[Austin-ghetto-list] Time to bomb the Saudis?

[Roger Baker]

Talk about ingratitude! Here we keep buying all that oil from the Saudis
and now they don't even want us to use their airbases to launch bombing
raids against the Taliban so we can teach the guys who did it that it
doesn't pay to mess around with a superpower. 

And like GWBush says, we have to look at the world in terms of whether
they're on our side or not and it looks like the Saudis are lining up on
the wrong side and holding up our war against terrorism just because the
Saudi kings and princes have started listening to a few terribly
misinformed Saudi Islamic fundamentalists preaching religious stuff that
is obviously way out of date in the modern world because -- DUH! -- they
didn't even have any air bases when they wrote the Koran!!!

And like Bush says, this is a crusade, and we know who did it and its
time to bomb the Afghani terrorists even further back into the stone age
than the Soviets did, and just like they did to us first. And anyway, a
few demonstation strikes on somewhere that gets their attention real
good like on Mecca, and just like that Saudi devil Osama
bin-whats-his-name did to us, might convince all those Arabs and the
Islamic fellow travellers to sell us oil even cheaper than now. You
gotta break a few eggs to make a mayonnaise, right? No bombs, no respect.

              ***************************************** 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6731-2001Sep21.html



"Saudis Balk At Use of Key Facility 

By Vernon Loeb and Dana Priest

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, September 22, 2001; Page A01
 
Saudi Arabia is resisting the United States' request to use a new
command center on a Saudi military base in any air war against
terrorists, forcing Pentagon planners to consider alternatives that
could delay a campaign for weeks, defense officials said yesterday.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is trying to persuade the Saudi
government to reverse a decade-old policy in which it has refused to
allow the United States to stage or command offensive air operations
from Saudi air bases, officials said.
While high-level talks aimed at resolving the matter are underway, the
Pentagon is already considering moving the operations center to another
country, the officials added. They did not specify where.

A refusal by the Saudis would deal a significant blow to the Bush
administration's efforts to build a broad international coalition in its
effort to destroy the terrorist network of Saudi extremist Osama bin
Laden and Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, which has harbored bin
Laden and many of his top lieutenants.

The Pentagon had been counting on using the command center at Prince
Sultan Air Base in the coming air war. Besides delaying any operation,
Saudi unwillingness to allow the United Sates to use Saudi bases for
offensive operations could send a strong signal to the Arab world that
accepting Washington's demands is not a prerequisite for ongoing
relations with Washington..."