Royal Court Press

Lawrence Wright investigates the Saudi press, and society, in a long piece for the New Yorker.

Comments

[Andrew]

I feel like I have read this story before...and curiously, you tend to find similar stories in the organs of the Establishment Left of America. New Yorker/New Republic/NYT/Review of Books. I would guess Slate and Salon, too. What's up? Who wants to go to war with Saudi Arabia? Why? (I could supply some reasons...but that's me. Where are these guys coming from?)

[Jennifer A.]

This was the most heartbreaking thing I've read in a long time. As for Andrew's question about going to war. . .I was in college during Gulf War I, and actually spent a semester in Army ROTC with an eye toward becoming a military officer. (Hangover from my military childhood. I got over it pretty quickly.)

Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened to invade Arabia (supposedly), and we were supposed to be gung-ho about hating Iraq, but I thought and said that, as a woman, if I absolutely had to live in one of those three countries and suicide was not an option, I would choose Iraq. Same way a black man in 1940 would have legitimate qualms about America, but know it was still a damned sight better than Nazi Germany.

We wouldn't care if they didn't have oil; it's kind of stupid for us to have an economy dependent on a substance whose supply is largely controlled by people who hate us.

[R&D]

"He decided not to go home."

Um...any guesses as to Saudi emigration rates since 1979? There's not much hope for winning hearts and minds here, if most of the people with hearts and minds have fled.

[DFH]

Who would want to go to war with Saudi Arabia?

Who?

The Saudi Arabians, if they are worth anything!

Saudi Arabia is following a path that leads to civil war.

The trouble is that if they have a civil war right now, the clerics will win.

So... unless we want Saudi Arabia to have a revolution like Iran did in the Carter years -- we may have to support the reformists against the clerics -- and I don't mean "supporting" them by writing nice articles about them.

As Warren Zevon said, send lawyers, guns, and money.

[s.m. koppelman]

The current Saudi government is at least as doctrinaire and oppressive as Iran's was under Khomeini, and orders of magnitude more so than present-day Iran.

There is no indication in the Wright article or anywhere else that would-be reformers -- whether they're Iranian- or Turkish-style democratic Islamists or (ha!) some kind of secularists -- would have broad support there. If anything, popular support seems to be tilting toward more theocracy, not less. If there were a civil war now, I'd put my money on something akin to the Afghan Taliban or worse. The wild card would be the country's millions of guest workers from Asia the Pacific and the rest of the Middle East, now thought to roughly equal the Saudi population itself. Would they wait out regime change in their dormitories, or would they throw their lot in with one side or another?

[Jean Bart]

R&D,

The level of brain drain from the middle east depends on which country you speak of; but from countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia it is heavy.

[Russ D]

That Saudi royal family sounds like the DEA!

[Robin]

A very sad article.

[Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo]

I have been serving in Iraq for over five months now as a soldier in the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as the "ROCK."

We entered the country at midnight on the 26th of March; one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from 10 jumbo jets (known as C-17s) onto a cold, muddy field in Bashur, Northern Iraq. This parachute operation was the U.S. Army's only combat jump of the war and opened up the northern front.

Things have changed tremendously for our battalion since those first cold, wet weeks spent in the mountain city of Bashur. On April 10 our battalion conducted an attack south into the oil-rich town of Kirkuk, the city that has since become our home away from home and the focus of our security and development efforts.

Kirkuk is a hot and dusty city of just over a million people. The majority of the city has welcomed our presence with open arms. After nearly five months here, the people still come running from their homes, in the 110-degree heat, waving to us as our troops drive by on daily patrols of the city. Children smile and run up to shake hands, in their broken English shouting "Thank you, mister."

The people of Kirkuk are all trying to find their way in this new democratic environment. Some major steps have been made in these last three months. A big reason for our steady progress is that our soldiers are living among the people of the city and getting to know their neighbors and the needs of their neighborhoods.

We also have been instrumental in building a new police force. Kirkuk now has 1,700 police officers. The police are now, ethnically, a fair representation of the community as a whole. So far, we have spent more than $500,000 from the former Iraqi regime to repair each of the stations' electricity and plumbing, to paint each station and make it a functional place for the police to work.

The battalion also has assisted in re-establishing Kirkuk's fire department, which is now even more effective than before the war. New water treatment and sewage plants are being constructed and the distribution of oil and gas are steadily improving.

All of these functions were started by our soldiers here in this northern city and are now slowly being turned over to the newly elected city government. Laws are being rewritten to reflect democratic principles and a functioning judicial system was recently established to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the rule of law.

The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored and we are a large part of why that has happened.

The fruits of all our soldiers' efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, there are many more people in the markets and shops and children have returned to school.

This is all evidence that the work we are doing as a battalion and as American soldiers is bettering the lives of Kirkuk's citizens. I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well.

Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo

"Die dulci fruimini!"