Saudi Arabia

There is a heated argument about the merit of the allegations against Saudi Arabia and the retaliation recommended by a French Middle East expert. Miles Seeley says: "I doubt Rumsfeld was much put out by the reporters' questions. In the military, and in the CIA, a great number of scenarios and plans are presented for discussion. Smart leaders want contrasting plans and some that defy conventional wisdom. Otherwise there is a danger of everyone blindly following whatever they think their leaders want. Dissent must be encouraged, and some outrageous options considered., Of course that can get the organization in trouble. The Church Committee made public some of those draft ideas as if they were CIA policy, which they were not. I have no doubt that the Frenchman who gave his opinions to the Rand people was listened to politely; but that there is no serious consideration of accepting them as US policy. That, I think, was the point Rumsfeld was making".

Marga Jann commutes between Paris and Stanford and has dealings with the Bin Laden family. Here is her statement which I cannot comment on because of my ignorance of Saudi Arabia: "The French Middle East specialist is right! Again, I speak from my former ties to the Bin Laden family (as clients), along with others like Bin Mahfouz (former National Commercial Bank President) etc. Saudi Arabia's primary goal is to take the planet for Islam, and will "pretend" anything to this end. The Saudis love intrigue and working from "behind the veil"--encoding, scheming, masquerading. Those who interpret commercial dependence as "friendship" are completely naive. Even though the Saudis support education for women, they none-the-less treat their women on a par with the Taliban (the daughter of the Saudi Ambassador to Paris and some of the Bin Laden sisters were my students in Paris, and were vociferous about Saudi's treatment of women--to no avail)! To date no one has wanted to hear this, not even the CIA in Paris. And honestly, at this point I think it is too late to stop the "Islamic Federation" machine. I tried to tell US government officials/individuals about the Bin Laden element years ago and even introduced them. Even books like Princess and Not Without My Daughter have been virtually ignored because of the commercial/oil dependence factor. I've decided that those in decision-making positions in the US are not very bright--that it takes egomania rather than intelligence to get these jobs, and have essentially stopped trying to communicate with them. PS. Did you know that during the Cold War, our best agents in the former Soviet Union were returned to the US Embassy in dog food cans (a result of the "marine guard spy scandal")?!

Ronald Hilton - 8/12/02