To: The Weatherization Department
The Friday Report Friday
June 28, 1996
FromWright Energy's
Weatherization
Network
since 1984
970-349-0551 fax
970-349-0923 voice Doc@CrestedButte.com
Saudi Turmoil / Oil.
Last August, in the Weatherization Network,
we reported from a respected journal "Egypt, Algeria and Saudi Arabia
are boiling cauldrons of unrest ruled by tiny pro-Western elites. If free
elections were held in these countries tomorrow, Islamic radicals would
win in a landslide. Iran is financing (radicals) all over the region."
Just this past June 7th we highlighted an article from the April 1996 edition
of The Atlantic Monthly detailing the likelihood of a new energy crisis
by noting many facets of the above plus the fact that 3rd World countries,
especially China, are adding powerful new energy demands and unrest
to the equation.
The current, July, issue of Readers Digest features an article titled
"Alarm Bells in the Desert" by Fergus M. Bordewich. The following
is excerpted from it..
"It is late morning when a nondescript truck pulls into the parking
lot of a three-story building in downtown Riyadh, Saudi Arabia...."(Boom)
"Corruption and Waste. Twenty years ago Saudi Arabia enjoyed
oil wealth so vast it seemed able to buy all the security it could ever
want... Today the same country is beset by a notoriously corrupt ruling
family, gargantuan debt and a gathering wave of Islamic extremism. "The
government is unraveling," warns Sa'id Aburish, author of The Rise,
Corruption and Coming Fall of the House of Saud. Aburish predicts
that the royal regime will disintegrate before the year 1000...
Truly bizarre decisions were made with no regard for cost. For instance,
huge sums were spent to pump underground water into the desert to irrigate
land to grow wheat. When it was learned that the cost of production was
more than three times the world price, the government offered lavish subsidies
to farmers.
Royal Grafters. At the top, some 6000 members of the ruling family
enjoy a life of spectacular opulence. Princes receive on average $30,000
per month plus cars and other benefits. And every year, as sons and grandsons
of princes come of age, an ever growing army of parasitic hands expects
handouts from the royal exchequer...
Repressive Rule. Despite its wealth, Saudi Arabia has only severely
limited free speech, no freedom of assembly, no political parties and no
elections. Prisoners may be detained indefinitely, denied legal representation,
subjected to prolonged physical abuse and condemned to death without a fair
trial.
Women are not allowed to drive and may not leave the country without written
permission from a male relative. After the Gulf War, women who quietly drove
through Riyadh were fiercely denounced by religious leaders as "whores,
prostitutes, sinners'.
Practice of religions other than Islam is forbidden. Even a simple Christmas
tree is subject to confiscation . Says one Saudi engineer who recently moved
his family out of Saudi Arabia to a neighboring Gulf country. "Teachers
and students are taken up in an Islamic fervor bordering on madness. They
teach hatred for Christians and Jews."
Saudi Arabia's main worries may come from within-but they will quickly
become the world's problems if they are allowed to fester. If the regime
in Saudi Arabia collapses, the whole peninsula could revert to a squabbling
collection of mini-states that would attract predatory neighbors, such as
Iran and Iraq.
Threat to World Economy?
Elsewhere, the United States might be well advised to wash its hands
of a corrupt ally, get out and hope for the best. But Saudi Arabia has one
asset that no other ally in the region has: oil in abundance. For the next
three or four decades, 30 percent of the world's oil will continue to come
out of the Gulf.
A Saudi Arabia ruled by Islamic extremists would make it virtually impossible
for the United States to counter threats by Iraq or Iran with ground troops.
A takeover would also put tremendous oil wealth behind anti-American terrorism
worldwide. Finally, according to Robert Satlotif, executive director of
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, "The West could face
an oil shock that would dwarf the disruptions of the 1970s"..
Saudi officials dismiss Western calls for democratic reforms as "intellectual
arrogance"..
An alarm bell is ringing in the desert kingdom. We had better start
listening."
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a similar article.
If you can't understand it - it is intuitively obvious.
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