Neck of the woods
“Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar bin Sultan, 62, fell in love with the United States when he was still a pilot in his country’s air force and took aerobatics training on an American air base. The romance was renewed several years later when he was named his country’s ambassador to Washington, a tenure that lasted 22 years, during which he was a regular guest of both George Bushes and was the only ambassador who was guarded by the U.S. Secret Service. Last week King Abdullah named him director-general of the Saudi Intelligence Agency, replacing Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, on top of his post as secretary general of the National Security Council, which he’s held since 2005. Bandar’s appointment to the most important position in the Saudi security echelons is no coincidence. Aside from the fact that he is very well connected to the kingdom’s leaders (his wife, Haifa, is the daughter of King Faisal who was assassinated in 1975, her brother, Turki al-Faisal, was once head of Saudi intelligence and another brother, Mohammed al-Faisal, is one of the kingdom’s richest men), it seems that the primary reason for his appointment now is that Saudi Arabia is preparing for the next stage in Syria………..” Haaretz (This link was through Google webcache , but it has been rendered in-operable as well)

This WAS a gushing tribute to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan al-Saud (I am so tempted to add ‘al-Yamama al-Money‘ to his name, but that may be seen as disrespectful, so I won’t). It was posted in the Israeli daily Haaretz briefly yesterday, then pulled out quickly. But there is no going back on the Internet, as they say (I am not sure who the hell said that, but somebody must have said it, or ought to have said it).
The piece starts with Bandar “falling in love with America”. That part is easy to understand: I fell in love with America from my first day, nay first hour, as a teenager student arriving in New York City. But I doubt that Bandar fell in love with American values. He did not, of course. You’d think from the piece that he has become such an avid Jeffersonian democrat, which may explain why he seeks to convert his country from the ‘kingdom of fear and no magic” into an imitation of the “land of free and home of the brave”. Except that he and the other princes have no use for a Land of the Free nor for a Home of the Brave in the Arabian Peninsula. They rule and prosper by fear, and fear is becoming a rare commodity in the Arab world these days, from Tunisia all the way to Syria and Bahrain. (No doubt Bandar will also fall in love with Bibi Netanyahu as soon as he meets him, possibly, nay very likely, he already has. By Arab standards Israel is no doubt a free democracy, except that Bandar, being an Arab prince, confuses the leader with the country).
It is possible the piece was pulled because it has many serious errors and omissions. The impression it gives that Bandar helped set American foreign policy is ridiculous, although I have facetiously called him a National Security Adviser of the Bush administration. (There are other reasons as well for pulling the piece, but that is for later). Of all the reasons given in the article for Bandar’s “promotion”, the most important is not mentioned: he is the son of the late crown prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, and in the division of spoils among the elderly al-Saud princes and their clans, this is part of his share of the spoils of the kingdom.
As I sagely clarified in another posting, the kingdom is fast becoming a land of turfs, fiefdoms, and princely principalities. I had succinctly explained the issue in an earlier posting, and in some older writings. I also had posted something about his famous American connections here.

Cheers
mhg
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