Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Who’s Reality? George Bush vs. Carmen Bin Ladin:
On Sunday (02/11/04),Tim Russert, Mr. Tough Guy on NBC's Meet the Press, treated President Bush with a bit more delicacy than he had some of his other recent guests, i.e. the Democratic candidates anxious to run against George Dubya. Bush got a free pass when he vowed to investigate the quality of intelligence he used to justify going to war in Iraq last year. But there was not a peep from Russert about investigating the coterie of ideologues around the President who manipulated the intelligence.
On the domestic front, the President asserted there would be jobs aplenty to make up for those lost in the flight of American capital overseas. But what are those jobs? Where are they? What will they pay? Russert never asked.
Startlingly, what was overlooked the following day in the published extracts from that interview was the President’s conviction that the ultimate goal of his Administration’s policy is to change the Middle East forever, to bring it freedom and even democracy. Swell, really swell.
Mr. Bush has made a point of telling everyone within earshot that he does not read newspapers. But his aides at least should have read him the extracts from an interview in the New York Times. Russert, who we assume does read the NYT did not even refer to that interview by Marlise Simons appearing in Saturday's paper (February 7, 2004) with Carmen bin Ladin. She is the former sister- in-law of Osama bin Laden who disclosed the true nature and reality of one of our supposedly close allies: Saudi Arabia.
Born Carmen Dufour of an Iranian mother and Swiss father, she was the wife of Yeslam Bin Ladin, one of Saudi Arabia’s richest men and the brother of Osama bin Laden. She uses her former husband’s misspelled name. For 14 years, Simons wrote “she was a member of one of the country’s most secretive and powerful clans when she had a chance to observe its inner workings and social code.”
Ms. Bin Ladin has just written a book about her life among the Saudis entitled, “Inside the Kingdom.” It was published in France and describes “the envy among the clan’s women and the squabbles and rivalry among the bin Laden brothers about their ties with senior princes who grant contracts and expect kickbacks.” She cites the “delicate subjects among Saudi women she knew, subjects including abortion, secret drug use and homosexual affairs among the bored, depressed or discharged wives of the upper crust.”
After one dinner party she gave for diplomats and Arab businessmen, Ms. Bin Ladin recalls how the Saudis stayed behind and “would gloat about their oil power,” but “not about human rights or democracy but about how to retain their power over Europe and the United States.”
“The Saudis,” she said, “are the Taliban in luxury.”
The remainder of Simons' interview portrays a devastating picture of the hypocrisy, greed, corruption and salacious personal conduct that prevails in a kingdom America calls its ally and where Vice President Dick Cheney has so many cronies. Is Saudi Arabia the model upon which President Bush bases his hopes for a drastically changed Middle East? Some hope.
