Robert Scheer (Los Angeles Times): Mortgaged to the House of Saud

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Los Angeles Times
Dated Tuesday August 9

Mortgaged to the House of Saud
by Robert Scheer

The only evidence you need that President Bush is losing the "war on terror" is this: On Sunday, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia said that relations with the United States "couldn't be better."
Tell that to the parents of those who have died in two wars defending this corrupt spawning ground of violent extremism. Never mind the ugly facts: We are deeply entwined with Saudi Arabia even though it shares none of our values and supports our enemies.

Yet on Friday, Bush's father and Vice President Dick Cheney made another in a long line of obsequious American pilgrimages to Riyadh to assure the Saudis that we continue to be grateful for the punishment they dish out.

"The relationship has tremendously improved with the United States," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh. "With the government, of course, it is very harmonious, as it ever was. Whether it has returned to the same level as it was before in terms of public opinion , that is debatable."

Read more.

A couple of years ago, Greg Palast described al Qaida's relationship to the Saudis as a "protection racket" in which the Saudis payed Osama not to attack them.