Saudi Arabia

Student shoots self at Philadelphia high school | Top News | Reuters.com or why can't people understand that, to some kids, school = death.

Sixty killed in Baghdad suicide truck bombing - CNN.com, or why there is more reason to listen up when Muhammed Yunus says that poverty is a threat to world peace.

Award augurs well for United 93's Oscar hopes | News | Guardian Unlimited Film, or, OK, now I am going to have to see this movie.

A dangerously nice man | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited, or how Kofi Annan cautiously takes no shit from no WASP hill-billy wannabe, but in the process effed up the United Nations reputation as the leader in world politics.

Remember how right after 9/11 rumors spread around the world that it was Israel that did it and the "proof" was that no Jews were killed? My response to that was always to point out that the friend of mine who died the moment that plane hit the first tower was Jewish and a cantor at his synagogue, so shut the fuck up.

Now remember our good ally Saudi Arabia? Well, a Saudi daily newspaper, Al-Watan, apparently has an interview with the father of Mohammed Ata (who happened to be piloting the very plane that killed my Jewish friend in the WTC). This is what the Saudis are hearing about 9/11: (From Guysen.Israël.News)

"The United States and the Jews are the authors of the September 11 attacks." Mohamed a-Saïd Ata, the father of one of the terrorists who perpetrated these attacks in the US, said that "the Americans supported by the Jews, designed the attacks of September 11 in order to cover up even greater disasters that are starting to be revealed". He made these comments to the Saudi daily Al-Watan. (Guysen.Israël.News)

So, was Mohammed Ata an American or a Jew when he flew that plane into the World Trade Center?

Remember that Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers. Saudi Arabia is the center of fundamentalist Islam (the Wahhabi sect). Saudi Arabia supports fundamentalist schools that train terrorists. Saudi Arabian money funds Hamas and al-Qaeda.

The regional French newspaper, L'est Republicain has published a report from the DGSE (France's intelligence agency), claiming Saudi intelligence have reason to believe Osama died of typhoid. Of course, Jacques Chirac scrambled to disallow the report ( he says other agencies have not been able to corroborate the Saudi sources ) and the pile on of disallowals and denials were echoed in Saudi Arabia, Great Britain and the US.

'No evidence' of Bin Laden death

Is Bin Laden Dead?

Why death rumours dog Laden?

France to probe bin Laden memo

Officials Doubt Report Of Bin Laden's Death

Bin Laden may feel lure to disprove his "death"

When 51% of the US population believe the war was wrong and 3,000 Iraqis demand the return of Saddam Hussein, what will happen to Bush's warmongering if Osama is indeed dead?

I love Scott Addam's Dilbert comic strip, for his pathologically flematic view of all things wrong with corporate America. It's for his morbid detachment from his subjects and his eye for detail that I found curious the following post.

From The Dilbert Blog: Another Run at the Nobel Peace Prize:

The Crazy-Ass Backwards plan doesn't work if you hold the common and somewhat racist U.S. view, that the people "over there" only understand brute force. In that case, any flexibility on the part of the U.S. looks like weakness and an invitation to be kicked some more.

But from what I gather about pride, it's a substitute for power in the Middle East. If you give people pride, they don't feel so much need to kill you. Is that true? Beats me. I have no pride myself so I confess to not understanding it. But I know that brute force isn't working, at least at the puny level we are willing to apply it.

As many of you will gleefully point out, I'm no expert on the Middle East. This thought experiment is only intended to make you think different about a so-far unsolvable problem. Sometimes that's useful.