"J. R. Molloy" wrote:
>
> From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com>
> > I find my self asking myself why isn't America supporting bin Laden
> > in his efforts to unseat the royal family of Saudi Arabia?
>
> Maybe because even a royal family is better than a sick, wrong, stupid, ugly,
> murderous religionist.
The Saudi family are all western educated, and most spend significant
portions of their lives living in the US and/or Britain. Prince
Mohammed, for instance, has for many years lived on Lake Washington in
Seattle. Their control of Saudi Arabia is via the Wahabi clerics, who
are sort of a Shiite-like Sunni sect, who enforce the Sharia to an
extent considered in the muslim world only slightly right of center. The
Sauds have run a stable, prosperous country for many decades now that is
generally pro-west as much as, say, the Amish are pro-American. They
have served as excellent modern examples of the 'benevolent despot'
which most political philosophers recognise as one of the optimum
political states.
Bin Laden and his followers are not interested in establishing a
democratic government even to the extent that Iran has. They want to
impose a Clerical Regieme of Wahabi rule along the lines of the Taliban.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:46 MDT