This report in the Guardian spooked me in light of the Vincent murder below.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) – King Abdullah received oaths of loyalty from hundreds of top Islamic clerics, tribal chiefs and other prominent Saudis on Wednesday in a traditional Islamic investiture ceremony that bestows his legitimacy.
Members of the Supreme Council of Senior Islamic clerics were the first to file by Abdullah in a Riyadh palace, shake his hand and pronounce their allegiance to him as Saudi Arabia’s sixth king.
The House of Saud has depended on the support of clerics from the kingdom’s strict Wahhabi version of Islam ever since Abdullah’s father, Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, welded the Arabian peninsula tribes into a nation under his name in 1932.
Hundreds of tribal chiefs, religious clerics, government officials and uniformed senior armed forces officers waited in the big hall of the palace, covered with silk carpets, for their turn to honor Abdullah. A palace servant swung an incense burner among them to bless the gathering.
Security was tight, with armed agents wandering the hall, wearing traditional white robes and red headdresses, toting automatic weapons and loops of ammunition.
Vice President Dick Cheney was headed to the kingdom, a close U.S. ally, and was expected to meet Abdullah later Wednesday.
Some ally.
Saudi Arabia must enter the 21st Century if we are ever to win the war on terror. The high unemployment rate of its young men is greatly responsible for their joining the ranks of the Islamic nihilists. Women cannot even drive automobiles within the Kingdom. The economy is not diversified and depends entirely on the oil sector. This nonsense has got to cease. We Americans can no longer afford to ìmind our own business.î
I’ll get interested when some tribe not named Saud and not beholden to the Whabbists gets the opportunity to put their hands in our pockets.
Haven’t we had enough make nice with this band of reactionary poseurs?
Roger-
That sounds pretty much like SOP for a House of Saud regime change.
Ummm… given that any notions I have of the mafia are from movies, TV, or fiction books I could be way off base here, but doesn’t this seem similar to, well, the way criminal organizations go about the ritualized portion of changes in power? Just askin’.
Is it true that no non-Muslims were permitted at the funeral itself? I thought I overheard that the other day on TV and then could not find the answer celarly when I googled it.
If so, it speaks volumes about their views of the rest of the world.
BW,
Yes, it does, but at least we didn’t have to put our VP on a plane to attend. Saved us a few dollars.
Bruce,
Yes, that’s true. WaPo cleared up a lot of that for me in this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080201744.html
Non-Muslims aren’t allowed to the funeral per se (which seems not entirely unreasonable for a religious ceremony), but apparently will “pay their respects” to the new king today.
Has anybody gotten a clear picture of how the *new* Crown Prince fits into the big picture? None of these guys are young men, so there may well be a lot of turnover in the King position over the next decade.
ìNone of these guys are young men, so there may well be a lot of turnover in the King position over the next decade.î
Next decade? How about in the next few months? The dysfunctional Saud family leaders are very old men. There are even rumors a few might be dyeing their hair to appear younger. But thatís beside the point. The real question is when will the countryís citizens be able to vote for political alternatives? Iím convinced that the war on terror cannot be won until this occurs.
Changing the Kingdom will take a long long long time. All we can do is work around the edges for now I’m afraid. I just don’t see it any other way.
On the other hand I don’t _think_ Abdullah is one of the really bad guys at all. His Islamic views may be quite conservative but I don’t think he advocates Islamic warfare against the West. Since he’s now officially in charge, rather than unofficially, he may have more clout.
It’s that Prince Naif (sp?) who is the real problem.
David C. Thanks for the WaPo link. Though there may be some reasonability in excluding people of other faiths, I don’t think any other large religious would exclude others. As one Saudi shopkeeper noted in the article: “In death, there’s no difference between Muslims, no difference at all.”
As for the rest of us, still a big difference.
As I said in my previous post:
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2005/07/another_bandar.php#c60013
Saudi Arabia is not a nation state. It is a family possesion. There are no rules of inheritance for a kingdom in Islamic Law and there is neither primogeniture nor legitimate heirship. Succession to the throne of Saudi Arabia is like becoming the Capo of a mafia family.
Even so, laws and traditions may restrain succession struggles, but they are not a fool-proof preventative. Such struggles occur even in much more law bound systems than Saudi Arabia’s. As I said in my previous post read Shakespeare.
I bet the British wish they had drawn those borders a little different.
Someday hopefully these autocratic cyrbabies will not control the world economy and they will be consigned to the middle ages where they belong.
I know we can not nuke Mecca or anything and I really wish the people of the region would use their wealth for something contructive but I have to admit I am awful tired of these folks.
Hopefully the new guy will be a little more modern. I heard some historian say that the Saudis were riding the tiger they had unleashed, they dare not get off.
I know it’s been said before, but Saudi Arabia stands against nearly everything that Western civilization stands for. Democracy? Check. Seperation of church and state? Check. Equal rights for women and ethnic minorities? Check. Laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, gender, creed or religion? Check. Right to trial by a jury of one’s peers? Check. The abolition of corporal punishment? Check. The abolition of slavery? Check (until only very recently, and still in name only). Freedom to chose one’s religion (or none at all)? Check. Let’s not forget the general trend in the US, lefty sentiment be damned, against exporting terrorism, bigotry, religious hatred and slavery around the world–check.
My God, it’s astonishing that we let these people have anything more than an interest section in this country. Yet the Vice President of the United States is off to pay his respects to the newly-enthroned despot of this nightmare kingdom.
We ought to treat our relationship with Saudia Arabia as a recovering junkie with a strong will would relate to methadone–a necessary evil, perhaps, while one weens oneself from the addiction, but not a relationship to be proud of or advertise, and one to be disposed of at the earliest opportunity.
Terrye sez:
“I know we can not nuke Mecca or anything”
Heck no! It’s far too valuable as a site for releasing the H5N1 avian flu virus.
Don’t worry, just kidding.
On a more serious note, while there are obvious difficulties to forcibly ending the Saud’s control of Mecca and Medina, there’s no particular religious significance to the eastern provinces where all the oil is – and that part of the country is inhabited by an oppressed Shia minority. Maybe they deserve to have their own independent homeland….
If the Sauds had to live off just the income from the Haj tourist trade, they wouldn’t be able to afford to make nearly as much trouble as they do now.
Boy do they sound like your run-of-the-mill, progressive, mover-shaker go boom, crowd.
Frightening little fert’s aren’t they? I wonder who they had for dinner?
“I know it’s been said before, but Saudi Arabia stands against nearly everything that Western civilization stands for. Democracy? Check. Seperation of church and state? Check. Equal rights for women and ethnic minorities? Check. Laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, gender, creed or religion? Check. Right to trial by a jury of one’s peers? Check. The abolition of corporal punishment? Check. The abolition of slavery? Check (until only very recently, and still in name only). Freedom to chose one’s religion (or none at all)? Check. Let’s not forget the general trend in the US, lefty sentiment be damned, against exporting terrorism, bigotry, religious hatred and slavery around the world–check.”
-Posted by: Christopher Luebcke [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 3, 2005 01:35 PM
maybe it’s been said before,Chris,
but i’ve not seen it put as effectively before.
-gumshoe
“Quality Islamic Clothing for your whole Family!”
no thanks.
Minor point: like many others, the Guardian is off by a number of generations about the Saud-Wahhabi link. It dates to a Sheik Saud who wanted to conquer and rule the area, but did not have enough followers. He made a deal with a fanatical mullah – if the mullah would add his following to the sheik’s army, the sheik would establish the mullah’s sect as the state religion.