Saudi sandstorm a-brewing
A few days later, Vice President Dick Cheney repeated the allegation that the "evidence is overwhelming" of an Iraq-al-Qaeda axis and that there had been a "whole series of high-level contacts" between them, but refused to supply any such evidence.
And yet the Bush administration, dependent on Saudi oil and rich from arms sales, continues to ignore the culpability of the House of Saud, to the extent that it blacked out 28 pages of a Congressional report that documented Saudi government ties with the 9/11 hijackers.
Saudi Arabia's special ties to the USA date back to the end of World War II, when Franklin D. Roosevelt and Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abd al aziz bin Abd al-Rahman Al Saud, reached a basic understanding that the USA would protect the royal family in return for preferred access to Saudi oil, which amounts to around 25 percent of the world's total and which now accounts for one-sixth of U.S. consumption.
From the very beginning, the Saudi royal family, whose 30,000 or so members populate every key post in the government, sought legitimacy through religion. An alliance with the family of Muhammed Abd al-Wahhab, founder of Saudi Arabia's puritan Wahhabite sect, supplied the ideology that three successive Saudi regimes have wielded to hold sway in the Middle East. Through this alliance the royal family has managed to inculcate a radical notion of Islam. After destroying all the Sufi and Shi'a shrines, it fostered the belief that Saudi Arabia itself, and not just the sacred cities of Medina and Mecca, is holy territory and, by implication, sanctifies the rule of the house of Saud.
Within the kingdom, religious conformity is enforced by the Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice (the "religious police" or Mutawwa'in) and no other form of worship is tolerated. Even the Shi'a minority are subject to officially sanctioned political and economic discrimination. The Wahhabis have used oil revenues to remake Islam in their own puritanical image and now dominate as much as 95 percent of Arabic language media and control 80 percent of mosques in the USA.
A direct result of this is that many Muslims have been taught a version of Islam that justifies violence and breeds a strong antipathy towards non-Muslims. According to a New York Times report, all public high schools in Saudi Arabia teach mandatory classes in anti-Christian, anti-Western religious fundamentalism, with nearly 30 percent of all class time devoted to instruction.
Yet the House of Saud is held in suspicion by nearly everyone who is not a member of it. There are 3-4,000 Saudi princes (some 30-40 new males are born every month) who get a monthly stipend of between $4,000 and $128,000 plus various other perks. These stipends are enhanced by commissions of 20 to 40 percent on arms and construction deals and any other business transacted within the kingdom. It is estimated that at least 40 percent of national revenues flow to the royal family. Another 30 percent of revenues are used for the acquisition of modern weapons from the West, in particular the USA, and about 12 percent goes into servicing the national debt. In 1982, Saudi Arabia had reserves of $170 billion. Today, the national debt is almost that amount, and the Saudi state has run up budget deficits for 17 straight years, with a public debt of 150 percent of annual income.
Thus the average Saudi hasn't done as well as the royals. Per capita income has plunged from $28,600 in 1981 to less than $7,000 today, and while Saudi Arabia employs 6 million foreigners, the unemployment rate amongst Saudis has been estimated to be as high as 40 percent.
Part of the problem lies in the pace of population growth. In 1973, Saudi Arabia had a population of roughly 6.8 million. This grew to 22 million by 2000 and is projected to reach 25.8 million in 2005 and over 30 million in 2010. Currently, over 70 percent of the population are under 30 and each year an estimated 50,000 boys leave school only to find it impossible to land jobs. Perhaps they just sit around, read the Koran, procreate, and dream of a revolution creating a perfect world. Even many of the younger princes, educated in the West, are frustrated with the older generation, whom they consider corrupt and slavish to the USA.
The teenage years are problematic in all societies. Suicide rates among teenagers have increased throughout the world. Young people do not need to be Saudi Arabian, Muslim or even religious to be tempted by a simple and magical solution to their problems, and sacrificing one's life for the betterment of mankind has even created saints in the Roman Catholic Church. But the unusual social and religious environment of Saudi Arabia and the intensification of the long-running Israeli and Western practices of conquest, colonization, occupation and humiliation, of which Muslims are so visibly the victims, combine to make young Saudi Arabian men particularly prone to this temptation.
Once there is the perception that a regime is doomed, it is usually only a matter of time before it actually collapses, and there are significant parallels between the current situation in Saudi Arabia and the final months of the Shah of Iran before his flight into exile. This was followed by the Islamic revolution that swept the ayatollahs into power and cost the USA one of its key regional allies.
Anyone who can seize control of Saudi oil can also control the future of the world economy. When the price of oil exceeded $40 a barrel, it caused consternation in the markets. Yet even simply allowing for inflation, the peaks of nearly 25 years ago would equate to $70 a barrel today. Include a little 'geo-political uncertainty' and $100 per barrel is not out of the question. Add a revolution and the control of a huge arsenal of some of the most advanced military weaponry in the world and we are back to the bicycle as a preferred means of transport. Some cycles are about to start.
