I think lightning should strike him or something.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is “rapid” action.
“If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month,” he said in remarks quoted on Saturday by Asharq al-Awsat daily and Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya television station.
“Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East,” said the king who was speaking at a welcoming ceremony on Friday for new ambassadors, including a new envoy from Saudi ally the United States.
Here’s Steve Clemons, writing in late June for The Atlantic:
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the “moderate” armed opposition in the country, receives a lot of attention. But two of the most successful factions fighting Assad’s forces are Islamist extremist groups: Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the latter of which is now amassing territory in Iraq and threatening to further destabilize the entire region. And that success is in part due to the support they have received from two Persian Gulf countries: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Qatar’s military and economic largesse has made its way to Jabhat al-Nusra, to the point that a senior Qatari official told me he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has been a Saudi project.”
ISIS, in fact, may have been a major part of Bandar’s covert-ops strategy in Syria. The Saudi government, for its part, has denied allegations, including claims made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that it has directly supported ISIS. But there are also signs that the kingdom recently shifted its assistance—whether direct or indirect—away from extremist factions in Syria and toward more moderate opposition groups.
So, the king let Bandar Bush create this problem and now he warns us that we’re going to be the victims of his creation if we don’t bring some serious violence to the situation.
Nice.
Methinks Abdullah is more concerned for his throne than our security.
Nope, no air strikes on the King. Lets first send all those Saudi college students home. We can do many things very quietly on loud that will put real pressure on the King and all those princes.
They’ll just go to England instead.
In Saudi it’s a family affair. And the U.S. grovels before them. It’s despicable and embarrassing. How many people have been beheaded in Saudi in the last month? Guess? Qatar is another stinking story. The west sells its soul to the highest bidder: the football team in Barcelona, the Shard tower in London and I don’t know what else. In Barcelona kids walk around wearing T-shirts on which Qatar Foundation is written! What filth. The west is screwing itself royaly, literally. All for money. I think you might say that the poster operator for all this anti-western behavior is Tony Blair.
You know, Boo, you criticize the Saudis for their violent, manipulative behavior but you hardly fault the U.S. politicians and business men who support all this. Your mention of Bush in connection with Bandar is just a cheap, cowardly shot without a mark. What about Obama, Clinton, Kerry… Bush left the White House seven years ago. A few things have happened in the mean time. People like Susan Rice, Samantha Powers have taken over the reins. Obama really knows how to choose his inner circel, wouldn’tyou say? For all their pretensions they’re plain stupid. Had he stuck with Rahm!
.
Written and published between February 23 and 27 in 2013.
Aren’t we kind of tap-dancing here to create so much space between US foreign policy and the creation and feeding of ISIS? Or is this another one of infamous intelligence whoopsy-daisies?
presumably Obama is working on a coalition of Syria’s neighbors to get the IS[IS] situation under control. (who knows what pressure he’s exerting to get everyone to ante up, maybe something that’s induced bandar bush to whine.) another reason to congratulate ourselves for electing Obama – he may actually make something of the mess bushco left [Juan Cole has written about this]. I’m going to take an optimistic stance on this.
– the king to complain
Someone tweeted this out before and those remarks you highlighted bothered me. It sounds like the Saudi king is threatening to me. Didn’t be threaten Putin before the Winter Olympics? And IIRC, Putin told him he’d turn Saudi Arabia into glass if the Winter Olympics were attacked. Thankfully nothing happened. The faster we get off of oil, the better.
Would that Obama would talk to Putin like that.
Putin?? I wish Obama would talk to the Saudis like that! Putin may be “bad,” and that’s more part of the superpower vs. superpower game than anything else. But no one, not even Putin, has attacked us (911) or threatened us (like the Saudi King just did).
The shame here is no nation would be able to get away with that without some kind of response, and yet the Saudis have done it with regularity, not to mention the “worse attack on US soil,” 911. And yet, we do more than remain silent, we ignore these threats and the culprit behind them, and its for oil money.
What history will do with this.
House of Bush, Huse of Saud
Saudi Arabia has an army, navy and air force totaling over 200,000 active duty personnel. What’s King Abdullah saving them for?
To protect his “kingdom” when those chickens he sends out ultimately come home to roost.
It’s worth reminding ourselves that the US covert agencies put these assholes in power, propped them up, and then encouraged them to enforce an extreme version of Islam in order to control their populace (thus creating “stability” for our oil supplies).
In other words, we created this mess. And the mess in Iran. And Iraq. And Israel. And Egypt. And ….
“King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is “rapid” action.”
