Asymmetrical Information

Interesting.

And yet Bush will be assumed to have done this because of family ties to the Saudis.

Hard to know what to do.

Invade? Are you kidding?

The US could just cut off arms sales and aid, remove the troops we base there to protect the regime, and it would be just as effective as any invasion. In fact, come to think of it, we are pulling out those troops...

There are about a thousand ways to topple a regime short of war. "To have to invade Saudi Arabia" is unlikely: unlike in Iraq, the US has plenty of policy levers in Saudi. So the notion of Bush "having to" invade if things were revealed is rather laughable.

I'd guess the answer is much simpler: Bush doesn't want to change the subject. Politicians prefer to have one message at a time, and Bush hasn't finished with Iraq yet. It's not complicated or sinister, just politics.
--G

Someone over at Strykers' noted that by censoring those 28 pages the administration has focussed attention on possible SA perfidy more effectively than a news conference.

Follow that with the fact that the Saudis themselves don't know what kind of dirt we have, and can see the American press screaming for answers. That could give us a potentially insistent lever.

Assuming for a moment that invasion would be the only recourse to whatever crimes are indicated in the missing 28 pages, wouldn't it be best to actually wage war against a nation that has conspired against us in a deadly attack, rather than against one that has not?

Had such evidence been presented before the war in Iraq, the Bush administration would have had near unanimous support for whatever course of action he took against Saudi Arabia.

I don't know, Amitava -- would it have been better for us to stay out of Korea and just attack the USSR directly?

Interestingly enough, Johnson had similar reasons for strongarming the Warren Commission investigation into Kennedy's death. It was his opinion (and Warren's) that the evidence implicated Cuba. He knew that if Americans thought Castro was behind Kennedy's death, he's be forced to invade Cuba (in violation of our secret agreement with the Soviets), which would lead directly to war in Europe and probable exchange of nukes.

A few points:

The idea of just pulling out and waiting for a regime change is about the worst thing we can do. It would just abuot guarantee that extremists rise up, take power and use the "oil weapon" against the US - heck, it's what bin Laden wanted to do. It doesn't do any damn good to toss out the old regime if you don't have any control over the replacement.

Secondly, to take a whack with Occam's mighty razor, it is also entirely possible that in this document - just like 99.9% of other classified documents - that they don't want to reveal sources and methods. It might not be that embarrassing to the Saudis - but do we really want to make a public issue about whether or not we tap their phones?

Thirdly, if Jane's theory is, for sake of argument, true, then it both halves of this drama make perfect sense. Its a simple way for both the US and Saudis to exert tremendous indirect pressure on each other without, oddly enough, having to bring the dirty laundry into the open.

Secondly,

Jane,

re USSR and NK

That's not really what I meant. I meant, as I wrote, "assuming war was the only recourse." I'm roughly talking about the same analysis used to justify the war in Afghanistan. If Bush chose something short of war, he would have had 100 percent support. If he chose war, on the other hand, he would have enjoyed the benefit of the doubt far more than he did in the case of war with Iraq.

So, the question is, (again, assuming the 28 pages is as damning as people assume) why would the Bush administration prefer to commit nearly all of our resources to Iraq rather than confronting a real enemy? Hence the conspiracy theories.

Jane, I don't understand the USSR=Saudi Arabia analogy. North Korea attacked our ally, so we attacked North Korea. If Saudi Arabia was in fact responsible for 9/11, wouldn't it make sense for us to attack SA?

The point is that you don't always directly attack another country when the costs involved are huge, as the costs of attacking the Soviet Union, or, I'd argue, Saudi Arabia, would be. While on a tit-for-tat basis Saudi Arabia might be most logical, the Iraq attack, provided it's justifiable on its own merits, could well be a better way of achieving the same goal. While, incidentally, freeing 26m people from a dictatorship considerably worse than the government of SA, no matter what you think of the Saudis.

Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves here. The official explanation (releasing the censored information would harm ongoing intelligence) sounds plausible. It sounds more plausible than any other explanation. Occam's razor, y'know. The fact that Presidential aspirants want to make political hay out of the situation is hardly surprising, however disappointing. We would be better served by debate over substantive issues such as the basis of our foreign policy. The really important questions get lost in the clamor over detail. What should our foreign policy be - and why?

