quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley America's relationship with Saudi Arabia is very dangerous, because American support in the Middle East is the "kiss of death" - by befriending the Americans, Prince Abdullah loses a lot of influence at home and ultimately his reformist policies will fail whist ever Prince Nayef can convince the country that these policies are an attempt to Americanise the country...

That was also the conclusion of the movie Syriana.

I don't agree with some of the points you made about Iran's current regime. In regards to Hamas, Iran is its biggest supporter not the Saudis.
Hezbollah, backbed by the Revolutionary Guards, has been a disruptive force not only on Israel but also for the democracy of Lebanon.
The current view of many Middle East leaders is that Iran wants a bigger foothold in the Middle East as far as power goes. Leaders of most Arabic countries are not concerned that Saudi Arabia will do the same. Furthermore, Iran-backed terrorist groups have been responsible for bombings around the world over the past 2 decades.

I actually downloaded Syriana but never got round to watching it so while my armchair football supporting mates hog the telly I might have a gander as it looked pretty good (altho 1. it is Man Utd vs Roma and 2. please don't base ANY of your political beliefs on a Hollywood film!)

As for the Middle East's concerns over Iran, it is rooted in the hatred between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. You've heard of the "Shiite Crescent"? That stretches from Lebanon, through Iraq and to Iran, who all have large Shiite populations. The rest of the Middle East countries fear that because they are Sunni and hate the Shiites. That is why Saudi Arabia is opposed to Iran. And that is why the other Middle East countries do not fear Saudi Arabia, because they are on the same team.

As for Iranian sponsorship of terrorism around the globe, other than two Hizballah attacks in Argentina in the early 1990s (if we claim that was Iran backed) then I'm not aware of any other terrorist attacks carried out by Hizballah (and therefore Iran if we follow that line of thinking) other than in Lebanon (where they are based) or Israel (who invaded Lebanon) or Iraq. Saudi money, on the other hand...well, anywhere al-Qaida has struck, including in New York and Washington...

But can you tell me about your views on "Iranian-backed" international terrorism because I know the Americans make these noises all the time recently but they never quite seem to back it up with any evidence...

quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley It is purely because of America's reliance on Saudi Arabian oil.

no it's not. it's about non-proliferation.

the propaganda is that it's all about Saudi oil when the reality is we produce for ourselves many times the amount of oil we get just from the peninsula.

at one point in this country around 50% of the oil we imported we got from the Saudis. we use magnitudes more since then but at the same time thanks to alternative sources we've weened and we're down to less than 10%.

we will continue to ween from Saudi oil. we have to. everyone will have to well within your lifetime.

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Originally posted by Q5echo no it's not. it's about non-proliferation. the propaganda is that it's all about Saudi oil when the reality is we produce for ourselves many times the amount of oil we get just from the peninsula. at one point in this country around 50% of the oil we imported we got from the Saudis. we use magnitudes more since then but at the same time thanks to alternative sources we've weened and we're down to less than 10%. we will continue to ween from Saudi oil. we have to. everyone will have to well within your lifetime.

Reliance on Saudi Oil does not mean it is physically used in the US, it means a reliance on the money it generates, or how that money can influence US policy. I don't know how many, but I'm sure there are lots of American petroluem companies operating in Saudi Arabia and when they tell the US government to jump, they say how high. The money generated by Saudi Oil for the royal family also makes them hugely influential in America (according to Michael Moore, which to be fair I don't actually trust as a reliable source, Saudi investment in America is huge, making them extremely important allies)

quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley Reliance on Saudi Oil does not mean it is physically used in the US, it means a reliance on the money it generates, or how that money can influence US policy. I don't know how many, but I'm sure there are lots of American petroluem companies operating in Saudi Arabia and when they tell the US government to jump, they say how high. The money generated by Saudi Oil for the royal family also makes them hugely influential in America (according to Michael Moore, which to be fair I don't actually trust as a reliable source, Saudi investment in America is huge, making them extremely important allies)

those companies, those global companies, are there and have been there naturally because A) the Saudis make it easy for them to be there finacially and B) because Saudi oil is the standard to which all oil prices are pegged. it is the finest crude in the world.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo those companies, those global companies, are there and have been there naturally because A) the Saudis make it easy for them to be there finacially and B) because Saudi oil is the standard to which all oil prices are pegged. it is the finest crude in the world.

