2008 July Edition

FOREIGN and DOMESTIC POLICY
POLITICAL and MEDIA ANALYSIS
Links to Revealing References and News Sources

Highlighted Article
Saudi Power - Shaping another U.S. Foreign Policy Misadventure

The Saudi Arabia kingdom can be the poster child for a characterization of the Middle East as an area that contains despotic governments and deprives its peoples of freedom and basic human rights. Saudis have been accused of financing terrorist activities and the Saudi government's support of worldwide Islamic charities and schools, which have questionable links to terrorism, has been criticized. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia has had friendly relations with all U.S. administrations, is a major customer of U.S. military weapons, and receives its principal economic support from sales of petroleum to U.S. oil companies. The U.S. comfortable relationship with Saudi Arabia makes a mockery of U.S. plans for international peace through promotion of democracy and defeat of terrorism by attacking the sources of terrorism. Just the opposite: The flow of excessive capital to Saudi Arabia in exchange for oil supplies to the western world strengthens the authoritarian regime, enables it to finance the spread of its intolerant form of Islam and provides it with capital for massive internal investments. The dependence of western nations on Saudi oil has made Saudi Arabia a Middle East powerhouse that is now able to shape Middle East policy and lead U.S. foreign policy down another path of confusion, counterproductive actions and eventual regret. This path starts by being blind to the warning signs that demonstrate the nature, despotism and intolerance of the Saudi regime.

Comments
Congress bungles the Scott McClellan story.

The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use an authoritative report on Executive Department illegal actions for possible impeachment and perjury procedures. Maybe it was intentional, but that they bungled the opportunity.

Undoubtedly, the Judiciary Committee wanted former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan's revelations of Bush administration prevarications, fabrications and treachery in convincing the nation of a need for attack on Iraq to leap from the pages of McClellan's book into public view and pave the way to perjury charges against former administration officials, especially Bush's political advisor Karl Rove, and possible impeachment charges against President Bush.

Republican representatives behaved as anticipated; dismissing McClellan as a vindictive crank. Texas Congressman Lamar Smith characterized his Party's thrust with the remark: "Scott McClellan alone will have to wrestle with whether it was worth selling out the president and his friends for a few pieces of silver."

The committee Democrats succeeded in supporting the Republican thrust. Their line of questioning resulted in undesirable responses and made McClellan seem vindictive. Instead of soliciting facts, several Democrats solicited opinions, which forced McClellan into expressing judgments rather than supplying authoritative information.

Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas): "In terms of the buildup to the Iraq war, would you describe it as telling an untruth?"
McClellan: "It was not completely truthful, that's the way I would describe it,"

Instead of having the former press secretary recite supporting facts for Karl Rove perfidy and perjury, Representative Artur Davis (D-Ala.) rambled for several minutes about Karl Rove's perfidy and possible perjury and then requested McClellan to recite his biases.

Davis: "Does it surprise you that Karl Rove agreed to appear before the Judiciary Committee only under extraordinarily limited conditions."
McClellan: "It doesn't surprise me, and I think it's all part of an effort to stonewall the process."
Davis:"Would you trust Mr. Rove if he were not under oath?"
McClellan: "Well, based on my own experience, I could not say that I would."

The Democrats turned a smoking gun to use for impeachment of President Bush into smoke. Instead of acquiring ammunition for an impeachment process, they succeeded into having their agenda shot full of holes. ,

Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.)."Do you think either [the President or the Vice President] or both of them knew about the leak or had any role in causing the leak to happen?"

McClellan"I do not think the President, in any way, had knowledge about it, based on my conversations with him back at that time…. In terms of the Vice President, I do not know, there is a lot of suspicion there. As Patrick Fitzgerald said in the trial of Scooter Libby, there is a cloud that remains over the Vice President's office, but it's because Scooter Libby put it there by lying and obstructing justice."

The former press secretary's response to a loaded question that asked if he would support the impeachment of Bush, Cheney or both.
McClellan: "I do not support impeachment based on what I know."

Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) asked if McClellan believed Bush authorized the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's name.
McClellan: "No."

Congressman Kucinich, who has sponsored a bill for impeachment of President Bush, must have writhed in agony as he noted one of his best witnesses being led into saying: "I do not support impeachment based on what I know."

Observations
Saudi Arabia is a story.

The U.S. presents policies of aggressively countering repressive regimes, radical Islam, and international terrorism and challenging nations that violate human rights and are intolerant of religions and women. Although Saudi Arabia has used earnings from its massive oil resources to benefit its citizens and is slowly liberalizing its government, no nation deserves U.S. antagonistic policies and disqualifies itself for U.S. friendship as much as does the present desert kingdom. Yet, the U.S. has enabled Saudi Arabia to become one of the world's richest nations and a leading exporter of capital, which solidify its despotic regime and enable it to control the welfare of other nations. Saddam Hussein's now destroyed Iraq and the Mullah's soon to be destroyed Iran are much, much less despotic than the Saudi regime. U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia tell a story of hypocrisy, lies, deceit, greed, subterfuge and disregard for human rights.

Characteristic	Saddam's Iraq	Saudi Arabia	Iran
Democratic	NO	NO	NO
Repressive Regime	YES	YES	YES
Islamic Rule	NO	Most Extreme	Extreme
Tolerates all Religions	Fair	Only Islam	Within Limits
Nationals participated in 9/11 terrorist act	NO	YES	NO
Women' Rights	YES	None	Limited
Spawned International Terrorists	NO	YES	NO
Leaders control economy for own financial advantage	Partly	Totally	NO
Exporter of capital	NO	YES	NO
Jet set leaders	NO	YES	NO
Relations with U.S.	None	Great	None
Attitude of West	Hostile	Friendly	Hostile

By favoring Saudi Arabia, the United States and European nations have contradicted their "stated " policies of bringing democracy and freedom to the world. They have also jeopardized the futures of their own peoples.

The gigantic factories that made Lodz, Poland the clothing manufacturer of the world during the 19th century have been converted into malls, recreational centers and condominiums.