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Subject: A Saudi Riddle
Dark Horse    5/31/2004 11:46:11 PM
Really interesting, someone sent this to me... May 30, 2004 A Saudi Riddle Which is this: in yesterday's attacks in Al Khobar, as in the attack earlier this month in Yanbu, the terrorists went after people, not infrastructure. And yet, if ex-CIA agent Robert Baer is right, they could have done far more damage and sown far more chaos if they had gone after the delicate web of pipelines, pumping stations and terminals that is currently squirting 8.35 million barrels of crude a day into the global oil market. Here's Baer's take, from his book Sleeping With the Devil: Any oil extraction, production and delivery system relies on a large, mostly exposed exoskeleton. Add to that the topography of eastern Saudi Arabia, where the vast oil fields are located - an ocean of sand broken by shifting dunes, all of it sloping gently into the Persian Gulf - and you have a security consultant's worse nightmare. Taking down Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure is like spearing fish in a barrel. It's not a question of opportunity; it's a question of how good your bang men are and what you give them to work with... One element that made Pearl Harbor such an attractive target in 1941 was so much American firepower, air and sea, boxed in such a small space. Even if a Japanese bomb missed its target, it was likely to find something worth blowing up. Tactically, the Saudi fields offer much the same sort of target environment. One scenario concluded that if terrorists were to simultaneously hit only five of the many sensitive points in Saudi Arabia's downstream oil system, they could put the Saudis out of the oil producing business for about two years. Al Qaeda's Saudi branch (or should I say home office?) has already proven its "bang men" are very good indeed. And while I'm sure every effort has been made to eliminate as many vulnerabilities as possible, it's hard to believe the kingdom's oil infrastructure has been spared because Al Qaeda doesn't have the means to attack it. Knocking Saudi Arabia out of the oil producing business for two years would bring the global economy to its knees - and probably bring about the fall of the House of Saud. In other words, it would be an enormous victory for Al Qaeda, the kind that would make the current fiasco in Iraq look like a paper cut. And there's not much the United States could do about it, even if it invaded and occupied the Saudi oil fields. Iraq has already demonstrated the futility of trying to guard something as inherently vulnerable and sprawling as an oil infrastructure against a determined saboteur movement. So why is Al Qaeda still fooling around with these attacks on foreign workers? Is it because they don't want to alienate Saudi popular opinion by destroying the goose that lays the petroleum eggs? Are they hoping to inherit the oil infrastructure intact once they take power? Do they have a implicit deal with the royal family (or some faction within it) to limit their attacks to the infidel devils and leave the valuable stuff alone? I could see the House of Saud offering such a deal (and trusting that the clueless Americans will never find out about it), but what motive would Al Qaeda have for abiding by it? I don't have any obvious answers to this riddle - or at least, none that aren't wearing silly tinfoil hats. But think about it the next time you fill up your tank, because it's probably the only thing standing between you and a $6 gallon of gas.
 
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dudley    RE:A Saudi Riddle   6/1/2004 12:02:46 AM
the islamics dont think like us i think.but it seems if they were to devestate the saudi oil production theyed be hurting the saudi population as well and hurting their support base.another thing is saudi being the holy of holies with mecca and medina.alot of muslim countries dont produce oil and theyed be hurt too.just a thought.
 
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dudley    RE:A Saudi Riddle   6/1/2004 12:06:20 AM
anyone wanna take bets the royals are rethinking their funding for the islamic breeding schools around the world?theyre reaping what they sowed kinda like the us with obl in afganistan and the russian occupation.
 
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OzWobbles    RE:A Saudi Riddle   6/5/2004 6:29:06 PM
Saudis rethinking their funding for Islamic breeding schools around the world? Of course not. I'm afraid, dudley, that you don't understand how this particular conspiracy works. You see, the Israelis - sorry, the Zionists - are using mind-control beam technology, originally supplied by the CIA after being reverse-engineered from technology found in the alien spaceships held secretly in Area 51, to get the Saudis to set up and fund these schools, so that the people they produce will go out into the world, commit murder and generate mayhem and thus thoroughly discredit Islam, leaving everyone no choice but to support the Zionists. So when the Saudis blame the recent terror attacks on Zionists, this is obviously the truth behind it. So, my answer is no, they're not going to rethink their funding - unless it is to increase it. Those mind control beams aren't going to be turned off now when they're working so well..
 
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Desertmole    Zionists   9/20/2004 2:47:23 AM
Check out my comment on the thread about Zionists. You have to have lived in Saudi for a while to understand the politics of such comments.
 
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Savant    RE:A Saudi Riddle   12/5/2004 8:58:11 PM
Maybe not that much of a riddle but something to ponder. An embassy rep. once told me when I was in Arabia that US Intel estimates put Al Queda membership in the Saudi Military alone at 10,000 memebers. That was only about two months after 9/11, and sounded like an liberal estimate to me. Keep in mind thats just the military. I mentioned in another thread that the Royals have a magic button that will destroy all the wells if ever threatened. Not a rumor. So, if Al Queda were to blow any pipe lines, infra-structure or processing plants, what do they stand to gain, when the king has the option, if threatened, to do this anyway? It might be better to think about what Al Queda would stand to lose? The Saudi Police and military making a major crackdown and coming down very hard on everybody if anything like that ever transpired. Envision huge roundups of people, embarrassing, people having the tar beat out of them, information passed, informers back on the streets. What would it gain them? I would predict complete and utter Marshall Law being declared, and Al Queda and nobody there wants that. If you understand a little about Saudi politics regarding the deal with the devil the house of saud originally had to make with the Wahhabi sect from the beginning many years ago, this might be a little more clear. And why are they attacking foreigners? Thats Bin Ladens number one request... all foreigners off the Arabian Peninsula and especially the land of the two holy mosques. Attacking soft targets of oil workers, western oriented offices and such is an easy way top rack up a few brownie points for the number one demand of OBL. just my two cents....
 
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