I must be missing something.

Why would the only response be war? Don't we have many, many other alternatives which we have used for decades on regimes much nastier to us than SA?

Why would attacking SA be more costly than attacking Iraq?

And why would that matter, if ( a HUGE if), SA was involved in 9/11? Didn't Bush make clear we were going after states that sponsored terrorism?

Finally, isn't the real issue whether we should continue to consider SA a friendly state or rather an enemy state. That's what I don't undertsand with your USSR analogy. We may not have directly attacked the USSR but we never deluded ourselves they were our friends or allies, as Bush implies the Saudis are.

Interesting...could this be another Bush rope-a-dope?

The papers have been alleging that the report states that figures high up in the Saudi government, presumably Saudi relatiions, were involved in not just financing, but planning 9-11. If that is so, and it becomes public, Bush will have to invade SA or lose office. Any Dem who replaces him will have to do likewise. Are you prepared for real war in the Middle East?

If Iraqi oil can be brought to market in amounts that approaches it's full potential, it gives the U.S. far more leeway in dealing with the House of Saud in ways short of war, particularly if the Iraqi people control their oil wealth. The point is to give the Saudi people the same opportunity, along with a stark choice: continue to use your oil wealth to fund entities that wish to fight a war of annihilation against the people of the United States, and the people of the United States will educate you in the reality that the United States fights wars of annihilation better than any other nation in history. It is likely that the people of Saudi Arabia, if given the opportunity to control their mineral wealth, will do what free people normally do; trade what they have of value for things that they in turn value, and not use their mineral wealth to murder their trading partners. First, however, they must be given the choice.

That's an idea much more scary than any other I've heard, Jane.

One real danger is that (postulating your scenario) once the facts are revealed, the Saudis decide to cure the problem by executing the culprits. Again, postulating your scenario, if I were an influential figure in government (heaven forbid!) I'd be negotiating like mad for the custody of the culprits before the inevitable security breach occurs. Once we reveal all we know on the subject, all the Saudis have to do is decide how much house they need to clean.

"None of their proponents even seem to have considered the simple, obvious theory, which is that the Bush administration doesn't want to have to invade Saudi Arabia."

This is a bit much; I seem to remember hearing that Pakistan was in pretty tight with bin Laden, and we didn't invade them either.

Yes, I was about to give the example of Pakistan as well.

I still don't see why we would need or want to invade, no matter what the report says. We would have to apply plenty of "pressure" and stop pretending they are our allies but I don't see that we would need to attack them.

This isn't 'in pretty tight', but relatives of the ruling house that have the title "Prince". I may understand, and you may understand that there are so many damn princes in KSA that the title is pretty much meaningless, but the average voter is going to think someone in line for succession like Prince Charles. Our nation's knowledge of monarchies can be placed somewhere between slim and none.

The term 'plausible deniability' needs to be remembered, and put into play here.

I think what Jane might be alluding to is the possibility that a 9/11 plot may have been suggested (or at least given sanction) by ruling members of the House of Saud.

In Pakistan, if you remember, Musharrif put the smackdown on a whole lot of his government post-9/11. He purged the ISI as well as the military. Opportunistic or not, he severed many of the links between his government and Osama bin Laden.

Should the Galt scenario prove to be accurate, there is an additional problem which hasn't been mentioned. There isn't a member of the Arab street alive who would buy a damned word of the report.

As bad as the rancor of the Iraq War was, a Saudi War would be at least an order of magnitude worse. And if there were an honest-to-god smoking gun in the report, linking the Saudi regime at the highest levels to Osama, it would be almost impossible for any sitting president to prevent war.

All the horror speculation aside, they wouldn't have released the 28 pages, regardless of who the pages finger. Its just not the way business is done in that town.

Oh yeah, what if, for sake of argument, it really was the Mossad? Has anybody checked out Indymedia to see if their tinfoil brigade has stumbled across that yet?

Amitava Mazumdar writes:

Assuming for a moment that invasion would be the only recourse..., wouldn't it be best to actually wage war against a nation that has conspired against us in a deadly attack, rather than against one that has not?

Not necessarily. Revenge is a lousy motivation for war. If Iraq represented a greater strategic or political interest, then attacking it would make more sense. I don't believe the Administration ever made the claim that invading Iraq was payback for 9/11.