And these jihadists are being funded by the Saudis. “Rapid action” should include the Saudis not funding these ISIS devils. It should also include the US once and for all, calling out the Saudis for threatening us. And then doing something about it, not necessarily violence, but some type of sanctions.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/8/30/16847/8609#12
I know I may sound like I’m delving into tin foil hat territory, but nothing I’m basing this on isn’t true.
The US government has been looking the other way since 911, and before, at the attacks and threats of Saudi Arabia against this country. Starting with the immediate aftermath of 911, when “Bandhar” Bush had the royals spirited out of the country (and why were they here in those numbers at that exact point in time in the first place??) even as we imposed a nationwide no fly zone.
Bush declared bin Laden a low priority in 2002, but that was so they could focus on Iraq as the culprit behind 911, as they shamelessly claimed. Even though 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudis. And even though we KNEW that’s where the money came from. And in the face of all these reported facts, stupid fool Americans swallowed the Bush line that Hussein was behind the attack, as if Hussein could get within ten feet of the Saudi Royals, let alone be able to control their people like that.
It makes me wonder now: was the whole point of Iraq to remove Hussein, who kept a lid on all this shit (and in retrospect, he should be commended!) so as to give the so-called Caliphate Arabs (the Saudis, Qatar, etc.) a free hand to do what they are doing now, destabilizing the region with ISIS and other Islamic extremists?
In probably the stupidest move in the history of foreign policy, the US demonized its erstwhite ally, Hussein, and he was an ally in part for the reason I mentioned, the ability to keep extremism in the region in check, and thus opening the door to all this chaos now. Its a damned shame what we let happen to this country, all in the name of oil money.
But now we’re looking at another war, unfortunately, and I would support this one, but this time there is justification for sending troops in and bombing the hell out of them. That’s the bad news. The good news in this, and “good” is relative, is that we will finally be allied in the region with those we should have been allied with all along, Iran the Syrians, e.g. the Shiites.
The Shi’a have been battling Israel in the form of Hezbollah, is true. But that’s small potatoes from the US perspective, considering its been the Sunnis behind the terrorism and extremism. But we are so far up Israel’s ass, we can’t grasp that calculation and understand the risks pro and con. And, unlike the Sunnis, the Shi’a aren’t exporting terrorism. Sure, they’re getting crazy in their own countries, and again, taking swipes at Israel now and then, but best shot at that is use of the carrot, not the stick. Unlike with Sunni extremism, where neither works, at least not thus far, in part because the stick we’ve used up to now is not big enough, because either (a) they are so spread out and “stateless” and (b) because we don’t want to use that stick on the source, the Saudis and Qatar, because oil money.
But now, ISIS is less of a terror organization in the form of an al Qaeda, as it is a conventional force. Bin Laden in his wildest dreams couldn’t have imagined accomplishing what ISIS has done. Whereas it would have made more sense to go after al Qaeda in a police operation using the FBI, CIA and Special Forces, SEALS, etc, as Obama successfully did, proving that was the right approach all along, to roll them up, we need to use a conventional force, including ground troops in the region now to roll up ISIS. We wasted that shot, including the political capital, international trust, not to mention treasure in the form of US dollars and lives, on Iraq, foolishly as a “war on terror.” But now we have to do it again at a time when our forces are depleted and tired from all the war of the last 14 years, much of it unnecessary, in retrospect.
And this is where the democrats truly fucked up. There were calls for impeachment in 2006 when dems took control of both houses of congress, and there was definitely justification for it. Today, republicans call for impeachment for Obama when he does what they want him to do on health care. But given all the above, there needed to be some level of accountability, and you can bet that if the shoe were on the other foot, there would have been. Dems didn’t have to impeach, but they could have at least had hearings in the House and Senate, to at least get it in the record, the screw up of the Bush admin and by extension, the GOP.
Now we have this mess, and the same people responsible for it, are the same people calling daily for impeachment of Obama for just scratching his ass, all while they blame him for the entire mess. And they can do that because the dems never held any hearings at all to sort this shit out when they had the chance to do so. The idea that they would have taken a hit politically with voters that would have prevented them from reelection is just so craven as to be utterly disgusting, as a political party. Not to mention stupid as hell, because had they gone the hearing route they wouldn’t have taken a hit, and may have benefited from it.
The one thing I commend Putin for, is a willingness to stand up. When the Russians hosted the Olympics, he told the Saudi Royals, that if the Olympics is attacked by one of their jihadi nutballs, he’ll turn Saudi Arabia to glass. If only we had the political integrity for that to be the basis of our own foreign policy.
Seriously?
IS has done exactly what OBL lectured about endlessly. And he wasn’t the first; jihad in favour of insurrection is something of a family business for the House of Saud.