Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia

Subject: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 09:43 AM

Memo from: President Bush

To: Sheik Saleh al-Sheikh, Saudi Arabia's minister of Islamic affairs

Dear Minister: I'm sure you find it unusual to be receiving a letter from me. In the past, U.S. presidents have been interested in writing only the Saudi oil minister, because we just looked on Saudi Arabia as a big gas station to be pumped and defended but never to be taken seriously as a society. But we've learned from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that you are the minister we need to talk with, because, sadly, 15 young Saudis were involved in these attacks — or, to put it another way, 15 recent graduates of your schools and religion classes.

First, let me make something very clear: America has not suddenly decided to become anti-Saudi. There is no "Zionist" plot here to sour our relations. I beg you not to fall prey to such conspiracy nonsense. There's actually broad recognition here that Saudi Arabia has been a good ally and that many Saudis have studied here and are pro-American. More important, we know it will be impossible for us to counter radical Islamism without Saudi help. Saudi Arabia is the keeper of the Muslim holy places and leader of the Islamic world; it finances thousands of Islamic schools and mosques around the globe; we can't be effective without you.

But having said all that, you would also be dead wrong to think there's no problem between us, or that the only thing you need is better P.R. and a few meetings with Washington elites to smooth things over. You have a problem with the American people, who, since Sept. 11, have come to fear that your schools, and the thousands of Islamic schools your government and charities are financing around the world, are teaching that non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims and must be converted or confronted.

I want to be sensitive here. We can't tell you how to teach your children, but we can tell you that several thousand American children are without a parent today because they were hit by radical Islamists educated in your schools, who justified their mass murder in the name of Islam. We can't tell you how to teach your children, but we can tell you that in a wired world — in which tools for mass destruction are increasingly available to individuals — we need you to interpret Islam in ways that sanctify religious tolerance and the peaceful spread of your faith. If you can't do that then we will have a problem — then Saudi Arabia will become to our war on terrorism what the Soviet Union was to our war on Communism: the source of the money, ideology and people who are threatening us.

What encourages us is that you seem to understand that and are taking steps to curtail incitement in your mosques and media. I notice that Crown Prince Abdullah recently called on your country's leading clerics "to examine with restraint every word that leaves our mouths, [because] Allah has said in the Koran: 'We have made you a moderate nation.'" I also noticed that you told a group of Saudi religious leaders that "what is important here is for a centrist trend [in Islam] to grow gradually. If this trend grows rationally, other trends will become weak." And I was also heartened that Sheik al-Sabil, the imam of the Holy Mosque in Mecca, denounced the suicide killing of civilians as against Islamic law.

These are important words. We hope that they will enter your textbooks and classrooms. And we invite you to come over and look at our public schools, and if there are texts that you find offensive to Islam, tell us. Look, in the age of globalization, how we each educate our kids is a strategic issue. In the 1990's we learned that another country's faulty financial software can harm our Wall Street portfolios. On Sept. 11 we learned that another country's faulty education software can destroy all of Wall Street.

We understand that the issue of Palestine is also very important for you. But you can't come here and tell us that it must be America's business how Israel behaves, but it is none of our business how you behave, or what you teach, when 15 of your sons helped to kill 4,000 Americans. We do not want you as an enemy and we don't want a war with Islam. We want a war within Islam — a war against intolerance and extremism. We want you to be the voice for moderation that we and all Muslims will listen to. But we can only listen to what you say about us when you talk honestly about yourselves. Good luck.

Sincerely, George W. Bush — the first U.S. president who wants to be your friend, not just your customer

Subject: GUEST
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 04:59 PM

Is there an implication here that G.W. Bush is our anon. guest?

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: Ebbie
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 05:18 PM

If that is an actual transcript of a Bush to Saudi letter, I am impressed. I lean far more to the belief that it is a letter someone wishes Bush had sent/would send. It's far too free of jargon and legalese, not to mention free of garbled sentences, to have emanated from the administration.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: ddw
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 06:31 PM

It's certainly a thoughful letter, but Ebbie's assessment of what it is is probably right.

What I don't understand is why someone who posts such thought-provoking material doesn't have balls enough (generically speaking) to attach a name to the post and a source to the article.

david

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: marty D
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 02:37 AM

If George Bush REALLY wrote that letter, he's sure been holding back on the home front. He hasn't used a three sylable word in any of his speeches for months. He's doing a Statesman like job, but that sure doesn't sound like him. Ralph Nader maybe.

marty

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: kendall
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 08:55 AM

Everytime I see/hear FDR making his old speech about Pearl Harbor, then Dubbya mouthing bland platitudes I have to turn it off.

