www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Islam: From Tradition to Terror

An interesting site to be sure.

http://www.hraic.org/

or

http://www.uga.edu/islam/Sufism.html

Dan Lauffer

I write a daily TV/radio column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and take specific complaints about the media very seriously.

I felt the need to answer your casually made allegations of "a naive and ideological Western press" in general and the specific (although vague) assertion that NPR "seems to have fallen completely under the spell of the Saudis."

The links were posted to refute those broad brush claims.

--Tim Cuprisin

I'm well aware of the Gulf War but I don't believe we went there to prevent the Baathists from invading Saudi Arabia.

"We went there to prevent the Baathists from invading Saudi Arabia."

That was part of the propaganda but I doubt that is the reason we went.

Dan Lauffer

Saddam rolled into Kuwait in Aug. 1990, and the oil fields of Saudi Arabia were defensless.

Operation Desert Shield (the predecessor to Operation Desert Storm) was designed to interpose U.S. and allied troops between Sadam and those oil fields.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/comrel/factfile/Factcards/DesertChron.html

At the time, Saddam Hussein was a potent nationalist Arab symbol.

Had he rolled into Saudi Arabia, there is every reason to believe he would have become a major regional military and political power, with his hands on a substantial chunk of the region's oil.

Ironically, the U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia helped spawn Osama bin-Laden's rise, since he saw us as "infidels" in the vicinty of sacred Mecca and Medina.


--Tim Cuprisin

The infidels control Medina and Mecca. Here is an interview in the National Review.

"http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory111802.asp"

Dan Lauffer