oped: Excellent article...what people need to realize is that Islam is not a religion per se...it is a 7th Century Theocracy 'War Machine' still stuck in the 7th Century...Caliphate after Caliphate has failed over the centuries. The reason being is that they are too busy waging war,raping,pillaging,cutting off heads and hands all in the name of Allah the Moon God. Is it not time for the Middle East to join the rest of the world in the 21st Century? Educate yourselves move away from the theocracy war machine Muhammad established during the 7th century...find a real religious purpose that will move you into the 21st century...learn how to create things rather than destroy things...accept others beliefs and culture and stop forcing your beliefs down others throats or lack of !
Start here educate yourselves on what Islam is really about: http://sharlaslabyrinth.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-life-and-times-of-muhammad_5191.html
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By Jeff Stein
Western technicians at Dhahran Air Base like to
joke that the only aircraft the Saudis can keep in the air by themselves
is a model of a British Tornado on a pedestal at the gates.
Indeed, the entire Saudi military arsenal—including the
world’s biggest fleet of American F-15s outside of the U.S. and
Japan—couldn’t function without the several hundred mostly American and
British technicians who keep the royal family’s tanks, ships, artillery
and warplanes in working order. As with everything else in the Saudi
economy, from servants to oil field workers, the Saudis just don’t “do”
such hands-on work.
The same goes for Saudi ground troops: There are
officers, and there are grunts (not all of them Saudis), and nothing
in-between. The concept of a corps of sergeants actually running things,
is, well, foreign, to the desert kingdom’s rulers, for a variety of
tribal and cultural reasons. But as any Western general knows, an army
wins (or doesn’t) on the strength of its sergeants, the blue-collar guys
down below the colonels, majors and lieutenants who prod the grunts and
make sure things get done. And it’s the sergeants who do the training.
So when Obama administration officials talk about helping
finance and train so-called "moderate" Syrians to take on the Islamic
State, they're only half-right. In the Saudis’ shopworn custom, the
kingdom will certainly fork over millions to finance the fight, but if
they do any training at all it will probably be carried out by
others—the hundreds of U.S. and British military advisors on scene in
the kingdom.
Likewise, the prospect of Saudi pilots banking their F-15s
into dive-bombing runs against ISIS targets in Iraq or Syria, is a
fantasy. Just getting the king to issue a denunciation of the
neck-slicing savages was considered a major victory in official
Washington.
“They will be relying on foreigners—Americans mostly, as I
understand it,” for training, says Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and
White House Middle East expert now at the Brookings Institution. “They
have zero capacity to do the training themselves. Even if we backed out,
they would just hire [military contractor] MPRI or groups like them to
do the training.”
“It will be a Saudi face for a U.S effort,” agrees
Patrick Skinner, a former CIA operative in Iraq who frequently travels
the Middle East for the Soufan Group, a private organization led by
former FBI, CIA and British intelligence officers. “Not a bad thing,” he
adds, “but it will be interesting to see how effective the result is.
After all, we spent untold time and treasure training up the Iraqi and
Afghan armies that are proving completely inept. Why do we think we can
do it even faster with Syrian rebels? It makes no sense.”
Having Americans continuing to play a key role in Saudi
Arabia’s defense doesn’t make a lot of sense, either, at least
politically. It was the main organizing cry for al Qaeda: Get the
Americans out of the “land of the two holy Mosques,” Mecca and Medina.
On top of that, the Saudi Ministry of Defense is
facing a leadership vacuum, leaving it outside the loop of royal
decision making, according to a former top U.S. diplomat in the region.
But the Ministry of Interior, he added on condition of anonymity to
discuss such sensitive matters, could offer substantive help to whatever
coalition President Obama can string together to combat ISIS: After two
decades battling al Qaeda-inspired domestic insurgents and terrorists,
the 100,000-strong MOI knows the enemy and its techniques well, and
almost certainly has its own intelligence sources in Syria (which
Washington sorely lacks, by all accounts).
“It could certainly arm” the Syrian rebel factions of its
choosing, the former ambassador said. Even more important, he added,
the ministry is led by Mohammad bin Nayef, 55, a member of the House of
Saud and a potential contender for the throne. “It will only work if
he’s on board.”
Experts on the Saudis cautioned that the king’s
recent verbal attacks on ISIS should not be dismissed as mere talk, as
some influential American commentators have it.
“It is a really big step that the Saudis are doing this and publicly announcing that they doing it,” Pollack told Newsweek. “That is not how they do things, so this is a very deliberate effort on their part to show their commitment to this fight.”
It’s also important because, “We haven’t been on same page
with them on Syria for a long time,” said the former ambassador.
“There’s been a lot of bad blood” between Riyadh and Washington--and not
just over Syria. The Saudis themselves nourished the brand of
puritanical Islam that would give birth to al Qaeda and its evil
stepchild, the Islamic State. Denouncing its savagery seems beyond
hypocritical on the part of the royals: In the past month alone, the
kingdom’s executioners beheaded 19 people in “Chop-Chop Square,”
Riyadh’s medieval justice forum, nearly half for nonviolent crimes.
“It’s important for symbolic reasons,” agrees
Richard Barrett, the former head of counterterrorism for MI6, Britain’s
secret intelligence service. “They can’t sit on sidelines… They have to
take a role of some sort,” he told Newsweek. “Even if their role is small, it should be visual and actual.”
Barrett also suggested the “allies” start thinking
the unthinkable: Saudi, Iranian and U.S. military commanders publicly
coordinating attacks on ISIS—as a prelude to a regional peace agreement.
Bombing ISIS into submission alone, he pointed out, won’t solve the
bigger problem of the region—the struggle of Shiites and Sunnis for
hegemony in the Middle East.
“At some point,” he said, “the Saudis and Iran will have to cooperate.” Why not now?
Jeff Stein writes Spytalk from Washington, D.C.
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