CurtAdams@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 10/17/01 10:04:48 AM, bradbury@aeiveos.com writes:
>
> (re Bin Laden's goals)
> > Its an economic
> >struggle because he views the rulers and their friends as extremely
> >corrupt having siphoned off a not-so-small fraction of the oil
> >wealth into their own pockets.
>
> Are you sure? He calls them "corrupt" but that doesn't mean the same
> thing as when you say it. I suspect he means that the royal wives wear
> skirts when traveling in the West.
No, he is right (though you are too). There has been an ongoing brouhaha
over the amount of skimming and kickbacks that occur on projects in the
Kingdom. Generally it is widely accepted that at least 10-20% of all
public expenditures are spent on bribes, kickbacks, skimming, and other
financial peccadillos of the Sauds, the bin Ladens (Usama's brothers),
and other elite scions of the ruling families in the Kingdom.
That they get away with such un-muslim activities within the kingdom
without being struck down by Allah certainly emboldens them to set aside
proper Wahhabi habits when in the west. Both are part and parcel of the
same corruption.
One of the reasons that many saudi scions are pissed at the US presence
is that part of the deal of our forces being based in the Kingdom
included a concession that support of US operations would involve no
kickbacks, bribes, etc. which they think they have a right to.
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