Many Americans were glad when Trump turned down the Saudi crown prince’s desperate telephone plea for the Americans to bomb the Houthis. They remembered how Saudi Arabia had denied the American air force permission to use the bases it had been using in Saudi Arabia to attack Iran. And the Saudi request for help is particularly astounding when you consider that the Royal Saudi Air Force (RASF) has between 210 and 230 active F-15 fighter jets in its inventory. This gives the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) the largest fleet of F-15s in the world outside of the United States. Yet the Saudis have over many years been unable to bomb the Houthis in Yemen into submission. And now the Crown Prince, despite those hundreds of planes, and knowing his pilots are not up to the job, was hoping that America would do the fighting for his country against the Shia Houthis.
Americans are also well aware that Saudi officials provided financial and logistical support to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers, and that a succession of American administrations have refused to release the information about Saudi involvement in those attacks. At the 9/11 ceremony this year, the widow of a man who died in that attack publicly demanded that Saudi Arabia “stop lying” and called on the President to release all the information about Saudi involvement in the attacks that successive administrations in Washington government have until now withheld.
The request by Saudi Arabia for the Americans to bomb because the Saudis, despite their fabulously outfitted air force, know their own pilots are not up to it, may remind us of an event that took place in Saudi Arabia in 1979, when six hundred men under the command of Juhayman ibn Muhammad ibn Sayf al-Otaybi took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Nov. 20, 1979. Al-Otaybi considered the Saudi royal family as insufficiently faithful, corrupt, and determined to “modernize” — that is, to make more like the Infidel world — Saudi society. He called for an uprising against the Saudi rulers.
For more than a week, the Saudi forces were unable to dislodge the rebels on their own, so they finally called upon French special forces, who advised them to pump tear gas into the ground so that it would fill the underground level of the Grand Mosque where the rebels were located, and force them to surrender. The Saudis promptly followed the French advice, pumped in the gas, and the rebels surrendered. They were promptly executed. Had the Saudis not relied on the French forces, the retaking of the Grand Mosque, which took two weeks, might have gone on for much longer. On its own, the Saudi military has proved most ineffectual.
Now the Saudis have been warned. If you deny America the use of the air bases in Saudi Arabia where its planes and pilots have been stationed, as the Saudis did during the war between the U.S. and Iran last winter, when the King Sultan airbase was declared off-limits to American war fighters, there will be consequences. For a long time, the Saudis have taken America for granted. There was a story once making the rounds about a high-ranking Saudi official who, pointing to a group of American pilots stationed in the Kingdom, told a visitor that “these are my blue-eyed slaves.” I have been unable to track down the source, so it may be apocryphal, but it does express the Saudi assumption of superiority to the Infidels who provide the Saudis with security, viewed in Riyadh as little more than hired hands, buckaroos riding F-15s and F-35s instead of horses.
Surely now is the time to release whatever information the American government possesses about Saudi officials and the 9/11 terrorists. Saudi Arabia’s rulers are in a tizzy. The government, shocked at Trump’s unwillingness to send his planes and pilots to do the Saudis’ fighting for them, does not know where to put its feet and hands. It may become even more desperate as the Houthis continue to block Saudi ships from using the Bab al-Mandab Strait, seize still more Yemeni territory from the Saudi-backed Yemeni national government, and strike more Saudi oil installations and airbases, seemingly at will. And if the Americans are disinclined to help, what about the two Muslim nations — Pakistan and Turkey — with which Saudi Arabia sign the Mecca Agreement on August 7? This mutual defense pact should have triggered Turkish and Pakistani military aid to Saudi Arabia, once the Houthis had closed the Red Sea to Saudi shipping and started bombing Saudi airbases. Where are those Turkish and Pakistani armed forces now? Why are they not fighting the Houthis? Or is this Mecca Agreement a military pact empty of real meaning?
ploome says
brilliant exposition
ploome says
https://www.ancient-origins.net/only-nation-god-refused-forgive-dark-secret-amalekites-00102625
In the annals of the ancient Near East, few peoples have left as profound and controversial a mark on religious memory as the Amalekites. Though they appear exclusively in the Hebrew Bible and have left no clear archaeological footprint, they stand out as the archetypal, unforgivable enemy of the Israelites. No other nation in Scripture receives quite the same eternal declaration of divine war:
Who Were the Amalekites?
https://biblehub.com/q/Why_did_Amalek_ambush_Israelites.htm• Descendants of Esau’s grandson Amalek (Genesis 36:12).
• Trans‐Sinaitic pastoralists who oscillated between the Negev, Paran, and north‐western Arabia (Numbers 13:29).
• Reputation: “first among the nations” in aggressive hostility (Numbers 24:20). Contemporary Bedouin inscriptions (Timna copper‐mines; 13th c. BC) record similar camel‐raiding tactics.
• Religion: polytheistic animism, child sacrifice (later mirrored in Agagite Haman, Esther 3:1; 9:24).
