Addicted to fear

A friend from high school who is now serving in the Air Force but is temporarily home on leave informs me that the United States has closed all its military bases in Saudi Arabia and for all intents and purposes pulled all military forces out of the country completely.

What?

That can’t be right. Al Qaeda’s whole campaign against America is based on our occupation of land in Saudi Arabia, the most holy of Muslim lands and home to Mecca and Medina. Would not a US withdrawal from the country A) put an end to the foremost Islamic Jihad against America, and B) stir up cries of appeasement in Congress?

Given that the withdrawal happened for the most part in 2003 I’m tempted to think I just missed or forgot about that news cycle, but no one in my office whom I’ve spoken with this morning has been aware of the pull-out, so I suspect my memory is not merely failing me. The vast majority of news reports on the subject that I'm able to find online are foreign. Why has this not been more widely reported?

... and pardon me for asking, but if our national leadership inspired trust rather than suspicion I might not feel the need: Is Osama even still after us? Is the global battle against terrorism over and we just don’t know it because the Bush administration relies on fear mongering (which, by the way, is the definition of “terrorism”) to muster support?

Tags: politics