NEW SAUDI UNIVERSITY (guest writer: gk)

(Get ready for a good read. This is why I look forward to contributions from "the real" gk. Writers like him means you read less of my ignorance... -Dexter.)
New Saudi University
To: Old Saudi Co-Workers/Friends and interested others-

I don't often write about my years in Saudi Arabia - so this is an unusual article for me - I am expressing a lot of closely held "hunches" in this article - but these thoughts expressed here - have been bouncing around in my mind for a long time - I might be all wet in my theories expressed here- but from everything I have been seeing/reading and with my fairly wide world-view - life's experiences - having lived all over the world and especially my nearly 20 years in the Middle-East - I think I'm pretty close in my analysis's.

I got an email this morning from an old co-worker friend from Saudi Arabia - who was surprised that the present King Abdullah - would agree to building a new Science University in Saudi - albeit - it is being built on the huge ARAMCO compound which is not open to the usual Saudi population - it is actually the oil company's huge compound - about like a medium sized American City - with all the usual city business's/schools/housing, etc. They even have little league teams that have competed in the world's little league champions. There are people who live their whole careers on this compound- raise their families there, etc. But it is open to Saudi's that have a reason to go out there, and it would be my best guess that this is the King's way to put a quasi - Saudi University in Saudi that is not religious - and get his foot in the door on providing some alternative education to young Saudi's to the present totally religious colleges in Saudi.

I am sending this (email)article primarily to old Saudi acquaintances or those that have the sophistication/world knowledge to understand what I'm talking about - as most people simply don't have the knowledge of the Middle -East/Islam/Saudi Arabia/etc. to appreciate what I am saying here - the ordinary person doesn't even know there are three main sects in the Islamic world and they kill each other just as readily as they kill infidels! Don't get me started, just read this email - and if you'd like to comment on my half baked theories - I'd like to hear that too - especially you old Saudi hands that experienced the same things I did. gk

SEE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/middleeast/26saudi.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
(the rest of this doesn't make sense if you don't read the above website article)

The King's attitude doesn't surprise me! Let me explain!

You recall toward the last of our King Khalid Intl Airport (KKIA) project - that there was a new huge University being built right outside the airport gate? I watched that progress with great interest over my Saudi years and here's my own take on it. I haven't done any research on this - but I lived it -so don't think I have to - but a lot of this that follows is just my in-country educated guess!

I don't know how closely you followed Saudi politics, but being a political junkie (I study politics on the internet 4-8 hours a day) and I knew then/know a lot now about Saudi politics.

During the years you and I were there - the then King Fahd (now his half- brother Abdullah - even then I think was really running things) was being attacked by the radical right Wahabbi kooks/mullah's because many of the Mullah's were Wahabbi's while the King and his crowd are Sunni's. O
It's even plausible that the Sunni sect is/has actually become a minority in Saudi while the radical Wahabbi's are a majority, but that information regarding sect's percentage is not readily available.

(As you are aware, among the Muslims' there are three sects, the Wahabbi's, which are the most radical of Islam's fundamentalists, (Osama bin Laden) is a Wahabbi/Saudi, and as are the Taliban's who want Sharia Law to be the law of (all) the land; the Sunni's, of which the King and his court are, and also, Saddam was a Sunni, etc.; and the Shiites, which is what the majority of the Iranian Ayatollah's are - and that country's population. Also the majority of the Iraqi's are Shiite's.) (Lots of in-fighting among the Muslim sects - but the MSM doesn't even seem aware of this - they just think all Muslims are the same!)

But King Fahd (later replaced by his half-brother Abdullah), countered these Wahabbi nut jobs/Mullah's by promising them if they didn't overthrow him - he would build them 3 major universities in the 3 major cities/Riyadh/ Jeddah/Dhahran for them- appease them in other words - and maybe these radical fundamentalists nut-jobs would let up on trying to overthrow him. These are my words and my take- I haven't seen this in so many words, but reading the Saudi English news papers of the time and reading between the lines, this was obviously what was happening. (to me.)

The University near the King Khalid Intl Airport was one of these three. I think this university construction begin in 1984ish not long after the Airport began construction in 1982-3. I used to drive by that Riyadh University construction everyday - as did you, on my way to town and back - and watch their progress with great interest - it was all big/breathtaking/marble and beautiful! At the height of it's construction - you had Korean workers running around like ants - crawling all over everything - equipment everywhere - must have been at least 10 thousand workers, maybe as many as 15 thousand of them! They were really putting that place up fast, considering its huge scope and the number of buildings! It was impressive - still is - puts most of our biggest university campus's to shame - beautiful buildings and an integrated planned campus/all the buildings look alike, etc. - not a hodge podge of different structure styles/era's - like most of our universities - built over several generations or even over a 100 years. Covered several square miles.

At some point during these three university's construction - I think one of the then King's advisors said - "hey - I wonder if we need to rethink this university thing" "When these universities are built, we are going to have a large group of young radical students - lead by the crazy Wahabbi Mullah's, who are all going to be whipping these (5000) students up into religious fervor - all of which is going to focus on overthrowing the King - there is going to be rioting in the streets of Riyadh/other cities and we are going to have a mess on our hands!" Hummmm! What to do?

