saw the ease with which America toppled Saddam's regime, this is a powerful and effective statement. The military action itself was a message. Word in the middle east up until a couple months ago was that America was too weak to fight a ground battle. That view is now extinct in the middle east as it was seen that America can not only fight and win a ground battle, but they can do it without breaking a sweat.

Finally, you ask why we don't just pull out of the middle east altogether. That's where the alternative fuel supply problem comes in because unless we get that alternative fuel supply, there simply is not enough oil in Alaska, Russia, Venezuela, etc. to make up for the oil we would no longer be getting from the middle east. So as long as Americans and more importantly, the American economy is dependant on oil (actually that should say "Cheap" oil) we will have a presence in the middle east. Whether that presence is based on a mutual relationship or force will largely depend on the middle east no matter who or what party is in the White House.