GT writes:

Why would the only response be war? Don't we have many, many other alternatives which we have used for decades on regimes much nastier to us than SA?

It's tough to imagine which regimes were "much nastier to us" than killing 3,000 people in one day on our own soil, while aiming for thousands more. If it turns out that high-level Saudi officials helped plan, supply, or even merely protect al-Qaeda, I doubt the public would be much enthused over diplomatic leverage.

The Soviets were a bigger threat, sure, but they never killed Americans directly, and moreover, were much tougher -- impossible, really -- to defeat. The Saudis can be knocked over even quicker than Iraq. Were it to come out that they were responsible for American deaths, a lot of people would demand their heads on a platter, the Arab Street be damned.

It seems to me that the simplest explanation for someone concealing facts is NOT that they are "protecting sources and methods" but rather that they don't want the facts known. And if that's the case why presume that it would be bad for the country for the facts to be known, rather than just bad for Bush?

GT,

I think it's extremely likely that the US will eventually declare that Saudi Arabia is not an ally. It's also reasonably likely that the US will take steps to cause the fall of the House of Saud, either directly through invasion or indirectly through ceasing to prop them up so that they fall in civil war.

But it's all about timing. Until Iraqi oil production is up and running at 100%, instability in Saudi Arabia's oil production would likely have dreadful consequences for the US economy (and most of the rest of the world, for that matter). Even with Iraq up and running, a cutoff in Saudi oil caused by invasion, instability, or civil war is likely to hurt, dealing a death blow to the fragile economic recovery.

Until Iraq is up and running, the US *cannot* put any significant pressure on "its good friends the Saudis." So for now it's all handshakes and smiles while the US rebuilds the Iraqi oil industry and the Saudis desperately hope that a Democrat of the dove variety wins in 2004.

As the anti-war demonstrators said, Iraq *was* all about oil -- just not in the way they thought it was. It wasn't "so we can make Halliburton/Bush's Texas oil buddies rich." It was "so we won't cripple the US economy when we finally drop the hammer on the biggest supporters and financiers of anti-US fundamentalist terrorism in the world."

If Bush is re-elected in 2004, I would guess the House of Saud is finished. Frankly, if a non-dove Democrat is elected in 2004, I would guess the House of Saud is finished.

Just one person's view -- a view that may change with more time and more information. This and $1.67 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

And ... it's about the oil. That is, the US (and other countries, I expect) gets enough oil from Saudi Arabia that the American public would feel some pain if the flow was cut off. A real crackdown short-of-war on the Saudis would leave them vulnerable to revolution, which would probably mess up their oilfields but good - and end up with another psychotic so-called Islamist regime that we might eventually have to depose by invasion anyhow. An invasion would certainly temporarily cut off the oil, and it could be a long-lasting shortage if either the Saudis or the nutcases they can barely keep a leash on sabotaged everything that didn't have an American platoon on top of it.

It's different with Iraq - the oil there doesn't matter much in the short run. Iraqi oil always went mostly to Europe, and I doubt the shipments in the last 12 years have been large enough or reliable enough for anyone to become dependent on them. (And if they did, few Americans would be bothered at all if sabotage or battle damage in the oilfields had put the Axis of Weasels afoot this summer.)

Bernard Yomtov writes:

why presume that it would be bad for the country for the facts to be known, rather than just bad for Bush?

Why presume that it'd be bad for Bush?

E. Nough,

I didn't say it was, just that it's a serious possibility, and shouldn't be ruled out.

After all, if it is bad for Bush he would surely hide it, and it's much easier to be sure that it's bad for Bush than that it's bad for the country.

In fact, isn't the sources and methods argument the only way it could bad for the country? Jane's concerns, and those of others who think the public reaction would be disastrous, are strongly anti-democratic.

"If we tell people this they will force us to do something stupid," is what the argument amounts to.