That's my guess. Cuz for about two -three years in the late 80's, you could drive by what looked like a fully completed huge campus full of buildings! (from the outside anyway) - and see one pick-up truck in front of one building on this whole huge campus - maybe (one) an electrician's truck - and everything else was literally dead as a doorknob! As they usually do when a project is completed - all the huge/vast temporary construction camps/housing was torn down and gone/empty fields - the thousands of workers back in Korea or other projects, and not a soul to be seen for a couple years on that whole campus! Very mysterious!

It would be my further guess that the then King Fahd/his brother - decided to drag his feet on completing the campus and allowing this group of crazy Mullah's to get going on their further radical crusades (to overthrow him and install Wahabbi/Taliban style govt in Saudi and of course - the world!) I guess he concluded that he was shooting himself in the foot! So (my further guess) he probably came up with every excuse in the world as to why the campus was not fit for occupying as yet - "It needs air-conditioning/lights/whatever." That college was still not open when I left in late 1988. But my guess would be that he had to eventually open it. And of course, the Wahabbi Mullah's started cranking out young Wahabbi radicals by the thousands and the rest is history! We are reading about their terrorist handiwork everyday in the World's headlines as they spread their hate and violence throughout the world - terrorist attacks killing innocents/infidels, etc.

Now what I read between the world's headlines - is these three universities are what is cranking out all the terrorist crazies through-out the Muslim world and what is behind all the Taliban style stuff that is going on. Although no one else that I have read in the MSM has made this connection - all 19 of the 9-11 terrorists were Saudi's and were cycled through Saudi Arabian visa depts., it would be my best guess that all of these 9-11 suicide terrorists were students/graduates of these Saudi Wahabbi Universities - and were trained by the radical Wahabbi Mullahs - I heard that Osama himownself - is a Saudi Wahabbi - might be an early product of these Universities? I don't know any of these statements to be fact - but it wouldn't surprise me. Many if not most of the insurgents in Iraq - are Saudi transplants, and my further guess would be that these crazies are being cranked out and sent out of the Saudi Wahabbi Universities, that going into the field as terrorist's is their graduate course - to go serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Pakistan is being plagued right now with Wahabbi crazies rioting - etc. Pakistan's military dictator - General Pervez Musharraf is hanging on by his toenails trying to stay alive and these Wahabbi crazies are trying their best to assassinate him. This is one of the reasons we haven't been able to nail the most famous Wahabbi of all - Osama - as that country's large Wahabbi population, doesn't want him to be caught. It was the Wahabbi's that installed the Taliban govt in Afghanistan - and are fighting tooth and nail to re-install it.

So, it doesn't surprise me that King Abdullah is trying with this clever ploy - building this scientific university to counter the present dominance of the three Wahabbi Universities that his deceased brother got snookered into building. I bet the Saudi Royalty rue the day that they agreed to that deal! And it has far reaching effects, IMHO world-wide. It wouldn't even surprise me if the 9-11 plot was originally hatched and directed by the clever devils/Mullahs/Professors running those Saudi universities! I simply can't believe that Osama is that smart-but if you have a college(s) of those clever devils hatching plots - that would make sense to me! And these university Mullah/professors continue to pull the strings on all the terrorism and unrest that is going on in the various countries around the world - especially in those like Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan, etc. Or at least - are providing the intellect/planning behind a lot of the terrorism/what is going on world-wide.

Course the King keeps things/Wahabbi crazies under control in Saudi Arabia by being totally ruthless. He controls the Saudi Army and he simply kills anyone who even looks like they are going to give him grief - so these University Mullah's know it and watch themselves in Saudi - but that doesn't keep them from making mischief world-wide and I would bet a lot - that they spent a lot of time doing exactly that!

So that's my half-baked political theory on what's behind a lot of what's going on in the Muslim World - the Wahabbi's/Saudi Universities/staff/students are behind a lot of this terrorism - in their fervor to spread their particular brand of Islama-fascist sect and Sharia Govt over all the world.

So the King is trying to put up a Saudi University that shows some moderation, so eventually - maybe the Saudi young people will have a moderate (alternative) university to go to that is not bent on overthrowing him and might even forward Saudi scientific knowledge which is now completely lacking - and perhaps moderate the influence of the three radical Wahabbi lead Universities - it would be in his (King's) best interests to do this - in fact - might be the key to his survival - as the Wahabbi Mullah crazies would love to overthrow the King and his royal family, the Wahabbi's would (if they thought they could) kill all the royal family! And replace them with themselves - these Saudi Wahabbi Mullahs would then be like the Ayatollahs in Iran except the Ayatollah's are Shiites.

What do you think of my half-baked theories - I'm usually not much of a conspiracy nut - but I think this one (that I have never expressed before) is very plausible? gk
======================================
(Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families— Of all the gifts you can give them, PRAYER is the best!) gk.