open Democracy News Analysis - A Single Correction to Briscoe, - Comments

brolly2_1 on "A Single Correction to Briscoe"

brolly2_1 — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 17:16:35 +0000

Douglas Murray said: ["The U.S. provided troops to protect Saudi Arabia. When Saudi Arabia no longer needed protecting the U.S. troops withdrew. A fine example of great and, I would say, typically benevolent U.S. foreign policy."] I would like to make one small correction to Mr Murray's statment. The US provided troops to protect their oil supply, which also happened to coincide with protecting the Saudi Roayl Family and Saudi establishment.It is a simple as that. Assigning benevolence to a realpolitic aim doesn't fool anyone. Message was edited by: brolly2_1

douglaskmurray@yahoo.com on "A Single Correction to Briscoe"

douglaskmurray@yahoo.com — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 16:40:05 +0000

I am grateful to Mr Briscoe for his reply and acknowledgment that the liberation of Iraq and not the 'mollifying of terrorists' was the precursor for US troop withdrawal from Saudi Arabia. Whatever the threats to Saudi Arabia, post-Hussein, they do not come from a neighbouring government with armies with long experience of border-crossing aggressive warfare. Since I am sure Mr Briscoe does not intend the implication of his point, which is that countries in the region under threat of terrorist violence ought to enjoy the presence of the U.S. military, I shall not pursue the matter.

ibriscoe@hotmail.com on "A Single Correction to Briscoe"

ibriscoe@hotmail.com — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 14:34:03 +0000

Mr Murray is of course right to say that the occupation of Iraq was the necessary precursor to the US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, and takes this move to be one more example of WashingtonŽs "typically benevolent" foreign policy. While not wishing to engage in an extended argument over this characterization, I must admit to feeling bemused over the insistence that "the threat to Saudi Arabia had disappeared." Certainly the threat from Saddam Hussein had (though it is uncertain quite how much of a threat he posed in early 2003). But it would surely be more correct to argue that the nature of the threat had changed - or why else are the serried ranks of neo-con institutes and analysts so concerned over the future of the Saudi state, the terrorist attacks there, and the possibility of a fundamentalist uprising? All of which, I suppose, was ignored by Rumsfeld as he kindly left the Saudi state to rein sovereign over its own affairs.

A Single Correction to Briscoe,

douglaskmurray@yahoo.com — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:47:53 +0000

I wonder if I could borrow your forum to point out just one of the factual errors in Ivan Briscoe's reply to my article on Spain's election. Mr Briscoe gives three 'reasons' why he thinks the vote in Spain was not a victory for al-Qaida. The first two reasons are very much open to dispute while the third is simply wrong. Mr Briscoe writes that: 'The third reason to reject the al-Qaida victory theory refers to the honourable tradition that already exists in Washington of strategic withdrawal in the name of mollifying terrorists. Donald Rumsfeld himself, after all, presided over the final retreat of US troops from Saudi Arabia one of the main rallying calls of al-Qaida in the 1990s shortly after the end of major combat operations in Iraq.' Read the rest of this post...