Tim Blair

Tim:

Trying to get a jump on the market here in the States...what does it do tomorrow? :)

Mr. al-Rasheed certainly doesn't do much to bolster Bush's political courage to finish the job. First, of course, he questions said courage ("I wonder").

Second, he indicates that Bush is "wrong on just about everything else", not exactly a sentiment calculated to inspire Bush to go the extra mile for the likes of al-Rasheed.

Finally, he can't even bring himself to say that getting rid of Saddam and the Baathists was a good thing ("Better or worse is another point"), again rhetorically undercutting the goal that he claims to support.

Thanks a lot, pal. Don't call us . . .

I thought Penguins were from the South Pole?

penguins are funny!

I'll tell you something else he doesn't say. He doesn't say that the Saudis should stop funding this hatred. He doesn't say that someone, somewhere in the Middle East should stop the terrorists from entering Iraq, or stop the mullahs from encouraging them. His "courage" is a cowardly little affair that wonders whether Americans have the strength to watch while their sons and daughters get killed by these same terrorists.

Not only that Dom, in effect he says "You stupid Americans, come rescue me from the consequences of my own folly, malevolence, and incompetence." That's what I take to be his meaning in hoping Bush will "...finish the job." Are we sure this guy isn't French?

Those of you carping don't understand just what a big step such a position is for a Saudi. Instead of criticising, you should be glad that the Saudis have woken up not only to the fact that the Islamists are their enemy, but that THEY created them. They are facing the fact that September 11 and all the other acts of mass murder associated with Al Qaeda is THEIR blowback, and not the USA's. Can't you see how important that is? The whole problem in the Arab world is the refusal to take responsibility for anything. This goes right against it.
i've got family living in the Arabian peninsula and I can tell you that they are simply amazed at the changes happening in Saudi society. Maybe it's not fast enough for some people, but it's happening, and it will help to transform the Middle East, just as the liberation of Iraq from Saddam will do. Now all we need is for the Iranians not to start meddling again(in fact the Saudi funding of Islamists was done not to attack the West but to counter Iran's revolutionary influence in the 1970's and 80's.)The Saudis played that particular game of inter-muslim rivalry disastrously for us all, but they've now seen what it's done to them as well.Tim's right to highlight this(and there's been many other instances of Saudi awakening in the Arab News and Saudi Gazette recently).

SOP - the Saudia Gazette is an English language daily. Here is Dr. Muhammad Talal Al-Rasheed's full editorial, though MEMRI printed most of it.

The opening lines they didn't print: "IN ten years of editorial writing (a quarter of my overall age) I have not written a word about me personally or my family. Today, I beg to take exception."

A couple lines MEMRI printed but Tim didn't excerpt: "I don t think this will be published in the Arab News, as it should be. If not, I understand their point of view and their perpetual selectiveness."

A single muslim has pulled his head out of his ass, slightly less than a billion to go now. I would be more encouraged if the article was written by an imam or member of the Saudi royal family.

GIve him a week and he will have convinced himself beyond question that the USA and Bush in particular are the real reason his brother/uncle/ father-in-law is dead.