A rchive Date
[ 23-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Saudi Arabia ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/corbella.html
Twisted truth of Mideast
Official 'allies' of U.S. are often hotbeds of hatred toward the West
By LICIA CORBELLA - Calgary Sun
March 23, 2003
There are a great many ironies in the Middle East. Chief among them is this: Our friends are really our enemies and our enemies are really our friends.
To clarify, the people who live in those countries that are official allies with the United States - Saudi Arabia and Jordan, for instance - are the ones that hate the West the most.
Conversely, those who live in countries officially hostile to the U.S. - including Iraq and Iran - tend to have benign feelings - even downright idealistic feelings - about the West. Nowhere are Americans and westerners more despised than in Saudi Arabia. Fully 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers hailed from Saudi Arabia.
Osama bin Laden - the mastermind behind 9/11, the largest terrorist attack in history - is a wealthy Saudi and much of the funding of Islamic terror hails from Saudi Arabia - including its ruling Saud family of corrupt and perverted princes and princesses.
In Saudi Arabia - where two days of oil revenues apparently could buy every Saudi family a new home - many of its citizens are homeless, hungry and uneducated. Women are not considered people. They have NO human rights - not even the right to life, which can be taken at the whim of any male relative with no repercussions to that person.
While the Saud family squanders billions of dollars on solid 24-carat gold faucets and toilets, the country's economy suffers and many of its people don't have even the basic necessities. Its education system is so medieval, westerners literally have to be brought in to run the country, which would collapse without them.
Frankly, it is time for westerners to stop helping one of the most evil countries in the world.
Sure, Canadians and Americans can make a small fortune working in the oil industry in Saudi Arabia (and I have many friends and acquaintances over there doing just that). But it's time these people recognized they are aiding and abetting our biggest and most dangerous enemy.
What's more, foreigners in Saudi Arabia and other Arabic countries have little or no rights in those countries, which isn't so unusual when you consider that rights are almost non-existent in those countries to begin with. But it's worse for foreigners.
In the West, if someone wearing a burqa gets stared at, it is practically declared a human rights abuse, for heaven's sake. There - and this is in every Middle Eastern Arab state - non-Arabs are officially declared second-class citizens with even fewer rights. Consider the case of Canadian William Sampson.
Sampson, an engineer working in Saudi Arabia, was convicted after being tortured into confessing on television that he helped carry out bombings that occurred Nov. 17 and 22, 2000 in Riyadh. He has been held in solitary confinement ever since in a bare room without even a mattress or a window and with constant light.
He has been sentenced to death, though his entire trial was based on his forced confession and was held in a closed hearing. He has also been denied the right to meet with Canadian officials. One Briton and four other foreign nationals were injured in those attacks.
Besides the two November attacks, a Scottish man was injured in an explosion in Khobar in December 2000.
In March 2001, a Briton and an Egyptian were injured in a Riyadh bookstore bombing and in May 2001, an American was seriously injured in Khobar when the package he was opening exploded in his face.
The Saudi government has said the blasts were linked to a black market in forbidden alcohol. But western diplomats believe the bombings were carried out by Muslim extremist groups - which, like Osama bin Laden - hates the Saud family for having friendly ties to the Americans.
Sampson's father, James Sampson, said it was "ridiculous ... that Bill should be charged ... with these explosions which have nothing to do with the expatriate community, except that the expatriates are the victims."
But blaming the victims is the Saudi way. It's why raped women are often stoned to death in the public square and the rapists are left to go free.
The West and westerners are hated in officially friendly Mideast countries because their citizens attribute the oppression, poverty and injustice in their society as coming from their country's association with the United States.
In countries such as Iraq and Iran - which are official enemies of the United States - the people tend to be pro western. They believe their oppression is caused as a result of their government's lack of ties to the West.
The most fevered Middle Eastern protests against the U.S.-led war in Iraq this past week took place in officially supportive allied countries. The most virulent were in Egypt and Jordan. Civilian westerners are at risk of attack even in Kuwait, which owes its liberation from Iraq to western forces in 1991 and is supportive of this current war with Iraq. Nevertheless, westerners are - in truth - hated there and in clear danger.
The Arab saying: "The enemy of our enemy is our friend," may be true officially. But on the Arab street it's more like: Our country's official friend is our enemy and our enemy is our friend.
Licia Corbella, editor of the Calgary Sun, can be reached at 403-250-4129 or by e-mail at licia.corbella@calgarysun.com. Her columns appear Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Letters to the editor should be sent to callet@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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