Bombing in Saudi Arabia

http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,189949-1-9,00.html

Quite ironic that given this has just happened that trapper is saying the anti-war lobby were wrong. This attack proves two things, firstly that removing saddam was not going to prevent terrorist actions, secondly the hatred towards the west in general and the US in particular has not diminished and has most likely got worse.

The war on terrorism has only just begun. Its going to be a lot harder than wiping put a few iraqi soldiers.

Well, the US has turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia in the past for all sorts of reasons:

Political and Economic reasons.

Facts:

A bunch of the alleged 9/11 hi-jackers came from Saudi Arabia.

The Bin Laden family has ties with the Bush family - the Bin Ladens live in Saudi Arabia...

Saudi Arbai has some very extreme SIlamic fundamenatlist groups.


Still, the US did not drop bombs or invade Saudi Arabia as part of its 'war on terror', did it?

This is the one place that is blatantly fundeing terroism and full of terroists.

Why is that?

Fact:

My spelling is shite today

Another interseting point about the Bin Laden's:

When all the airspace was closed after the 9/11 thing, there was one plane flying around - picking up memebers of th Bin Laden family.

Sep 13-19, 2001: Bin Laden's family are taken under FBI supervision to a secret assembly point. They leave the country on a private charter plane when airports reopen three days after the attacks (when the international airspace is reopened) [New York Times, 9/30/01]



http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york091102.asp

Of course taking out saddam (if he is indeed dead, which is unlikely... the bad guys always come back for one more go! ) isn't gonna make anything better.... we all knew that... it's a shame that the people who could have stopped this at our end, ie our turn to be nice, didn't stop it and have continued the cycle.....

got a way to go now before it comes full circle again i think...

One of Bin Laden’s stated goals was the removal of US troops from Saudi Arabian soil, although now that they are finally leaving he initiates another attack.

This will only result in the Saudis hardening their stance against terrorism: Another backfire for Bin Laden.

rofl, dude. The removal of saddam was never supposed to end terrorism or end Arab hatred of the west. What gave you that idea?

There is no evidence that the attacks in Saudi Arabia were carried out by anyone linked to Bin Laden

The potential is of course there, however there is countless organisations with the motive, skills, people and ability to carry out these attacks

Bin Ladens goals do not mean that he or his organisation are behind these attacks

Even Bush didn't point his finger directly in that direction Trapper

Shall we wait and see?

trapper: i think JAH was not saying that the point was to stop terrorism or stop arab hatred of the west, but that it's made some very very bad things much much worse!

the Saudis are pretty two-faced.

On one hand they appear to adhere to the Western views of 'how the world should be', on the other they despise the US/Western involvement in their country.

All praise Jah - Rastafari!

Its bullshit. Im sick of this idea that u can prevent terror, u cant. What If I decided to blow something up. Nobody would ever suspect it. It only takes one person, no amount of fighting and bombing can stop this.

aaaaaand on the other hand they run a discriminating oppressive monarchy....

yes they do - they execute gay men for er, being gay....

That is a massive twisting of what I said trapper, I said prevent terrorist actions, not end terrorism - two very different things. I also said diminish not end in regards to arab hatred of the west. Your credibility goes when you twist things like that.

The point I was making is that people saying the anti-war people were wrong in there predictions aren't as not long after the war one of the aims has obviously not been achieved (terrorism against western targets is still happeneing, probably by al queda) and a consequence of the war (hatred of the west, oparticularly the US) seems to be happening just as expected.

Ok sorry bad choice of words, but substitute in the changes and my meaning remains the same.


Removal of Saddam wasn't meant to prevent terrorist actions (aside from diminishing the possibility of WMD being used in a terrorist attack). Removal of Saddam wasn't meant to diminish hatred towards the west.

You are basically inventing your own pro-saddam removal argument to argue against.

the one thing that should be obvious from sept 11th is that terrorists don't NEED amazing weapons or big bombs....

just a couple of aeroplanes...

what the fuck was it for then?

That leaves:

1) Oil
2) Showing the world who's boss by brute force

anyone else?