And yet the Bush administration, dependent on Saudi oil and rich from arms sales, continues to ignore the culpability of the House of Saud, to the extent that it blacked out 28 pages of a Congressional report that documented Saudi government ties with the 9/11 hijackers.
Saudi Arabia's special ties to the USA date back to the end of World War II, when Franklin D. Roosevelt and Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abd al aziz bin Abd al-Rahman Al Saud, reached a basic understanding that the USA would protect the royal family in return for preferred access to Saudi oil, which amounts to around 25 percent of the world's total and which now accounts for one-sixth of U.S. consumption.
From the very beginning, the Saudi royal family, whose 30,000 or so members populate every key post in the government, sought legitimacy through religion. An alliance with the family of Muhammed Abd al-Wahhab, founder of Saudi Arabia's puritan Wahhabite sect, supplied the ideology that three successive Saudi regimes have wielded to hold sway in the Middle East. Through this alliance the royal family has managed to inculcate a radical notion of Islam. After destroying all the Sufi and Shi'a shrines, it fostered the belief that Saudi Arabia itself, and not just the sacred cities of Medina and Mecca, is holy territory and, by implication, sanctifies the rule of the house of Saud.
Within the kingdom, religious conformity is enforced by the Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice (the "religious police" or Mutawwa'in) and no other form of worship is tolerated. Even the Shi'a minority are subject to officially sanctioned political and economic discrimination. The Wahhabis have used oil revenues to remake Islam in their own puritanical image and now dominate as much as 95 percent of Arabic language media and control 80 percent of mosques in the USA.
A direct result of this is that many Muslims have been taught a version of Islam that justifies violence and breeds a strong antipathy towards non-Muslims. According to a New York Times report, all public high schools in Saudi Arabia teach mandatory classes in anti-Christian, anti-Western religious fundamentalism, with nearly 30 percent of all class time devoted to instruction.
Yet the House of Saud is held in suspicion by nearly everyone who is not a member of it. There are 3-4,000 Saudi princes (some 30-40 new males are born every month) who get a monthly stipend of between $4,000 and $128,000 plus various other perks. These stipends are enhanced by commissions of 20 to 40 percent on arms and construction deals and any other business transacted within the kingdom. It is estimated that at least 40 percent of national revenues flow to the royal family. Another 30 percent of revenues are used for the acquisition of modern weapons from the West, in particular the USA, and about 12 percent goes into servicing the national debt. In 1982, Saudi Arabia had reserves of $170 billion. Today, the national debt is almost that amount, and the Saudi state has run up budget deficits for 17 straight years, with a public debt of 150 percent of annual income.
Thus the average Saudi hasn't done as well as the royals. Per capita income has plunged from $28,600 in 1981 to less than $7,000 today, and while Saudi Arabia employs 6 million foreigners, the unemployment rate amongst Saudis has been estimated to be as high as 40 percent.
Part of the problem lies in the pace of population growth. In 1973, Saudi Arabia had a population of roughly 6.8 million. This grew to 22 million by 2000 and is projected to reach 25.8 million in 2005 and over 30 million in 2010. Currently, over 70 percent of the population are under 30 and each year an estimated 50,000 boys leave school only to find it impossible to land jobs. Perhaps they just sit around, read the Koran, procreate, and dream of a revolution creating a perfect world. Even many of the younger princes, educated in the West, are frustrated with the older generation, whom they consider corrupt and slavish to the USA.
The teenage years are problematic in all societies. Suicide rates among teenagers have increased throughout the world. Young people do not need to be Saudi Arabian, Muslim or even religious to be tempted by a simple and magical solution to their problems, and sacrificing one's life for the betterment of mankind has even created saints in the Roman Catholic Church. But the unusual social and religious environment of Saudi Arabia and the intensification of the long-running Israeli and Western practices of conquest, colonization, occupation and humiliation, of which Muslims are so visibly the victims, combine to make young Saudi Arabian men particularly prone to this temptation.
Once there is the perception that a regime is doomed, it is usually only a matter of time before it actually collapses, and there are significant parallels between the current situation in Saudi Arabia and the final months of the Shah of Iran before his flight into exile. This was followed by the Islamic revolution that swept the ayatollahs into power and cost the USA one of its key regional allies.
Anyone who can seize control of Saudi oil can also control the future of the world economy. When the price of oil exceeded $40 a barrel, it caused consternation in the markets. Yet even simply allowing for inflation, the peaks of nearly 25 years ago would equate to $70 a barrel today. Include a little 'geo-political uncertainty' and $100 per barrel is not out of the question. Add a revolution and the control of a huge arsenal of some of the most advanced military weaponry in the world and we are back to the bicycle as a preferred means of transport. Some cycles are about to start.
