| TITLE : Saudi
Arabia : Web of deceit and misinformation. AUTHOR : Fahd al-Saud (CACSA) DATE : September 25, 1996 COPYRIGHT : No Copyrights. Copy and distribute at will. As part of Bandar's role in the US is to plan a propaganda campaign that tells the Saudi story, their story. That propaganda ignores totally the corruption, the mismanagement and the secrecy that weighs heavy on the government and even more so on the conscious of those who condone the story. The story starts with a campaign of misinformation and ends with a campaign of misinformation. In fact, the misinformation is so well developed, so believable that they are starting to believe in their own propaganda making the Saudi people even more miserable and less tolerant of the royal deeds over the past 30 years. As a very good example of that campaign of misinformation is an advertisement that appeared in the International Herald Tribune outlining their deeds and accomplishmenets over a 26 year period. Let us analyze this ad to make our point. As background information, Saudi Arabia's oil boom happened in late 1973 after the long lines of gas that people old enough can never forget. The oil boom brought rapid change to Saudi Arabia and from a desert country sprang oil complexes and industries driven by available and plentiful of funds from oil. During that fast paced change, Saudi Arabia entered the 20th century in a time compressed form that is unheard of in history. So what usually takes 2 years to build was built in 2 months, what usually takes 5 years to develop was developed in one, and so on.. This, of course, put a lot of pressure on a society that parts of it could not change fast (the Ulemma'a), parts of it were not allowed to change (Women's rights), parts of it that are not allowed to develop (market reform and freedom of expression), and parts of it developed so fast it has caught up with other economically advanced societies such as corruption and drugs. Along the way, statistics changed and numbers increased. What should take 100 years took 30 years because of the feverish pace of development almost all of it fueled by corruption, kickbacks, and commissions on contracts awarded by the government with total control by the King and the powerful Sudeiris. The numbers proposed in the Saudi ad are :
In addition, the Kingdom has provided an unprecented annual average 5.5% of its gross national product in financial assistance to more than 70 other countries in the Islamic world and beyond First of all, where did these numbers come from ? The World Bank ? the International Monetary Fund ? The United Nations ? None of the above. These numbers were compiled by people who are puppies of the royal family. How can we trust that these numbers are all correct ? Historically, it is a well known fact that the Saudi government is an unreliable source of information. It took the government 6 months to admit that King fahd was sick and another three months before admitting that he had a heart attack. To this day, they have never told Saudis that he is very sick and has lost capacities of his mind and is unable to govern properly. These numbers were produced by the same people. The way the ad should have appeared is like this :
In addition, the Kingdom has provided an unprecented annual average 5.5% of its gross national product in financial assistance to more than 70 other countries in the Islamic world and beyond and to organizations such as Hamas, The Mujaheddin, PLO, and al-Ikwhan. What is our Gross national Product ? That is a secret only few of us should know. The numbers provided to you are incorrect because they do not reflect products which have destroyed our economy such as wheat production and export. We hope that the stupid Saudi public only reads the bold characters of this ad and does not worry about the rest. We are taking care of the rest. Don't you trust us ? |