Iraq was seen as harbouring terrorists and so therefore removing the regime would reduce their support, hence reduced terrorist attacks. It was certainly sold as part of the war against terrorism to the US people.

In terms of hatred of the west, I know the removal of saddam was not meant to decrease this, my point is the anti-war people claimed it will get worse. Seems that may well have been the case.

trapper and jah are right. Invading Iraq would not have increased the level of hatred against Saudi/US interests, because plenty of hatred was already there. If you're willing to throw-in your life to further a cause, I find it hard to believe that US bombing of Iraq would have been the "swing-factor" to make you go one way or the other.

There's also no evidence to suggest that the bombing wasn't orchestrated before the war began. As such, it's difficult to say whether terrorism HAS in fact increased.

well the major reason, the Weapons of Mass Destruction (read deception), has basically fallen to ashes....

so what has america actually completed, taking into account what they said they were going to do. they have removed a threat to their national security, due to the safety of their resources being a prime concern for national security. they have removed saddam, which they set out to do. they have not as yet provided proof of his demise, just he loss of power in iraq.

i distinctly remember you saying that this war was not about liberating the iraqi people, in our discussions prior to the war. so we can call that collateral spoils.

It's still too early to determine whether the US has been successful. After all, the UN tried for 12 years (well, not quite -- they were expelled for a few years) to gain access to those weapons without success.

As Bob said earlier, we know Iraq had them (as documented in more than 16 UN resolutions) and the key question is what he did with them.

Just because the US hasn't been able to find a "smoking-gun" (although there have been examples of illicit projects -- you can interpret these yourself) doesn't mean the guns aren't there.

nuvolari: have been under a rock? the us has stopped looking for them... clearly they are not there. where they are is a good question....

In light of this attack, I ask one more question - Has the war on Iraq made the world a more or less safe place? I would say the world is more destablised and polarised than it was, another disasterous consequence of this neo-fascist corporatist US regime.

We desparately need regime change and restoration of functional democracy not in Iraq, but in the USA.

Not possessing illicit weapons is not the same as being not being able to find out where they are. Read my earlier post!

Also, it amazes me that you are willing to follow the interpretation of one article describing the redued scale of the illicit weapons search, yet ignore more than 16 UN resolutions that have been passed (remember that this takes nine votes (?) and no vetoes from any of the five permament members) which condemned Iraq for possessing illicit weapons (fact not opinion). Perhaps you should read some UN resolutions.

Has the war made the world a more or less safe place? Well given that:

(i) a regime that has encouraged its citizens to launch jihad against the US has been removed,
(ii) that Iran has indicated that it is willing to establish diplomatic ties with the US and temporariliy cease its support for hizbollah in Lebanon, in response to the signal sent to them from the US-led invasion of Iraq,
(iii) that the US/EU/UN and Russia have drafted a road-map towards Peace in the Israel Palestine/conflict now that the war is over, and
(iv) that Syria has toned down its anti-America rhetoric, and
(v) that NK has now indicated its willingness to enter into multilateral discussions (not just with the US, but also with its neighbours) because of the US-led invasion,

Yes, I believe the world is going to be a safer place.

Of course of the war was bound to involve an element of instability. They overthrow an OPPRESSIVE regime FFS. Oppression is the pinnacle of stability!

I hope you don't seriously attribute all of those things to the US pulverising iraq. The world is a far more complicated place than that. Anyway, its not the govts I'm worried about, its the individuals. If the US has succeeded in having more control in the middle east, as you seem to think, then that will lead to more terrorists, not less.

Of course not. But it sent a pretty strong fucken signal that if you threaten us, then we're not scared to annihilate you.

wouldn't a more "intelligent" and "civilised" response to a threat be, "why are you threatening us? what have we done to you?" and then enter into a PUBLIC hearing about it?

The public hearing went on for more than 12 years. There's only so much you can do with a serial repeat-offender.

you are only looking at the current situation. you need to look much further back than that my friend. after the first world war, the west marched in and took over that whole area, carved it up as they saw fit. maybe we should be playing a bit nicer now after having been the big bully before, no?