I seem to remember hearing that Pakistan was in pretty tight with bin Laden, and we didn't invade them either.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons. That's a pretty obvious reason not to ever try invading, I'd say.

the US (and other countries, I expect) gets enough oil from Saudi Arabia that the American public would feel some pain if the flow was cut off [...] Iraqi oil always went mostly to Europe

Saudi oil also goes mostly to Europe and Asia; our main supplier is Venezuela. That's beside the point, though, because the oil goes where the money is. Basically, any reduction in output by any oil-producing country raises oil prices for everyone, all over the world. Any increase in output by any oil-producing country lowers oil prices for everybody, all over the world. If the Saudis stopped producing oil tomorrow, bidding for Russian/Venezuelan/Iraqi/etc oil would get fiercer and prices would rise.

Saudi Arabia could afford to use the "oil weapon" a generation ago. Today its population is much larger and living on much-richer welfare payments paid for by oil. Saudi oil production is set at a level that maximizes revenue for them. Iraq and Russia, on the other hand, are underproducing; they'd make a lot more money if they increased production. That puts the Saudis in a tough spot for the near future -- if Iraq's and Russia's oil industries get on their feet, the Saudis face complete governmental and economic collapse.

After 9/11, I thought that Saudi Arabia was the strategic linchpin to dealing with the entities that wish to kill Americans in massive numbers. I still think that this is the case. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia is a nation that the world needs to trade with, unless a massive decline in living standards is to be endured. The trick, therefore, is to alter the nature of the Saudi Arabian government, while either avoiding a cutoff in trade, or at least minimizing the impact of a cutoff. An Iraq producing oil at full capacity, with the money going to the Iraqi people, helps minimize a cutoff with Saudi Arabia and allows more avenues for a covert, even non-military, attack on the House of Saud. If one intends to attack the House of Saud, even in a covert, non-military way, one is well advised to hide one's hostile intent as long as necessary. Is this what Bush is doing? One cannot be certain, but the conumdrum lies in the fact that in order for this strategy to succeed optimally, it's nature must be concealed as long as possible. If the U.S. could be kissy-faced with the likes of Joe Stalin, in order to deal with Hitler, the U.S. can also be sweet and light regarding "our friends", the Saudis, until the time arrives to slit their throats, either figuratively or literally.

If Bush wanted to get the Saudis off the front page he's done a rotten job. Look at us, we're talking about nothing else.

This has led some to suggest that Bush has done a bit of Sir-Humphrey-Appleby-style jiu jitsu: give the appearance of hiding something, knowing that your opponents will find it and bruit it about thinking they've got themselves a scoop. (I think bruit is the word.)

This gets the Saudis onto the front pages - which is Bush's intention all along under this theory - while keeping his hands clean and giving him plausible deniability. "We tried, Prince Bandar, really we did. We even clumsily and obviously blacked out the sections dealing with you. But it seemed to raise suspicions nonetheless."

Seems plausibly Rovian to me.

Remember that the Saudis asked for the info to be released, and it was Bush who said no.

If Bush wanted to get the Saudis off the front page he's done a rotten job. Look at us, we're talking about nothing else.

This has led some to suggest that Bush has done a bit of Sir-Humphrey-Appleby-style jiu jitsu: give the appearance of hiding something, knowing that your opponents will find it and bruit it about thinking they've got themselves a scoop. (I think bruit is the word.)

This gets the Saudis onto the front pages - which is Bush's intention all along under this theory - while keeping his hands clean and giving him plausible deniability. "We tried, Prince Bandar, really we did. We even clumsily and obviously blacked out the sections dealing with you. But it seemed to raise suspicions nonetheless."

Seems plausibly Rovian to me.

Remember that the Saudis asked for the info to be released, and it was Bush who said no.

I am optimistic regarding our long term relations with the Saudis. Most of the ruling family desires a very close and friendly relationship with the United States. Only a few indulged in the type of behavior that Tom Wolfe satirically wrote about some thirty years ago in “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.”

The Saudi leadership is presently caught in a Catch 22 predicament with the Wahhabi nut balls. However, they can with our help---become a most valuable ally. I strongly believe that our odds are better with the Saudis than the Old Europeans like France. The latter are truly hostile to our best interests.

Why, of course, David. Obviously the Saudis are far more sympathetic to America's best interests than those horrible French, if you ignore little things like their fundamental opposition to democracy. (Incidentally, French troops today stopped a village massacre in Congo, where the US has yet to put one troop.)

