
They were attacking the Iraqis to drive them out of Kuwait,
a country whose citizens have close blood and business ties
to Saudi citizens.  And me thinks if the US had not helped out
the Iraqis would have swallowed Saudi Arabia, too (or at 
least the eastern oilfields).  And no Muslim country was doing
much of anything to help liberate Kuwait and protect Saudi
Arabia; indeed, in some masses of citizens were demonstrating
in favor of that butcher Saddam (who killed lotsa Muslims),
just because he was killing, raping, and looting relatively
rich Muslims and also thumbing his nose at the West.

So how would have *you* defended Saudi Arabia and rolled
back the Iraqi invasion, were you in charge of Saudi Arabia???


I think that it is a very good idea to not have governments have an
official religion (de facto or de jure), because with human nature
like it is, the ambitious and not the pious will always be the
ones who rise to power.  There are just too many people in this
world (or any country) for the citizens to really know if a 
leader is really devout or if he is just a slick operator.


You make it sound like these guys are angels, Ilyess.  (In your
clarinet posting you edited out some stuff; was it the following???)
Friday's New York Times reported that this group definitely is
more conservative than even Sheikh Baz and his followers (who
think that the House of Saud does not rule the country conservatively
enough).  The NYT reported that, besides complaining that the
government was not conservative enough, they have:

	- asserted that the (approx. 500,000) Shiites in the Kingdom
	  are apostates, a charge that under Saudi (and Islamic) law
	  brings the death penalty.  

	  Diplomatic guy (Sheikh bin Jibrin), isn't he Ilyess?

	- called for severe punishment of the 40 or so women who
	  drove in public a while back to protest the ban on
	  women driving.  The guy from the group who said this,
	  Abdelhamoud al-Toweijri, said that these women should
	  be fired from their jobs, jailed, and branded as
	  prostitutes.

	  Is this what you want to see happen, Ilyess?  I've
	  heard many Muslims say that the ban on women driving
	  has no basis in the Qur'an, the ahadith, etc.
	  Yet these folks not only like the ban, they want
	  these women falsely called prostitutes?  

	  If I were you, I'd choose my heroes wisely,
	  Ilyess, not just reflexively rally behind
	  anyone who hates anyone you hate.

	- say that women should not be allowed to work.

	- say that TV and radio are too immoral in the Kingdom.

Now, the House of Saud is neither my least nor my most favorite government
on earth; I think they restrict religious and political reedom a lot, among
other things.  I just think that the most likely replacements
for them are going to be a lot worse for the citizens of the country.
But I think the House of Saud is feeling the heat lately.  In the
last six months or so I've read there have been stepped up harassing
by the muttawain (religious police---*not* government) of Western women
not fully veiled (something stupid for women to do, IMO, because it
sends the wrong signals about your morality).  And I've read that
they've cracked down on the few, home-based expartiate religious
gatherings, and even posted rewards in (government-owned) newspapers
offering money for anyone who turns in a group of expartiates who
dare worship in their homes or any other secret place. So the
government has grown even more intolerant to try to take some of
the wind out of the sails of the more-conservative opposition.
As unislamic as some of these things are, they're just a small
taste of what would happen if these guys overthrow the House of
Saud, like they're trying to in the long run.

Is this really what you (and Rached and others in the general
west-is-evil-zionists-rule-hate-west-or-you-are-a-puppet crowd)
want, Ilyess?