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 11:21 AM

That's copied from a international affairs newspaper column. The author was interviewed this morning on Talk of the Nation, NPR. I didn't catch his name.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: GUEST,sledge
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 11:26 AM

They have just been broadcasting the video of Bin Laden and his cronies cackling over their operation that resulted in the attacks on September 11th, their obvious pleasure is obscene.

sledge

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: GUEST,Roberto
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 11:45 AM

The letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia is an article by Thomas L. Friedman (yesterday's edition of The New York Times). Another interesting "letter" from Bush to Osama Bin Laden, written by Thomas L. Friedman, was published on The New York Times the 12th of october:

Bush to bin Laden By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The White House has asked U.S. networks to limit broadcasts of statements by Osama bin Laden. I wish that instead of censorship, the president would respond to him. Here's what Mr. Bush could say:

Dear bin Laden: I've listened to the statement you released through Al Jazeera TV. Since I know that no Arab or Muslim leader will dare answer you, I thought I would do it. Let me be blunt: Your statement was pathetic. It's obvious from what you said that you don't have a clue why we're so strong or why the Arab regimes you despise are so weak.

You spoke about the suicide attacks on us as being just revenge for the "80 years of humiliation and disgrace" the Islamic nation has gone through. You referred to the hijackers as a Muslim vanguard sent "to destroy America," the leader of the "international infidels," and you denounced the Arab regimes as "hypocrites" and "hereditary rulers."

What was most revealing, though, was what you didn't say: You offered no vision of the future. This was probably your last will and testament — I sure hope so — and you could have said anything you wanted to future generations. After all, it was your mike. Yet you had nothing to say. Your only message to the Muslim world was whom to hate, not what to build — let alone how.

In part it's because you really don't know much about Islamic history. The Muslim world reached the zenith of its influence in the Middle Ages — when it preserved the best of classical Greek and Roman teachings, and inspired breakthroughs in mathematics, science, medicine and philosophy. That is also when Islam was at its most open to the world, when it enriched, and was enriched by, the Christian, Greek and Jewish communities in its midst — whom you now disparage as infidels — and when it was actively trading with all corners of the world. Your closed, inward, hate-filled version of Islam — which treats women as cattle and all non-Muslims as enemies — corresponds with no period of greatness for Islam, and will bring none.

It was also revealing that the only Arab state you mentioned was Iraq. Interesting — Iraq is led by a fascist dictator, Saddam Hussein, who used poison gas against his own people, who squandered Iraq's oil wealth to build himself palaces and who raped Kuwait. But you are silent about all that. What bothers you is our targeted sanctions to end such a regime — not the regime itself.

In other words, you not only don't understand the Muslim past, you don't understand its present. The reason these past 80 years have been so stagnant for the Arab-Muslim world is not because we in America have been trying to keep you down. Actualy, we haven't been thinking about you much at all. No, the difference between American power, Chinese power, Latin American power and Arab-Muslim power today is what we've each been doing for these past 80 years. We and others have been trying to answer many questions: How do we best educate our kids? How do we increase our trade? How do we build an industrial base? How do we increase political participation? And we judged our leaders on how well they answered all those questions.

But people like you want Arabs and Muslims to ask only one question of their leaders: How well did you fight the infidels and Israelis? I know that who rules Jerusalem is a deeply important part of your heritage, and every Arab-Muslim leader must address it. But it can't be the only question. Yet, because people like you have reduced it to the only question, and tried to intimidate every Arab who wanted to ask other questions, you have allowed your region to be led by scoundrels, like Saddam.

Yes, you've wreaked some havoc, bin Laden, but don't flatter yourself into thinking you can destroy us. You have to build something strong to destroy something strong. But you can't. Because all the intellectual and creative energies in the Arab-Muslim world — which are as bountiful as in any other region — can never reach their full potential under repressive regimes like Iraq or leaders like yourself.

Stalin and Mao killed a lot of their own people, but even these thugs had a plan for their societies. You, bin Laden, are nothing but a hijacker — a hijacker of Islam, a hijacker of other people's technology, a hijacker of a vast Arab nation's anger at its own regimes. But you have no vision and no plan for your people. Which is why your epitaph will be easy to write:

Osama bin Laden — he destroyed much, he built nothing. His lasting impact was like a footprint in the desert.