McArdle's overall theory, however, is entirely plausible -- every administration since FDR's has been tippytoeing very carefully around Saudi Arabia for quite possibly defensible reasons, but we won't be able to avoid doing it much longer. Which is why I still share Samuel Huntington's pessimistic view that this whole affair is going to end up as an all-out "war of civilizations", resulting in the deaths of several million Americans and several hundred million Moslems, and probably destroying enough of the world's oil production to throw the entire world into a depression that will dwarf the Great Depression. What can we do to prevent this? Probably nothing. If you actually think that just destabilizing the current Saudi government will solve the problem, I do hope you're looking forward to Bin Laden's triumphant ticker-tape parade through cheering crowds in Riyadh. (The New Republic, by the way, says Saudi Arabia is making plans to try and buy nuclear bombs, and I can already think of two potential sellers.)

Bernard Yomtov writes:

I didn't say it was, just that it's a serious possibility, and shouldn't be ruled out.

I'm certainly not ruling it out, but I don't see why it would have a greater probability than other, more legitimate considerations. This is all idle speculation, really, nothing more.

After all, if it is bad for Bush he would surely hide it, and it's much easier to be sure that it's bad for Bush than that it's bad for the country.

I don't see what you base both those premises on. If it's merely bad for Bush, someone would surely leak it by now -- or later, and Bush will look twice as bad for trying to cover up. The President is powerful, sure, but not omnipotent. And I don't see how it's "much easier to be sure that it's bad for Bush." You have no idea what's on those pages, and the Bush Jr. administration is hardly the first to coddle the Saudis.

In fact, isn't the sources and methods argument the only way it could bad for the country?

No, it isn't. There are plenty of ways it could be bad for the county, and not at all bad for Bush. (Say, if it turns out that the Saudis have been buying off or blackmailing the preceding presidents: having such information leak out would destroy the faith of the electorate, and do major harm to the U.S. political system. Just a random thought, mind you.)

Jane's concerns, and those of others who think the public reaction would be disastrous, are strongly anti-democratic.

Perhaps. Actually, I don't know about "disastrous" -- it just wouldn't be what the Bushies want, necessarily, and leave them little room for political maneuver. And really, this wouldn't be the first time information was kept from the public for strategic reasons. Like others before it, this Administration has a certain strategy, and having the public screaming for Saudi blood may or may not be in their interests. (Great, now we can speculate on speculations.)

Anti-democratic, sure, but the United States is not a democracy, and aside from being its highest elected official, the President is also the chief American military officer. Neither of these things obligates him to go along with what the electorate wants -- the electorate only gets to have input at the ballot box. Which means that he is entitled to keep certain information from the public, if he believes it's in the best strategic interests of the United States -- something the rest of us won't be able to discern for quite a few years, no doubt.

Jane's concerns, and those of others who think the public reaction would be disastrous, are strongly anti-democratic.

No, they're not. There is a popular misconception that democracy is about letting the public decide policy. It isn't. Democracy is about letting the public choose their leaders. Once chosen, the leaders lead, and the public don't.

If you think letting the public decide what public policy is, just read DU for a couple of days.

Letting the uninformed, ignorant and frequently not-very-smart folks decide policy is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention, it's a sure way to keep your enemies well-informed.

Not saying DU has a lock on idiocy; there's plenty of it on both ends of the spectrum. It just happens to be the single richest deposit of it I can think of.

If SA was truly behind 9/11, like people are speculating is indicated in the missing 28 pages, we could take them out more easily than we did Iraq - without catastrophic destabilization of the oil markets.

So, IMHO, there is no 'smoking gun' re SA in the missing section. Otherwise we would have taken them out long ago, with near unanimous support.

Actually, democracy is about letting the polis decide policy. Note the similarity of the words...

A republic, on the other hand, is about having the people pick their leaders, and is a much stronger form of government, because it is less vulnerable to gusts of popular opinion, and thus less likely to make horrible mis-steps or to fall into tyranny. It's also the most difficult of all types of government to maintain.

I think that the reason that the material was redacted has to be that it would be explosive if released. For example, if the report showed that senior leaders in the house of Sa'ud were involved in the planning and funding of 9/11 - with knowledge aforethought - I would not be the only American calling for blood. It would be impossible not to invade, which I think was Jane's point.

