Score one for bin Laden

In 1990, when we placed troops in Saudi Arabia to help with ousting Saddam from Kuwait, we pissed off Osama bin Laden. That action led to bin Laden's fall-out with the Saudi Royal Family, his leaving Saudi Arabia and the formation of al Qaeda. Initially, one of bin Laden's primary goals was to get American troops out of Saudi Arabia. While the news has been very quite about this, it looks like bin Laden is getting his wish.

"For over seven years now the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorising its neighbours and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighbouring Muslim peoples."

By this time, al-Qa'eda had appropriated a host of other grievances in Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, the Philippines and beyond.

The US withdrawal from Saudi will not be enough to satisfy bin Laden or his followers. It may, however, make life easier for the Saudi regime, which has been struggling to quell growing dissent within the kingdom over the presence of "infidel" soldiers.

Now, if we don't need to have troops in Saudi Arabia, I'm not going to advocate leaving them there just to spite bin Laden. But whatever our motivations are, bin Laden undoubtedly will take it as a sign of weakness on our part, regardless of our victory in Iraq or our currently belligerant attitude towards the world in general. Sadly, this may make bin Laden bolder - pointing out to any who are interested in joining his cause that they struck at us and we capitulated by removing our troops.

Its just one of those situations where it's hard to say what the "right" move would be.

Posted by thorswitch at May 3, 2003 03:01 AM | TrackBack