Kingdom of the Unjust by Medea Benjamin

Author:Medea Benjamin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944869182
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 2016-08-28T16:00:00+00:00

HOW DID THE PRESENCE OF U.S. TROOPS ON SAUDI SOIL CONTRIBUTE TO THE 9/11 ATTACKS?

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, Saudi Arabia and the United States worked together to provide money, arms, and recruits to fight the Soviets. A major player in that effort was Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, the son of a prominent family with large interests in the construction industry and a privileged relationship to the House of Saud. Bin Laden joined with Saudi clerics to recruit Islamic militants from all over the Middle East to join the fight, supported by robust Saudi and U.S. funding. This group of guerilla fighters, the mujahideen, became the forefathers of Al Qaeda.

After the Soviets were defeated, bin Laden and other Saudi fighters returned home in 1990 to a hero’s welcome. This was just before another war was about to break out, the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded neighboring Kuwait. President George H. W. Bush declared war against Iraq for invading an ally nation (and putting U.S. oil interests at risk). The Saudi rulers, believing that Saddam Hussein might move his troops south in an attempt to control Saudi oil reserves, also declared war.

Osama bin Laden, with the network of fighters he had developed in the Afghan struggle, stepped up to offer his services to the Saudi rulers and convince them not to rely on the U.S. military to protect the nation. “I am ready to prepare one hundred thousand fighters with good combat capability within three months,” he told the Saudi rulers. “You don’t need Americans. You don’t need any other non-Muslim troops. We will be enough.”5

The U.S.–Saudi military alliance had long been a source of anguish for Saudi Islamists who viewed non-Muslims as infidels. The reaction of the Saudi monarchs fueled that anger. Not only did they turn down Osama bin Laden’s offer, but they allowed more than five hundred thousand U.S. troops to flood into the Saudi desert. U.S. troops used Saudi soil as the launching pad for driving Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the U.S. Air Force used Saudi bases to conduct an air campaign against Iraq. As part of the arrangement, the Saudi government also paid a major chunk of the costs of the war: around $36 billion of the $60 billion total.

Six weeks after the Gulf War started, the Iraqi troops were routed and retreated from Kuwait. President George H. W. Bush assured Saudi King Fahd that U.S. troops would withdraw from the kingdom once the war was over, but broke his promise. Instead, about five thousand U.S. combat troops and air crews stayed in Saudi military bases to enforce a “no-fly zone” in southern Iraq in an effort to support Iraq’s Shia community against Saddam Hussein.

The presence of U.S. soldiers was an affront to many conservative Saudis. Osama bin Laden described it as a turning point in his life. He accused the Americans of defiling Saudi Holy Lands by violating the ban on drinking, the mixing of sexes, pornography, degenerate music, and crass consumerism.

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