That said, we do have an option for taking down SA which doesn't involve getting all of Islam pitted irrevocably against us. When Iraq's oil production is fully online in a year or so - probably not long after the election - we will be in a position to tell SA to do what we want. Their only weapons are terrorism and oil. We will remove the oil weapon by getting Iraqi production online.

Then, if SA resorts to terrorism, we invade. If not, but if SA fails to comply with our demands (including cessation of export of Wahabbism, turning over certain individuals, enthusiastic cooperation in defunding terror groups, etc), then we release the material from the report, showing that SA was directly involved in the attacks, and we invade.

In either case, if we end up invading, we take only the eastern part of the country, and give it to Oman and Kuwait for administrative purposes. We encourage Jordan to "protect the holy cities of Mecca and Medina" by taking them over. We then announce that we don't seek control of Mecca and Medina. The House of Sa'ud is now in control of Riyadh and desert, and is no longer capable of financing terrorism, nor of rallying Arabs behind them.

The Arabs in general wouldn't much care if Oman and Kuwait had control of the oil, nor would they care if the Sa'ud's or Jordanians had control of the holy cities (as long as there are Arabs in control).

Jordan would have a powerful incentive to cooperate, because control of the holy cities would place them at the center of the Islamic world. Kuwait and Oman (and maybe Bahrain) would have powerful incentives to cooperate, because they would get vastly increased oil wealth. The shock to the world economy would be minimal, with the Iraqi oil online. The chance of a general Arab uprising would be minimal, because the Jordanians would would renounce any intentions of controlling either Mecca and Medina or the oil.

It is at least plausible.

Look before you leap.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain why the U.S. would HAVE to invade if the House of Saud were implicated. ACT, yes. But invade? Under international law, the 1979 sacking of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran constituted an attack on American territory and a casus belli, but we didn't invade Iran over it, nor was there much popular sentiment to do so (bombing, of course, was another matter).

"I think that the reason that the material was redacted has to be that it would be explosive if released. For example, if the report showed that senior leaders in the house of Sa'ud were involved in the planning and funding of 9/11 - with knowledge aforethought - I would not be the only American calling for blood. It would be impossible not to invade, which I think was Jane's point."

Can I point out that, hypothetically, if the Saudis turned them over to us for trial there'd be no reason to invade?.

Jane:"Bush will have to invade SA or lose office. Any Dem who replaces him will have to do likewise."

We will not invade SA. No matter what. If it makes you happy continue with your fantasy war games...

That's assuming, Jason, that the Saudis will just hand them over, rather than executing them out of hand. Sometimes the Saudis are like that.

Ok then. Let's outline the argument:

1) The Saudis did something related to 9/11 that *justifies invading them*.
2) The Bush response to this is to pretend it didn't happen, because they don't want to invade SA.

So, basically, the assumption is that we shouldn't do anything about the people behind 9/11 when it happens to be politically inconvenient?

“Why, of course, David. Obviously the Saudis are far more sympathetic to America's best interests than those horrible French, if you ignore little things like their fundamental opposition to democracy."

“So, basically, the assumption is that we shouldn't do anything about the people behind 9/11 when it happens to be politically inconvenient?”

I am not in the least bit childishly naive. My conclusions do not contradict in any way the insights of Daniel Pipes, Dore Gold, or Ralph Peters. Sympathy has little to do with anything. The top Saudi leadership realize that we essentially stand between them and Armageddon. They need us to save their rear ends! Moreover, many of them were educated in the West and feel somewhat guilty about their reactionary homeland. Only a few members of the royal family are ardent supporters of Wahhabism. Most of the time, a tacit agreement was reached: don’t tell us what you are doing--and don’t commit any violent acts on Saudi soil. The crap has finally hit the fan---and the Saudis do not want to further irritate the White House.

“Which is why I still share Samuel Huntington's pessimistic view that this whole affair is going to end up as an all-out "war of civilizations", resulting in the deaths of several million Americans and several hundred million Moslems...”

This is a silly argument. The majority of Muslims are not radical nut balls. A theological reformation is taking place in the Islamic world, and the Osama bin Ladins are increasingly becoming marginalized.

