On Morning Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Joe implies that we should go after Syria or at least not negotiate with them because they're a "state sponsor" of "terrorism," specifically mentioning Hamas.
Saudi Arabia also supports Hamas and maintains a state of war against Israel.
Joe says “I say this because we’re in a war. We’re in a war against the Islamic terrorists who attacked us on 9-11-01.”
According to the unlikely yet official story, 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and none was from either Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet our president receives Saudi officials at his Texas estate and holds their hands and kisses their cheeks.
But I want to make something clear: by pointing these things out, I am not advocating a war with or an attack on Saudi Arabia. Rather, I am trying to point out the glaring hypocrisy of the neocon/Bush/batshit-crazy hawk position. And not just the hypocrisy, but the wanton disregard for human life that has come about as a result of that hypocrisy.
I would ask the neocons--if our involvement in the Middle East is truly about freedom, democracy, morality, fighting "terrorism" and NOT about oil, then why are we not occupying Mecca? That's the reason I bring this up--because it points out the selective use of the neocon's already tortured (pun intended) logic when it comes to threats to Israel, state sponsorship of "terrorism," democracy, and treatment of women.
In other words, what George W. Bush and the neocons are saying to Saudi Arabia is the following:
"If you play our game, i.e., you don't try to get out from under the petrodollar and buy lots of weapons from us and let us have military bases there and invest in the U.S. and specifically with the family business of the President, then the following facts do not matter to us: that you are not a democracy, you're a state sponsor of terror, you oppress women, 15 of the 19 hijackers were from your country, and so forth."
That's just realpolitik, man--calm down!
That may in fact be realpolitik, but for George W. Bush to pretend to advocate democracy for the Middle East and send Americans to die in Iraq in a war of choice which he says will achieve a democratic Middle East while he chooses to have Saudi leaders to his ranch instead of bombing them, is a sign of a very sick man.
And here's my main point: why can't other state sponsors of terror be dealt with like Bush deals with Saudi Arabia, a state sponsor of terror? Why can't we negotiate with them like we do with Saudi Arabia? Why can't we avoid sending our soldiers to die in the countries of state sponsors of terror--that's what we are currently doing with Saudi Arabia?
I'm not sure I'm being entirely clear, so I'll rephrase what I'm trying to say: George W. Bush, supposedly the great slayer of terrorists and benevolent bringer of democracy to the Middle East, has taken very different approaches to the same problem in the cases of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Iraq--a state sponsor of terror which was no threat to its neighbors, was a secular regime and had no WMD--was invaded, resulting in an ongoing bloodbath which consumes American lives all but daily.
However, Saudi Arabia, not only a state sponsor of terror but also a threat to our main ally in the region (they maintain a state of war with Israel), an Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship, and the breeding ground for the head of al Qaeda and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers--gets to send its leaders to hold hands with our leader and is not subject to invasion.
Therefore, Bush has put the lie to his own rhetoric about the "war on terror" and the price Americans must pay. He's proven that state sponsors of terror do not have to be invaded and subjugated and the lives of our soldiers sacrificed.
My final point
My final point, then, is not to ask why we haven't invaded Saudi Arabia, but rather to ask why we have invaded Iraq, given the strikingly similar track records of the two countries. Or to say it another way--and taking Bush's own rhetoric to its logical conclusion--since we don't have to invade Saudi Arabia, we never had to invade Iraq (which I've already said a million times, but not with Saudi Arabia as a comparison).
Why aren't more people angry about this?
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