Continuing to Continue to Stay the Course: Part I (Continued)

More of the same? I don't think so!



As the BushCo, Inc., Unltd., Iraq Study Group Report goes public, the world gains a keyhole perspective upon the inside workings of the BushCo policy-crafting operation.

Meanwhile, in reality, the world shudders and shrieks in the throes of tortured agony and deprivation under the slapstik, dysfunctional, and delusional control of BushCo.

Yes, it's a joke, a very sad joke, my friends.

And in case we manage to tear our attention away, momentarily, from the bizarre spectacle of the BushCo "Stay The Course" pie fight, we may take note of this ironic story in today's AP, Saudis Reportedly Funding Sunni Insurgency.

Salah Nasrawi writes that

Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

The Saudis are naturally interested in keeping their religious and ethnic allies within Iraq from losing all leverage within the government and being slaughtered wholesale. But we're supposed to be on Saudi Arabia's side (or are they supposed to be on ours?) in stabilizing Iraq and the region.

Needless to say, the Saudi government insists that they are choking off all those illegal funds, and that nothing meaningful is getting through to the insurgents, anymore, especially now that the Saudi intelligence forces have clamped down to ensure the financial houses and banks over there aren't shifting any funds at all in a way that would support their neighbors, family members, and denomination cobelievers who are being disenfranchised, slaughtered and tortured.

Saudi Arabia is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The Iraq Study Group report noted that its government has assisted the U.S. military with intelligence on Iraq.

But Saudi citizens have close tribal ties with Sunni Arabs in Iraq, and sympathize with their brethren in what they see as a fight for political control — and survival — with Iraq's Shiites.

The Saudi government is determined to curb the growing influence of its chief rival in the region, Iran. Tehran is closely linked to Shiite parties that dominate the Iraqi government.

Saudi officials say the kingdom has worked with all sides to reconcile Iraq's warring factions. They have, they point out, held talks in Saudi Arabia with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia is accused of killing Sunnis.

Nasrawi, however, let's the facts speak for themselves, specifically in the form of

Iraqi truck and bus drivers.

Several drivers interviewed by the AP in Middle East capitals said Saudis have been using religious events, like the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and a smaller pilgrimage, as cover for illicit money transfers. Some money, they said, is carried into Iraq on buses with returning pilgrims.

"They sent boxes full of dollars and asked me to deliver them to certain addresses in Iraq," said one driver, who gave his name only as Hussein, out of fear of reprisal. "I know it is being sent to the resistance, and if I don't take it with me, they will kill me."

To further illustrate the slapstik, tragicomic state of Middle Eastern diplomacy in the BushCo era, Nasrawi offers this parting shot,

Last week, a Saudi who headed a security consulting group close to the Saudi government, Nawaf Obaid, wrote in the Washington Post that Saudi Arabia would use money, oil and support for Sunnis to thwart Iranian efforts to dominate Iraq if American troops pulled out. The Saudi government denied the report and fired Obaid.