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Saudi Arabia now "has the opportunity to regain its leading role" in the region after it "subsided in favor of Iran and Turkey following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq," in 2003, observed political analyst Abdullah al-Shummari. Read more: www.upi.com...
His elevation to chief of Saudi Arabia's vast intelligence network, and the unlimited funds it controls, came only one day after the embattled Damascus regime was battered by the loss of four of President Bashar Assad's most important security chiefs in a bombing inside the heavily guarded national security headquarters. Read more: www.upi.com...
originally posted by: marg6043
originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: marg6043
and we got Saudi and company.
Exato mudo, my friend, regardless of what kind of regional conflicts are brewing in the Middle east US will always protect the Saud feudal monarchy and their oil control, but also Kuwait and Quatar.
originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: dimdown
And that is correct, Osama is a product of western influences, I mean money and power, I say is because even when I know he died is many others just like him waiting for their turn.
originally posted by: Wrabbit2000
Yeeeah.. That explains why we're headhunting them and killing them on sight with drones in 4 nations right now. It gives perfect context to why CIA agents were and for all I know, still are of special importance for A.Q. to target for assassination in Afghanistan. They seem to throw a full blown party when they get an honest to god CIA Officer.
That all makes total sense for the umbrella organization..or whats left of it...being a supported entity of the U.S. Government.
Or..maybe..that's not entirely accurate? That's always possible too.
Double jeopardy, Wrab. Besides the drones being used, or perhaps, were being used were just too big and innocents got killed and that is what pisses me off.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 provided the kingdom with an ideal opportunity to sponsor a bona fide holy war that would showcase Wahhabi ideals and quiet Iranian-inspired Islamist opposition to the monarchy. Madrasas around the Arab and Islamic world produced shock troops for this jihad. After the Russians were driven out of Afghanistan, these "Arab Afghans" began trickling home and looked for other jihads. The Saudis had created a monster; to be sure they did not wreak havoc inside the kingdom, bin Laden and other Saudi Islamists were encouraged to wage holy war abroad. When the Clinton administration cornered Osama bin Laden in the Sudan in 1998, the Saudis refused to allow his extradition back home, where he could be neutralized. Instead, the Saudi intelligence chief – Prince Turki – reportedly offered bin Laden $200 million to go to Afghanistan, on the condition that he not target the Saudi royal family. Bin Laden honored his promise – there has not been a single attack by Al-Qaeda against the Al-Saud family. Inside the kingdom, Al-Qaeda has only operated against the Americans and the British. Over time, the understanding became that bin Laden would leave the Saudis alone only if they allowed the network of charities funding Al-Qaeda to operate unhindered. On the day after the September 11 attacks, the first thing Riyadh did was evacuate two dozen members of the bin Laden family residing in the US on the private jet of its ambassador, Prince Bandar.
Thus, when FDR met with King Abdulaziz bin Saud in 1945, a marriage of convenience was born. But the original reasons for this marriage of convenience have long since faded away. It is time for a divorce.
originally posted by: marg6043
a reply to: neo96
No, no an entire product but most of it.
Arguably the best-known mujahideen outside the Islamic world, various loosely aligned Afghan opposition groups initially rebelled against the government of the pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) during the late 1970s. At the DRA's request, the Soviet Union brought forces into the country to aid the government from 1979. The mujahideen fought against Soviet and DRA troops during the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1979-1989); the United States provided assistance. After the Soviet Union pulled out of the conflict in the late 1980s, the mujahideen fought each other for control in the subsequent Afghan Civil War.
originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: smurfy
Double jeopardy, Wrab. Besides the drones being used, or perhaps, were being used were just too big and innocents got killed and that is what pisses me off.
People were getting killed long before drones came on the scene.
As in Clintons cruise missiles that failed to hit their targets.
The collapse of central authority also was evident in Baghdad, where the Iraqi Parliament failed to muster a quorum to consider a request from Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki for a declaration of a state of emergency. Maliki responded in a statement read on state television by accusing Sunni political parties of conspiring to destroy the state. In recent days, Maliki, who also serves as the defense minister, has blamed the same parties for the army’s massive desertion in the face of the ISIS offensive.
“Iraq’s future at this point is being shaped by conflict rather than by a viable political system. No one really knows where it’s going,” Salman Sheikh, the director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, said in a telephone interview from Beirut. “The long-term impact could be quite cataclysmic, not just for Iraq, but for the entire region.”
The prediction that Iraq would one day descend into an ungovernable space of feuding ethnic and religious groups was first made when U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Now that it seemed to be happening, many found it difficult to grasp the unfolding reality.