A note on the Amazon ads: I've chosen to display current events titles in the Amazon box. Unfortunately, Amazon appears to promote a disproportionate number of angry-left books. I have no power over it at this time. Rest assured, I'm still a conservative.
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Tuesday, March 05, 2002
Fox News' Bill O'Reilly had Adel al-Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to Saudi Arabia's Prince Abdullah, on his show last night. Some of his claims were just laughable on their face.
O'Reilly challenged al-Jubeir on the Saudis refusal to let the United States use the air base in Saudi Arabia to launch strikes on Afghanistan. Al-Jubeir claimed, first, no such request was made. Second, that it was too large a distance for the planes.
First, there were numerous leaks and stories that the Saudis weren't going to let us use that base. Maybe al-Jubeir's telling the truth. Maybe we didn't ask to use the base. Maybe we didn't ask because the Saudis said something to the effect of: "Don't ask us, we'll have to turn you down." It wouldn't have looked good for "friends" to treat each other this way, so we didn't ask.
The second claim al-Jubeir made was that it was more than 2,000 miles from Prince Sultan Air Base to Afghanistan. Untrue. It is actually only 1,488 miles from the base to Kabul, Afghanistan. The B-52s used in the attacks in Afghanistan ended up flying out of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The distance from there to Kabul? 2888 miles.
The best line of the night from al-Jubeir: "There are religious schools in Saudi Arabia. Not one of them educates terrorists."
To quote Bill Cosby doing Noah: "Riiiiiiiight!"
In a soundbite that appeared on MSNBC, al-Jubeir said Israel cannot use helicopters, tanks and rockets on Palestinians and expect to generate goodwill from the Palestinians.
No, but let's turn it around. The Palestinians can't expect to use suicide bombers and intentionally target women and children and expect to generate goodwill from the Israelis either.
The Palestinians hate the Israelis simply because they are Jews. The Israelis hate the Palestinians mainly because the Palestinians keep trying to kill them. There is so much talk about stopping the cycle of violence. The cycle of violence would stop very quickly if the terror attacks stop. Israel is reacting to terrorist attacks. Israel did not strike the first blow in this intifada. The truth is the Palestinians only make things worse with the terror attacks.
It will get worse in the Middle East before it gets better. I do not know how it will end, but it's not going to be pretty.
9:33 PM
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