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 11:47 AM

I really don't care if Bush (or more likely his staff) wrote it or not. The fact the someone feels comfortable enough within our society to write such a sensitive and perceptive letter and then publish it, in the midst of what should be a war-driven fervor, speaks well of our country.

Even if Bush or his administration had nothing to do with the letter, I suspect that someone will send or email a copy to the Saudi embassy, or it will be picked up by some Saudi intelligence operative and forwarded on to appropriate authorities, or a citizen in Saudi Arabia will take it off the internet and pass it around. It may be that Colin Powell uses portions of it in his next meetings with some of his old counter-parts from the Gulf War.

Bush's Cabinet is superbly positioned to handle this war, and even if you view some of their actions in the Gulf war as wrong, they have obviously learned from the outcomes of those previous actions. They say it takes two people to support truth, one to speak it and the other to recognize it. Whoever wrote this letter is to be praised, whoever recognizes it, might just find Allah's favor.

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 12:54 PM

Well said, Claymore; thanks.

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: DougR
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 01:45 PM

Maybe, Kendall, that's why you are so uninformed! **Grin**

DougR

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 02:22 PM

Dear George, Thank you for your letter. It is nice to get a letter from another oil prince, whose retinue of family, hangers on, and corrupt yes men rivals my own. I am particularly impressed that you are using the International Postal Service to deliver this letter -- perhaps this is the last international institution that will be left standing when you are finished. We were certainly concerned that you have been blocking further development of the Bioweapons Treaty, given that Saddam Hussein is on our minds, since he is next door. What can he be thinking, we asked ourselves. But as Caesar said to the Gauls, who is emperor around here, you or me, so no hard feelings, George, just wondering.

We here in Saudi Arabia particularly admire the remarks about rethinking using us as a gas station: knowing that it is complete hypocrisy, and again puts us in common company. We have noticed that you have done nothing to reduce gas mileage, ask Americans to lower their thermostats, and it appears that you are currently likening those who oppose drilling in the Arctic to traitors. That is the way to our hearts, George! You can have all this other nonsense about education. As long as you keep educating your little rascals into sucking the world's resources dry, feel free to criticise us. Thanks also for not joining the International Court of the Hague, it will make your attempt to weasel out some of the more interesting of our citizens just that much more difficult, especially the ones we brought home on day one -- gosh, don't we wonder how we got away with that, nudge, wink. We also admire the military tribunals, and wonder why we never thought of that ourselves, we have so many kangaroo courts of our own, but there is always room for some new wrinkles, eh, George? Glad also to hear that you have not become anti-Saudi. It is so tiring explaining to my wife why women in Afghanistan get to be free, but she doesn't.

Say hi to Laura, and, I forget, how many shopping days is it to Christmas, anyway? Here's wishing you a cold snowy winter, lots of home heating!!!

yours, Sheikh Grayna Salt-an-Peppah

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: mousethief
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 02:44 PM

I heard the interview with Friedman and he sounds like he really knows what he's talking about. One of the things he said is that in the "islamic world" (i.e those countries of the middle east where Islam is the majority religion), the more pro-american the government is (the examples he gave included Saudi Arabia), the more anti-american the citizens are, and the more anti-american the government is (for example Iran), the mroe pro-american the citizens are.

Very interesting man. Sure seems to know his sh*t.

Alex

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 04:37 PM

Well stroked PT...very well stroked......

Spaw

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 06:54 PM

Ahhh Peter, articulate to the Max. Now you CAN handle those three syllable words!

Rick

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: DougR
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 07:19 PM

Kendall, where are you? You gonna let me get by with that? :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: GUEST,NYPD
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 10:15 AM

How about:

Dear Saudis,

Keep the cheap oil coming and your extremists on a short leash. Otherwise, I will reduce all your holy sites in Mecca to rubble and use it to pave the driveway back at my ranch in Texas.

G.W.B.

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 11:54 AM

Hey, guys...utter arrogance, crass condescension, and an unshaken faith in their military omnipotence and innate cultural superiority won the Romans an empire that lasted a thousand years.

I figure the USA has lots of great accomplishments ahead of it yet...

Hail Caesar and pass the ammunition.

- LH

Subject: RE: Letter from Bush to Saudi Arabia
From: GUEST,NYPD
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 03:14 PM

I would assume that you are right about future great accomplishments. For example, leading the way in knocking off the next variants of Nazism or Communism that pop up and result in tens of millions of deaths. Every one loves our military omnipotence when the alternative is suddenly a shift to speaking German or Russian.