The fact that the crap has indeed finally hit the fan changes little -- the Saudi royal family are between a rock and a hard place. If they side with the US, a landslide majority of their own people will turn on them (one poll of Saudi Arabia shortly before the Iraq war began -- and then hastily repressed by the Saudi government --showed a stggering 98% of the populace willing to say that Bin Laden was morally correct). And if they side with Al Qaida, WE will (justifiably) turn on them. The problem is that nobody can put off making the decision much longer.

As for Thomson's confidence that a US invasion of Saudi Arabia won't ignite that War of Civilizations: if we (A) stay out of the western half of the country and (B) are very, very lucky, it won't -- but an invasion of ANY part of the nation which is the official guardian of Islam's holiest places will infuriate legions of Moslems who might otherwise be reluctant to get into a war with us. (If we take over those holy places and then hand them over to Jordan, all that will happen is that the Jordanian government will be viewed by most of the Moslem world as quislings -- and the Jordanian government has none too much support among its own people right now.) Of course, just occupying eastern Saudi Arabia's oil fields (and handing over control of them either to the UN or to some relatively pliable state like Oman) is the best possible course of action for us if we do have to invade; but we'll have to be damn lucky to avoid setting off a continent-wide firestorm even in that case. And the really deadly possibility is an upheaval in Pakistan -- which already has the Bomb, is awash in Al Qaida sympathizers (including in its military), has a government with a wobbly hold on power, and has shown a shockingly blithe attitude in the recent past about the consequences of getting into a nuclear war with India.

As for

Ignore that last "As for"; I didn't edit my message properly.

I've been boggled by the moderate position on this issue elsewhere. Let me sum it up:

1. If you are attacked by an enemy, it's an acceptable response to attack and conquer a nation which didn't attack you, but which might attack you sometime, and which vaguely resembles the actual attackers.

2. It is not OK, however, even to say who the actual attackers were, because then you might have to do something which would make them mad.

3. But you can brag all you want to about how tough you are after you've soundly defeated the non-attackers. And getting mad at the totally involved French is a perfectly sensible thing to do, too.

The frequently-expressed opinion that we have only two options, invading Saudi Arabia and doing nothing at all, also is boggling.

"uninvolved"

There's some crazy talk on this thread. Sure we're a representative democracy, and we only get a say every four years. But how can we possibly make the correct decision in 2004 if significant facts are kept from us? That means basically the _only_ time we can make an informed choice is when two non-incumbents are running. Sign me up for that system!

Anyway, surely the revelations can't be _that_ explosive, or someone would have leaked them already, and the Saudis would never have asked for their release.

Ack! too complicated. The real problem is that there is no such thing as Saudi Arabia. And it gets worse from there. There is no succession to the monarchy. Don't think french revolution, think War of the Roses. Ack! cant explain right now ack! Invasion comes later. Ack!

I find myself largely in rare agreement with Mr.Moomaw, although possibly not quite as pessimistic. In any case, it is only when the population of Saudi Arabia is given a choice between siding with the Bin ladenites, or entering the modern world, that we will know whether we have a war of annihilation to fight. I fervently hope the people of that geographical area choose wisely, but first they must have the opportunity to choose. Where

Mr. Moomaw and I differ is in the fact that I believe that an Iraq behaving like something approaching a modern, peaceful, nation greatly improves our chances for having change in Saudi Arabia that doesn't result in an war of annihilation, or if we are very fortunate, doesn't require an invasion of Saudi Arabia. I can't read the minds of policymakers in Washington, and even if this is what is on their minds, they cannot yet overtly state their goals, but I do fervently hope that they recognize how untenable it now is to have the House of Saud remain in their current form, and how the change must be fairly rapid. We will see.

Well, I will agree that a democratic and self-governed but recognizably Moslem Iraq would considerably improve our situation in that part of the world, PROVIDED it is also producing
enough oil to blunt the effects of any withholding of the supply for political blackmail purposes by any Saudi government of any type.

That, however, is one hell of a lot of "ifs". The damnable thing about the Moslem problem is that the situation is far messier and more complex than the usual transition from dictatorship to democracy -- thanks to that damned authoritarian religion of theirs, a large majority of Arabs really do think that they proper thing to replace their current secular tyrannies with is theocratic tyrannies, and (as in Iran) it will take them decades to both realize their mistake and execute the needed second revolution (which is years away even in Iran, after all -- and which might be delayed even longer if the future Moslem theocracies are more ruthless than Iran's, and bear a closer resemblance to economy-size Talibans).

