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America Must Explore Alternate Energy Sources and Cease Dealing with the Corrupt Saudi Government

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America Must Explore Alternate Energy Sources and Cease Dealing with the Corrupt Saudi Government

When Mohammed al-Khilewi, a high-ranking official at the Saudi mission to the

United Nations, defected to the United States in 1994, he reportedly brought

with him fourteen thousand internal government documents. He claimed that these

documents proved the Saudi royal family's corruption, human rights abuses, and

financial and technical support for terrorist groups such as Hamas, an

anti-Israeli group based in Lebanon, and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Al-Khilewi

and his lawyer met with two FBI agents and an assistant United States attorney.

"We gave them a sampling of the documents and put them on the table," Michael J.

Wildes, al-Khilewi's lawyer, said. "But the agents refused to accept them"

(Hersh). Al-Khilewi was granted political asylum and never heard from the

American government again. He, his wife, and their three children still live in

constant fear of reprisals from the long arm of Saudi intelligence. He now wears

a bulletproof vest and is constantly bracketed by bodyguards and lives under a

false identity.

This is an example of the growing American tolerance for Saudi government

transgressions. Saudi princes "squander billions of dollars [from the Saudi

coffers] on palaces in Spain and at gaming tables in Monaco"(Cockburn) while the

Saudi people suffer severe unemployment and inadequate education, a major issue

in a nation in which 50 percent of the population is still in school. Religious

dissidents are dealt with brutally and quickly in Saudi Arabia by the

mutawwa'in&emdash;religious police&emdash;and Saudi women are kept as secluded and

unprivileged as those in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. ...

... middle of paper ...

...ays and human

rights atrocities without fear of punishment.

Works Cited

Cockburn, Leslie, and Andrew Cockburn. "Royal Mess." New Yorker online. 28 Nov. 1994.Available<www.newyorker.com/FROM_THE_ARCHIVE/ARCHIVES/?011015fr_archive01>

30 Dec. 2001.

Hersh, Seymour M. "King's Ransom." New Yorker online. 22 Oct. 2001. Available

<http://newyorker.com/FACT/?011022fa_FACT1> 30 Dec. 2001.

Ireland, Doug. "Taking the Bait." In These Times online. 12 Nov. 2001

<www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/25/feature1.shtml> 30 Dec. 2001.

Mayer, Jane. "The House of bin-Laden." New Yorker online. 11 Nov. 2001.

Available <www.newyorker.com/FACT/?011112fa_FACT3> 30 Dec. 2001

Surowiecki, James. "The Real Price of Oil." New Yorker online. 3 Dec. 2001.

Available

<www.newyorker.com/THE_TALK_OF_THE_TOWN/CONTENT/?011203ta_talk_surowiecki> 30

Dec. 2001
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