Why is the US allies with Saudi Arabia but...

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wages war on the Taliban?

Both the Saudi government and the Taliban imposes barbaric laws on its people. I don't know about the US media, but in Canada, Canadian soldiers are seen as "heroes bringing hope to Afghans by improving their lives and fighting off the Taliban".

I'm aware that the Taliban was related to the 9/11 attacks, but just because the Saudi government doesn't attack Americans, it doesn't mean that the West should pretend that everything is OK.

What do you think?

just a couple of things. they both involve oil. s. a. has it........taliban does not. bush family has deep business ties with s. a. no business ties with taliban. pretty simple, no.

sorry to hear the canadian media is as silly as the usa media.

before any of you patriots start some crap with me.....i'm a vietnam vet. if you haven't been in the military, YOU DO NOT HAVE A CLUE.

Money and materialism corrupts people. Still, there is no denying that the soldiers in Afghanistan has good intentions. But they may not know that the government of Hamid Karzai may not be much better than the Taliban. A few years ago a survey of Afgahns was conducted and I think over half said they found the current Afghan government to be more corrupt than the Taliban.

We were allies with the Taliban in a way. At least with wink and nod to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, the only countries to recognize the Taliban government and coincidentally some of our biggest allies in the region. We were afraid of the Northern Alliances ties to Iran. The same way we were once friends to Saddam.

With all due respect for a combat veteran, if the conflict/alliance is Oil-related, how is the Vietnam conflict relevant, how is experience in an action so long ago relevant, and how is service in a military which has changed quite substantially relevant? Also, how is your maxim that if you have not served you do not know relevant? Is the average GI (of any period) privy to secret insider knowledge about political objectives? It would seem more realistic that there are secretaries and personal assistants in Washington who know a LOT more about why conflicts have happened than a groundpounder in any war.

For reference, I'm not a patriot, or even an American.

@ the O.P: Money and Oil, and lashings of both.

on the other hand, just because Taliban is now against the USA it doesn't mean that "anti capitalists" should think they are ok. I don't think many are that stupid though.

you are certainly correct jacoby and car crash. its really awful to think that the weapons being used to kill and maim western troops are quite possible the ones we gave the taliban .

the last 8 years or so have demonstrated the power of the media. when i returned from vietnam i, along with other troops were treated like mafia hit men. the media said we were baby rapers and mother killers, so, the public bought it. now, the media slobbers all over the 'saviors' and they're treated like heros on return. some certainly are, most are not. they are no more 'heros' than vietnam vets.

obviously, not having a draft adds to that.

ok, lets hear it. but, but, but the crowds are cheering our troops, kids are grabbing their pants legs, women are throwing flowers.......yeah, yeah, yeah. i bet they're the same ones who would do this for saddam hussein, or mullah omar. that's what they do. no matter how much they may hate you, they act just the opposite. whomever holds the guns, that's who they cheer for. it's fear. that's all they've ever known. same thing happened in vietnam, people who were your friends during the day were the ones throwing grenades at you at night. same thing happened when i was in tripoli libya when the last arab-israeli war started.

can you trust military powers? i don't. look at pat tillman and how there were nothing but lies and cover-ups throughout the aftermath. it's still going on. i am almost certain pat tillman was fragged, but the military powers will never admit to that.

Last edited by danandlouie on 30 Aug 2010, 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MACBETH.....please read my last post. the point of bringing up being a veteran is not in any way related to how a war starts but it has everything to do with how it is EXECUTED.

sorry my 'point' was not clear. i believe my anger is clear. no movie portrays being in the military clearer and with accuracy better than 'three kings'. the george clooney film. watch it.

tis a shame the israeli model for military service isn't copied by ALL countries. if you can breathe, you are in for at least two years. everybody. less wars. that's not right, the usa's last war was ww2. since then, they're all been half hearted actions, more like a police raids.

I liked that film as it happens.

Interesting that the US seems to have learned very little about these police-action wars of occupation and how to carry them out such that it still makes a lot of the same mistakes.

TY for clarifying. It makes a lot more sense in that context.

And one would wonder why the US turned a blind eye to the Taliban's stone-age style rule.

Seems an oddity, but the thing is the actual war is not an actual crusade against Islam. As such, we're meddling with those who have meddled with us detrimentally. The treatment of the populace in Saudi Arabia may be crappy, but until they do something against us... it would not be good for us to pick a fight, especially with such anti-American sentiment in the ignorant populaces of Europe who may actually believe that America is trying to be an Empire, of which an Empire is simply pure Evil because it is an Empire....

Well 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia as well as Osama Bin Laden. Saudi Arabia's brand of Islam Wahhabism is responsible for most of the jihadists around the would. They're not our friend besides from a business and strategic standpoint since we're both scared of Iran.

From Saudi Arabia means nothing unless the Saudi government trained them, financed them, or otherwise sanctioned them. Personally, I think if it were possible to eliminate the branch of Islam which produces the insane "martyrdom" seekers, then it should be done. However, such is not an aspect of the body but of the mind. You can't stamp out this evil by merely slaughtering the current proponents. Their beliefs would be picked up by others. In such a case, the ends does not justify the means so the manner of the method to eliminate such a threat to the well being of all humankind is of paramount importance.

They did finance the Taliban. So did the Pakistanis.

The Taliban was the government of Afghanistan, so their financing of them needs to be time dependent for a correlation to be made. Also, is it the governments or the citizens who are financing the Taliban, or, more to the point which can be more legitimately pursued, were they intentionally financing such groups as Al Qaida or were they not intending the finances to be allocated in this manner.

However, they may all be sticking together, one being the financial backbone of the other. In such a case, perhaps independence from the usage of gasoline should be sought in an accelerated manner, since these countries primary source of income is their export of petrol.

Political expediency and "what is in the national interests", which changes from time to time. I.e.

http://www.counterpunch.org/paul2.html

They used to fund and assist the Taliban, because the Taliban were, at one point, fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, and in the Cold War era, the US sided with the Taliban against the Communist USSR.

(For accessible 'edutainment', there's quite a good film about this, based on a true story, btw, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_9th_Company it's supposed to be like a Russian Full Metal Jacket or Platoon type film, I've watched it, but because I have mild prosopagnosia, a lot of the Russians with their uniforms and matching number 1 hair cuts blended into one another and I got a bit confused who was who, they started looking a bit the same.

See also, Charlie Wilson's War about CIA funding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War - again consider it 'edutainment', based on a true story, which isn't the same as the truth. It'll give you a rough idea of some of the political issues and thought processes though.)

The disparity is curious, isn't it?

I mean, if you take a look at the nationalities of the 9/11 hijackers:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_ ... 11_attacks

Isn't it weird how Iraq and Afghanistan got invaded, but not Saudi Arabia, and not UAE, and not Lebanon, and not Egypt. Weird, huh?

Just Google for yourself:

Bush family Bin Laden family
Bush family Saudi Arabia

Btw, I've just Googled and then lazily posted up wikipedia references, but you shouldn't really believe everything you read there.

You should always double check and verify your sources, and also assess their credibility because the media is biased. (And I should know, I work in the media! )

Okay, that's your Taliban 101 and your Saudi Arabia (links with Bush family) 101 for today.

Maybe tomorrow I'll move on to CIA adventures in Africa and Latin America and the US doing what US politicians and militarists and spooks figure is in the US' best interests... to put all the Saudi Arabia stuff into a better context.