And I think our odds of success in creating a stable, democratic Iraq any time within the next couple of decades are pathetically small -- it's far more likely to end up as yet another theocracy, or more likely a fragmented set of several of them (Sunni/Shiite/Kurd, with the Kurds being the only ones with a chance at becoming genuinely democratic). Such an Iraq would also be either seriously inefficient at producing oil, or would be just as likely to use it for blackmail against the West as Saudi Arabia is currently doing.

What a goddamn mess. Well, given that failure for the population that resides in Saudi Arabia to change in a fundamental fashion WILL result in a war of annihilation, I think it was worth going down an avenue which can avoid that outcome, even if it is indeed a very difficult road to travel. Here's hoping our pessimism will prove to be overstated.

No, Democracy isn't letting the Polis decide policy...

Its letting the Demos or "People" rule. Demos-People + Cratein-Rule. They make the decisions, and the laws, and usually execute them...

There are no "democracies" in the world today. We don't have huge assemblies of the citizens hearing all the sides and making decisions, except maybe at a New England Town Meeting...

Today the people elect rulers who make and execute the laws and policies. Every "Democracy" today is simply a Republic, and people's speech has become sloppy.

Republics are non-Monarchical governments, where at least some part of the Populace selects the rulers. Many features of "Republics" were found in Oligarchies (Few Rulers), including election. (Democracies used to select officials and the like by lottery! That was the democratic and equality minded thing, folks. Elections are oligarchic). Having power in a legislature is oligarchic, and so is having a Constitutional limit to the Power of the People.

There's a reason that for most of history, Democracy was considered "mob rule." Its because the mob, outvoted everyone else, and made all the decisions, often in a passionate and reckless manner in the Assemblies of the original democracies.

Ziska said:

I've been boggled by the moderate position on this issue elsewhere. Let me sum it up:

1. If you are attacked by an enemy, it's an acceptable response to attack and conquer a nation which didn't attack you, but which might attack you sometime, and which vaguely resembles the actual attackers.

2. It is not OK, however, even to say who the actual attackers were, because then you might have to do something which would make them mad.

Thanks for this post, ziska. I agree. We pretty much crossed through the looking glass in this thread, but I couldn't find the words to express my utter incredulity.

"Well, given that failure for the population that resides in Saudi Arabia to change in a fundamental fashion"

I think you're overestimating the extent to which the will of SA's population is ignored by their rulers.

Whoops, I meant underestimating, obviously. And I think with a somewhat-representative government there they'd fumble towards a market economy, and nihilistic fundamentalism seems a bit incompatible with 3% gdp growth.....

I read some wag (can't remember who) who put it this way:

We declare war and invaded Iraq, which has no known ties to 9/11.

Meanwhile we coddle the Saudis. All the while knowing of some ties between SA and 9/11. Perhaps Bush is covering up a lot more.

This is as if, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, we declared war on the Phillipines, while bending over backwards to keep the Japanese happy. Amazing.

Hey, I hope you are correct, Jason. In any case, the only way to find out is to give the population a chance to practice self-government.

Some responses:

1. Political leaders have a long history of concealing information that reflects unfavorably on them. That the information sometimes proves explosive when revealed does not change that. Hence it is quite a reasonable hypothesis that Bush is doing the same.

2. Political leaders are eager to publicize information that reflects favorably on them. Hence we can be reasonably confident that the report does not contain glowing praise for Bush's actions.

3. Yes, yes. I took civics in junior high school too, and understand all that business about republics and democracies. But public opinion does, and should influence policy. If not, how do all those pollsters stay in business?

Are all of you really saying you think it's best to be kept in the dark and let Bush do whatever he wants? Using the common-sense meaning of the word "democratic," that is indeed strongly anti-democratic.

I didn't make it through all of the comments, but I'd say that the original posts and comments from Jane are spot-on.

Absolutely. The Pandora's Box we'd be opening with something less than even an "invasion" needs to be thought about long and hard. Doesn't mean the Bush administration isn't willing to undertake alternative measures to handle the Saudi problem. In fact, I think Bush's tactics are correct.

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