And?

quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley But can you tell me about your views on "Iranian-backed" international terrorism because I know the Americans make these noises all the time recently but they never quite seem to back it up with any evidence...

i will. i can do it all night.

Bombings and assassinations

1982 May 24. Car bomb attack on French Embassy in Beirut killing 12 and wounding 27. Islam Jihad is one of several groups taking responsibility. Anger over France's providing of arms to Iran's enemy Iraq is thought to be the motivating factor. [25]

1983 April 18. Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Detonated in a delivery van driven by a suicide bomber, carrying about 2000 pounds of explosives. The bomb killed 63 people, 17 of them Americans, including 9 CIA agent in Beirut for a meeting.[26]

1983 October 23. MNF barracks bombing in Beirut. Two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut housing U.S. and French members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon, killing 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility in a statement to Agence France Presse: "We are the soldiers of God, ... We are neither Iranians, Syrian nor Palestinians, but Muslims who follow the precepts of the Koran ... We said after that [April embassy bombing] that we would strike more violently still. Now they understand with what they are dealing. Violence will remain our only way." [27]

1983 December 12. 1983 Kuwait Bombing Two months after the Beirut barracks bombing, ]]. The 90-minute coordinated attack of six key foreign and Kuwaiti installations including two embassies, the airport and the countries main petro-chemical plant, was more notable for the damage it might have caused than what was actually destroyed. What might have been "the worst terrorist episode of the twentieth century in the Middle East," succeeding in killing only six people because of the bombs faulty rigging.[28]

1984 January 18. Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University in Beirut (AUB), assassinated near his office. Had replaced AUB president David Dodge, who was kidnapped six months earlier. Described as "friendly," "easygoing," and a long "champion of the Arab cause," Kerr was born in Beirut and moved from the safety and comfort of UC Berkley to be president of the AUB. A telephone message claiming to represent Islamic Jihad proclaimed: "We are responsible of the assassination of the president of AUB ... We also vow that not a single American or French will remain on this soil. We shall take no different course. And we shall not waver." [29]

1984 September 20. American Embassy Annex in Christian East Beirut is bombed by suicide van bomber with 3000 pounds of explosives. 14 were killed, including 2 Americans, dozens are injured. Embassy had moved to a "quiet residential suburb of hillside villas and luxury apartments" after the 1983 bombing. Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew and visiting British Ambassador David Miers are buried under rubble but rescued with only minor injuries. Islamic Jihad takes credit in an anonymous phone call vowing, "The operation comes to prove that we will carry out our previous promise not to allow a single American to remain on Lebanese soil. ... we mean every inch of Lebanese territory. ..."[30]

1985 May 25. Attempted assassination of Kuwaiti ruler (Emir) Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, by suicide car bomber attack of the Emir's motorcade. Two bodyguards and a passerby are killed. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility and again demands the terrorists release.[31]

1992 March 17. 1992 Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires. A suicide truck bomber smashs into the front of the Israeli Embassy destroying the embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building. 29 are killed and 242 wounded, mostly Argentianian civilians, many of them children. As of 2006 it remains the deadliest attack on an Israeli diplomatic mission. Islamic Jihad, claims responsibility, stating the attack was in retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Sayed Abbas al-Musawi.