40 rounds says
Anybody else tired of the Saudis?
ploome says
tired of islam and muslims
somehistory says
the muzzies sent some of their *pilots* to the U.S. to train. One of them murdered 3 Americans and wounded others, in Pensacola, Florida. in 2019
To me, that would be reason enough to say, “no way,” never.
40 rounds says
Saudi would be a pushover to occupy and reducate into the 21st century. Who would object and why should we care? Of course we would have to “protect” mecca
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Hugh
A reasonably comprehensive coverage of the Saudis. Particularly their Air Force: they have even a larger air force than Israel, but none of their citizens are competent enough to learn how to fly them. I am a tad surprised that the Houthis haven’t figured out a way to totally wipe out all those planes in a pre-emptive strike: from what I have read, the Saudis treasure those planes immensely, since they pay billions for them, and so don’t want to risk any of them getting damaged
On the 9/11 issue, I was under the impression that the sealed parts of the 9/11 “28 pages” were part of a 2002 congressional joint inquiry report into the 9/11 attacks, not the official 9/11 Commission Report (which was published in 2004) – was declassified and released on July 15, 2016, and even more parts in 2021, after Biden ordered more unsealed (one of the rare good things he did as POTUS). From whatever has been released, I’m not sure that there are subsequent parts to it. There is also a “continuity” issue, and given all the policy changes done by MbS, it’s debatable whether his government is the same as the government of his uncle, who used to gloat that Americans are his White slaves who’d do what he wanted at the flick of a finger
While I had been critical of the Trump MOU and a lot of things either he or Vance have said or done, this is the one area where the “5D chess” adulations of him seem justified. After the 60 day war, the US simply stalled attacks and only retaliated for attacks on US assets. While the islamic republic was now in a bind: they could neither attack the US w/o retaliation, nor could they dare attack Israel, b’cos Jerusalem would then have taken out the rest of their leadership (reminds me of the Bush Iraqi pack of cards). But neither could they have done nothing. As it is, they have richly earned the deep hatred of both the Israelis and the Americans (excluding the Groypers and the Neocoms – my new twist on “Neocon” that was used to hit at Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz) as well as the overwhelming majority of Iranians, who loathe them to the point that they’ve gone all the way to apostatize from islam
However, the one thing that the islamic regime knows it can not afford to lose is the support of its residual supporters – the 5-20% who are still hardcore Durqhas, and who actually believes in the drivel that the regime puts out. Those are the foot soldiers they can bribe to keep supporting the regime so long as they believe in it. But the moment even those moronic supporters notice a disconnect b/w regime rhetoric and reality, their support will go away. They can attack the US & burn up our interceptors. But they dare not attack Israel, whose retaliation won’t be regime refineries or power plants, but rather leadership targets – be it Pezeshkian, Rezaei, Ghalibaf, Araghchi, Vahidi, et al. But they can’t also do nothing, so they end up launching attacks on the Arab countries around them, or get their 2 remaining proxies – Ansar Allah (the Houthis) or Hashd ash Shabi (Popular Mobilization Front of Iraq) to launch those attacks on Saudi Arabia
So far, the Saudis have been resisting getting the Israelis involved, b’cos although MbS is perfectly happy to be friends w/ everybody – from Beijing to Jerusalem, their population still is not completely disabused of its antisemitism, which is why that’s the last option that Riyadh wants to consider. However, this is where Trump has been brilliant. He has rebuffed Saudi requests for any intervention – coincidentally (IMO) mollifying the faction of MAGA that’s against US involvement in the war, and told them to find their own solutions. The Saudis went to 2 of their erstwhile rivals for the leadership of the ummah – Turkey and Pakistan and did the “Mecca Agreement”, but those 2 supposedly devout muslim countries made a joke out of that “alliance”. As one wag put it in @X, it turns out that the Mecca Agreement doesn’t even cover Mecca! Finally they begged Israel, who provided enough intel for them to intercept the attempt on Mecca
But at this point, both the US and Israel should increase their price tags. The US need not have the same demand as Israel: we should demand that Saudi Arabia turn over any and all people connected to the 9/11 hijackers, while Israel can demand that if RIyadh wants any Israeli support, be it intel or actual attacks on the Houthis (who, while declaring that Saudi ships are banned from the Bab el Mandab, have exempted not only US but also Israeli ships), then not only do they have to sign the Abraham Accords, but that they also have to have their embassy in Jerusalem, and they need to endorse a proposed Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria. Nothing short of that should be acceptable to Jerusalem, and they should stop looking like they are the ones desperate for this agreement to be signed
Mike says
Strong with the weak (ie, terrorism on the innocent), weak with the strong (incapable of winning in wars). That defines these people.
abu taleb says
The Saudis always feel they are superior than other people, so they don’t really want to work as there are a lot of foreigners are willing to do the job for them, for money of course. The kingdom gives support to its people, so local Saudis do not have to work hard to earn money and just simpy show of at their working places, the heavy load of work is done by the foreigners.
That is why the Saudi military is not capable even though they have the best military equipments.
austin262@hotmail.com says
https://www.meforum.org/middle-east-quarterly/why-arabs-lose-wars
Why Arabs Lose Wars,Norville de Atkine