Here's a very well written article from Seymour M. Hersh, the author of my favorite book on the Kennedys - '[i][b]The Dark Side of Camelot'[/b][/i], on the Anti-American side of the Saudis.

It's in [i]The New Yorker[/i] and may be found at:[url] http://www.newyorker.com/FACT/?011022fa_FACT1[/quote]

It's too long to reproduce here, but a few excerpts should give you the tone of the article:

[size=4]KING'S RANSOM[/size=4]

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

[i]How vulnerable are the Saudi royals?[/i]

Issue of 2001-10-22
Posted 2001-10-16

Since 1994 or earlier, the National Security Agency has been collecting electronic intercepts of conversations between members of the Saudi Arabian royal family, which is headed by King Fahd. The intercepts depict a regime increasingly corrupt, alienated from the country's religious rank and file, and so weakened and frightened that it has brokered its future by channelling hundreds of millions of dollars in what amounts to protection money to fundamentalist groups that wish to overthrow it.

The intercepts have demonstrated to analysts that by 1996 Saudi money was supporting Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Central Asia, and throughout the Persian Gulf region. "Ninety-six is the key year," one American intelligence official told me. "Bin Laden hooked up to all the bad guys—it's like the Grand Alliance— and had a capability for conducting large-scale operations." The Saudi regime, he said, had "gone to the dark side."

In interviews last week, current and former intelligence and military officials portrayed the growing instability of the Saudi regime—and the vulnerability of its oil reserves to terrorist attack—as the most immediate threat to American economic and political interests in the Middle East. The officials also said that the Bush Administration, like the Clinton Administration, is refusing to confront this reality, even in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks.

The Saudis and the Americans arranged a meeting between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and King Fahd during a visit by Rumsfeld to Saudi Arabia shortly before the beginning of the air war in Afghanistan, and pictures of the meeting were transmitted around the world. The United States, however, has known that King Fahd has been incapacitated since suffering a severe stroke, in late 1995. A Saudi adviser told me last week that the King, with round-the-clock medical treatment, is able to sit in a chair and open his eyes, but is usually unable to recognize even his oldest friends. Fahd is being kept on the throne, the N.S.A. intercepts indicate, because of a bitter family power struggle. Fahd's nominal successor is Crown Prince Abdullah, his half brother, who is to some extent the de-facto ruler—he and Prince Sultan, the defense minister, were the people Rumsfeld really came to see. But there is infighting about money: Abdullah has been urging his fellow-princes to address the problem of corruption in the kingdom—unsuccessfully, according to the intercepts. "The only reason Fahd's being kept alive is so Abdullah can't become king," a former White House adviser told me.

- continued -

The American intelligence officials have been particularly angered by the refusal of the Saudis to help the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. run "traces"—that is, name checks and other background information—on the nineteen men, more than half of them believed to be from Saudi Arabia, who took part in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "They knew that once we started asking for a few traces the list would grow," one former official said. "It's better to shut it down right away." He pointed out that thousands of disaffected Saudis have joined fundamentalist groups throughout the Middle East. Other officials said that there is a growing worry inside the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. that the actual identities of many of those involved in the attacks may not be known definitively for months, if ever. Last week, a senior intelligence official confirmed the lack of Saudi coöperation and told me, angrily, that the Saudis "have only one constant—and it's keeping themselves in power."

The N.S.A. intercepts reveal the hypocrisy of many in the Saudi royal family, and why the family has become increasingly estranged from the vast majority of its subjects. Over the years, unnerved by the growing strength of the fundamentalist movement, it has failed to deal with the underlying issues of severe unemployment and inadequate education, in a country in which half the population is under the age of eighteen. Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism, and its use of mutawwa'in—religious police—to enforce prayer, is rivalled only by the Taliban's. And yet for years the Saudi princes—there are thousands of them—have kept tabloid newspapers filled with accounts of their drinking binges and partying with prostitutes, while taking billions of dollars from the state budget. The N.S.A. intercepts are more specific. In one call, Prince Nayef, who has served for more than two decades as interior minister, urges a subordinate to withhold from the police evidence of the hiring of prostitutes, presumably by members of the royal family. According to the summary, Nayef said that he didn't want the "client list" released under any circumstances.

*    *    *

Eric The(Yes,OneOfOurClosestAlliesInTheRegion)Hun[>]:)]

Then read this article - from worldnetdaily.com:
[url]http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24968[/url]

[size=4][b]Saudis created jihad monster[/b][/size=4]
[b]Fear of radical Shi'ites led to promotion of radical Sunnis[/b]

The Saudi royal family has been thrown into panic.

It is facing the most serious threat to its rule since the 1990 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

The difference is that the Iraqi threat was external. This time, the House of Saud faces an internal threat.

What happened? In short, the Saudis have created a monster. It began in 1979 when the Shah of Iran was overthrown by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Saudi kingdom was in panic. The kingdom had a large Shi'ite minority and the new Islamic regime in Iran was openly questioning the legitimacy of Saudi sovereignty over Mecca, the birthplace of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

From that moment, the Saudis decided to play tit for tat. Riyad would export fanatic Sunni zealotry to combat Iran's Shi'ite militancy. The first test was in Afghanistan, invaded by the Soviets months after the Iranian revolution. Riyad helped recruit thousands of Saudis and other nationals to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, Iran's neighbor.

From the start, the Taliban movement supported by Riyad was anti-Iranian. For the practical-minded Saudi leadership, the fight in Afghanistan was a muted warning to Iran to stay out of Saudi affairs. A key player in the Saudi effort was Osama bin Laden.

The Saudis were ecstatic when the Taliban helped expel Soviet troops from Afghanistan. But by that time, Bin Laden and thousands of Saudi and Egyptian nationals fighting in Afghanistan saw their mission as just beginning. Riyad was never the target. Instead, it would be Egypt, Algeria and Jordan -- in other words, secular Arab regimes.

Today, the Saudi leadership has been torn by what to do with bin Laden. The problem is not that of one man: It is that of thousands of Saudis sponsored by their families and leading princes in the kingdom as part of the Wahabi commitment to Islamic zealotry. The feeling is that any move to limit, let alone stop, the Sunni Islamic drive would break up the kingdom -- whether from within or without. Wahabi tradition is the only glue that keeps the desert Bedouin loyal to the billionnaire princes.

*     *     *

Eric The(ClassDismissed)Hun[>]:)]

The edited address for the Seymour Hersh article is:
[url]http://www.newyorker.com/FACT/?011022fa_FACT1[/url]

Eric The(Sorrowful)Hun[>]:)]

A link for more anti-Saud info:
[url]http://www.sauduction.com/welcome.html[/url]

And an interview with one of their special friends:
[url]http://www.mg.co.za/mg/news/99feb2/19feb-idiamin.html[/url]
[img]http://www.insightful-riot.com/ida.jpg[/img]

What if you had a plane that flew at 60,000 feet and only got close to the ground during take off and landing and it picked up a .308 hole in the wing. And we um i mean hypathetically the security guarding the plane were carring the m16 then the hypothetical saudi guards probably shot at it right??  Not that I was ever there Heard about it or something??

I am a believer in radical wasabeism.

We must overthrow the the non-wasabes to attain open sinuses!!![;D]

Oh, please... That's a load of horseradish! [rolleyes]