Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Michael Hirsh at Newsweek notes the power of the Petro-Islam Mafia, a force more powerful than democracy
We need to have an honest discussion about the nature of this strange state, which contains as much as 20 percent of the world's oil reserves. Saudi Arabia has always been a nation run by a family, the vast network of Saud princes who operate in a manner more reminiscent of the Sopranos than a modern, relatively transparent government, says a former senior CIA and FBI official with long experience in the country. The Saud family's legitimacy is built not on law but on an extremist brand of Islam, Wahhabism, in which Osama bin Laden was schooled, much as Tony Soprano's power is based on violence. (Remember when people used to talk about forcing the Saudis to change their radical Islamist views after 9/11? Didn't happen. Instead we invaded somewhat secular Iraq—at least it was next door to the real problem—and found ourselves preoccupied.) Imagine if Tony S. ran much of the world's oil supply and used the vast profits to fund more Bada-Bing fronts for organized crime all over the world? Don't you think governments would band together to stop it? Well, that's not unlike what's happening today, with Saudi Arabia's financing of anti-Western sentiment—but no one's doing anything about it, starting with George Bush. Simply because it's the Saudi government. Our "friends."
As we've seen in Iraq, the Saudi/al Qaeda mafia can be fought, if individuals decide that they're not going to co-operate AND if the government backs them up.
That same tactic is also working against the Mafia in Italy:
Web, crackdowns weakening Mafia's grip
PALERMO, Sicily - When it came down to business, Cosa Nostra could always count on fear.
No more
In a rebellion shaking the Sicilian Mafia to its centuries-old roots, businesses are joining forces in refusing to submit to demands for protection money called "pizzo."
And they're getting away with it, threatening to sap an already weakened crime syndicate of one of its steadiest sources of revenue.
The Mafia has a history of bouncing back from defeat, but this time it is up against something entirely new: a Web site where businessmen are finding safety in numbers to say no to the mob....
...The businesses are openly defying the Mafia by signing on to a Web site called "Addiopizzo" (Goodbye Pizzo), which brings together businesses in the Sicilian capital that are resisting extortion.
The campaign was launched in 2004 by a group of youths thinking of opening a pub. They started off by plastering Palermo with anti-pizzo fliers, reading "An ENTIRE PEOPLE WHO PAYS THE PIZZO IS A PEOPLE WITHOUT DIGNITY," and eventually brought their campaign online where it struck a profound chord with Sicilians fed up with Mafia bullying.
Confindustria, the industrialists' lobby, has also boosted the movement with a threat to expel members who pay protection money. Its Sicilian branch has gone through a list of pizzo-paying companies found in a raid on a top Mafia boss' hideout, and this month began summoning heads of those companies to demand to know if they indeed had been paying and should be drummed out of the politically influential lobby...
...At the same time, authorities are ratcheting up the pressure on business owners, aggressively prosecuting those who refuse to testify against the Mafia in clear-cut cases of extortion. Under Italian law, a businessman who denies paying up despite flagrant evidence — such as being caught on a surveillance tape — can be charged with "aiding and abetting" Cosa Nostra.
"Now it is a bigger risk for us to pay than not to pay," said Ugo Argiroffi, an engineer who recently added his Palermo construction company, C.O.C.I. to Addiopizzo's list (http://www.addiopizzo.org in Italian with an English link).
As we've seen from Saudi libel tourism, some Sauds are willing to go to great lengths to hide the truth about their Petro-Mafia from the American public. They know they've got most of our government (Republicans and Democrats) in their pockets, but still they work to hide the truth. Maybe they believe that ordinary people can change established policy.
Strangely enough, they have more faith in us than we have in ourselves.
If we waged an ideological and legal war against the people who manage terror-Mafia finances and against the politicians, universities and media who take their bribes, we could weaken the Petro-mafia in Saudi Arabia and in Iran.
I mean, really, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Speaking of people who have no dignity, as Michael Hirsh notes, the US is not really friends with the Saudis, we're more like their lackeys. Our president claims to support democracy in the area, but he's afraid to speak to pro-democracy dissidents because it would offend our 'friends'. In this political relationship, it's obvious who is in control.
Since the beneficiaries of Saudi bribes are happy with the state of things, they have no incentive to change. It's up to us to make them do it.
This brings to mind two things:
(1) If they think clearly, who do people really believe "controls" the government, if anyone could - the Israeli Lobby, or the Saudi/Petro-Lobby?
(2) If the war was about oil to a significant extent - and, given that nothing much of economic value grows in Arabia besides oil - might we not understand our efforts with respect to Iraq as a means of *diversifying* the oil sources, not monopolizing them (which is not how the oil market works anyway)?
Regarding (1), it is interesting to note the number and influence of Saudi-funded think tanks, professorial appointments, endowed university chairs, and straight-up cash-influenced politicians in Washington. Moreover, who but the Israeli Jews are their arch-enemy? Even conceding some measure of conspiracy-style influence to "the Jews," how could they possibly exert the kind of influence over EU, Japan, and USA that the House of Saud and its 20% of global oil deposits does?
With respect to (2), it is my firm belief that Russia stands to be most affected by the addition of the massive Iraqi oil output to the global market. Note that Gerhardt Schroeder was the first politician to really raise the anti-US specter in his re-election campaign; note too Europe's really imprudent dependency on Russian oil, not to mention that Schroeder went directly to work for Gazprom after Merkel's close victory.
The Russian state is essentially an FSB oil-well run like a gigantic mafia, and its fortunes closely track the value of a barrel of oil. The House of Saud, as this author points out, is even more transparently mafiosi and obviously entirely dependent on its oil. Both countries use their oil revenues explicitly as a weapon - Russia in the form of its relations with its near abroad (which it regards as Russia's fief), the Saudis viz a viz their American protector and their massive export and maintenance of the Wahhabi jihadi indoctrination.
C'mon. The culprits in this current phase of global nonsense are really obvious to those with eyes to see, the distracting media circus notwithstanding.
It is my firm belief that Russia stands to be most affected by the addition of the massive Iraqi oil output to the global market. Note that Gerhardt Schroeder was the first politician to really raise the anti-US specter in his re-election campaign; note too Europe's really imprudent dependency on Russian oil, not to mention that Schroeder went directly to work for Gazprom after Merkel's close victory.
Russia is a threat, but the media circus is occasionally willing to note that fact. So is the State Department. However, they're less willing to criticize Europeans who are close to Russia, like Schroeder.
The Saudi royals are rarely recognized as culprits. They're promoted as our best allies in the fight against Iran (and, since Russia is helping Iran, Russia) Most US stories about the Sauds appear to be copied directly from pro-Saudi State Department press releases. Most media reports about Israel read the same way.
When King Abdullah visited Britain, some interviewers actually asked him some hard questions. Around 100 human rights and anti-arms trade activists shouted "Shame on you" as Abdullah paraded around the mall. We never do anything like that. We really should. The Saudis and the Russians have similar goals, and neither is an ally. Israel is an ally. We have to get these things straight.
The Saudis are our enemies. I don't know much clearer it can be. However, we can't do a damned thing about them until and unless we wean ourselves off their oil crack pipe, and neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are willing to do anything to ensure that that happens.
BHG