Claims of bombing

1985 December 12. Arrow Air Flight 1285 taking off from Gander, Newfoundland, crashes and burns about half a mile from the runway, killing all 256 passengers and crew on board. In an anonymous caller to a French news agency in Beirut, Islamic Jihad claims it destroyed the plane to prove "our ability to strike at the Americans anywhere." [32] However an investigation by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board (CASB) finds the crash was most likely an accident.[33][34]

Kidnappings

Further information: Lebanon Hostage Crisis
1984, March 16. William Francis Buckley, United States Central Intelligence Agency Beirut chief of station, was abducted on this date. Islamic Jihad Organization claims to have killed him on October 3, 1985. The Islamic Jihad Organization later released to a Beirut newspaper a photograph purporting to depict his corpse. Press reports stated that Buckley had been transferred to Iran, where he was tortured and killed. [35]

1984 May. Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir is kidnapped by three armed men. Weir may have thought he was safe from harm from Muslims because he lived in Shiite West Beirut working "closely with various Muslim-oriented charity and relief groups," and had lived in Lebanon since 1958. Two days after his abduction, a telephone message claimed: "Islamic Jihad organization claims it is responsible for the abduction ... in order to renew our acceptance of Reagan's challenge [to fight "state terrorism"] and to confirm our commitment of the statement ... that we will not leave any American on Lebanese soil." [36]

1986, February 10. The Islamic Jihad Organization released a photograph that claimed to show the (dead) body of French citizen Michel Seurat, who had been kidnapped earlier.

thats just Islamic Jihad. i can go on with Hizbullah in Argentina, Spain, Lebanon.

before 9/11, before Iraq, Iran's proxies Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad had killed more American servicemen and civilians than Al Queera.

quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley And?

you've fallen like a girl at a Stone Roses concert for the propaganda.

quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley Reliance on Saudi Oil does not mean it is physically used in the US, it means a reliance on the money it generates, or how that money can influence US policy.

reliance on Saudi oil and the money it generates, no matter how diminished it has become in terms of total imported volume, lends little to your notion that any of it dictates our policy towards fighting terror other than keeping supply lines TO THE WORLD safe and financially viable. is that really so sinister?

i guess it would be to someone that doesn't truly understand the global ramifications of unstable ME oil and who isn't fond of American/Israeli foriegn policy to begin with.

quote:

I don't know how many, but I'm sure there are lots of American petroluem companies operating in Saudi Arabia and when they tell the US government to jump, they say how high.

ALL of the global oil players are in Saudi Arabia and were there despite 21st century Neocon policy. it's just good business.

Last edited by Q5echo on Oct-02-2007 at 10:19

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo i will. i can do it all night.

Nope you've listed a load of attacks that happened in Lebanon, Argentina and Israel, all of which I had already mentioned. ALL attacks targetted Israel and are not international terrorist activities, they were all concerned with the localised issue of expelling Israel from Hizballah's native country.

quote:

thats just Islamic Jihad. i can go on with Hizbullah in Argentina, Spain, Lebanon.

No that's just Hizballah

quote:

before 9/11, before Iraq, Iran's proxies Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad had killed more American servicemen and civilians than Al Queera.

But nobody cares about what happened before 9/11, it's insignificant. Tell me TODAY who Iran sponsor around the world apart from Hizballah and the Iraqi insurgency - who do they support today that target the West?

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo you've fallen like a girl at a Stone Roses concert for the propaganda.

So you're telling me petrodollars have no baring whatsoever on US' relations with Saudi Arabia?

So please englighten me, given that it is undisputable that Saudi Arabia is perhaps the biggest ally of America after Israel, explain the relationship to me...

quote:

Originally posted by George Smiley Nope you've listed a load of attacks that happened in Lebanon, Argentina and Israel, all of which I had already mentioned. ALL attacks targetted Israel and are not international terrorist activities, they were all concerned with the localised issue of expelling Israel from Hizballah's native country.

ok give me a minute

quote:

But nobody cares about what happened before 9/11, it's insignificant.

from you that seems about right. heres a polite F**K YOU and what you think is signifigant. twat.