Verbalism Personified

A dead man's Wish?

A prisoner on death row usually gets one wish before the hour of his execution. As with the recent spate of terrorist bombings in Saudi Arabia, this has awoken the royal family to a new era of existence. One that may well end in its collapse.

And what of its prodigal son, Osama bin Ladin? To them, he is a dead man walking with many wishes.

For one, he has been waging a campaign to rid Saudi Arabia of the American military presence. Invited by the Saudis into a strategic alliance three decades ago, the thought of having the Great Satan running around Islam’s two most holy cities is anathema to Osama and other like-minded clerics. However with the planned relocation of American military forces to Iraq, partly as an initiative to ease extremist pressure on the Saudi royal family, Osama may well have this wish in the bag.

The other would be to destabilize the current Saudi government as a prelude to overthrowing it. With business and family ties going back five decades or more, the bin Ladin family is closely tied to the Saudi royal family. However this hasn’t stopped Osama from now attacking a regime that is seen as morally corrupt and adulterous in its dealings with the West.

These current attacks, initially aimed at foreigners, are now purposed at exposing the regime’s incompetence in protecting its own citizens. Even with characteristic show of force, Saudi security services are suffering more fatalities than they are killing terrorists. But for a ruling dynasty that has maintained power by autocratic means, there may not be much support forthcoming from its citizens or love lost between them.

Now Saudi Arabia appears to plod along in a state of social and political paralysis. Groping desperately between the fraying lines of inept social and political reform and straight jacketed religous puritanism, it may well tip toe its way to collapse. And with no clear alternative to a moderate political establishment, the kingdom could fall to Islamic clerics sympathetic to Osama.

Finally, emboldened by his victory over the Soviet military in Afghanistan, Osama has been given another chance to take on the world’s remaining superpower on home ground.

Attacking the very same state that had armed, financed and abetted him in the 1980s, the irony is not lost on officials who predicted this about-face two decades ago.

In terms of strategic outlook, Osama shares the same view as the Iranians do: that one hundred and thirty thousand American and Coalition troops, give or take a few attrition deaths each week, are really the ones surrounded in Iraq. Adding in the festering Palestinian-Israeli sore, this is a golden opportunity for Osama and his band of warriors to kill as many infidels as possible.

So a look at how Osama bin Ladin has faired recently, you could agree that he has done well. Being just as illusive and free from imprisonment, Osama may well live to see all his wishes fulfilled.

posted by Teutoburg @ 1:03 AM