Asharq Alawsat‘s Salman Aldossary writes that the 9/11 attacks, which involved 15 Saudi nationals, had a profound affect on Saudi Arabia. It took time – Aldossary says months, but years is more accurate – but both the Saudi government and Saudi society awoke to the dangers they had helped create. I’ve argued that the ‘help’ was mostly through inactivity, intellectual laziness, and a willingness to extend trust too far. I’ll stick with that now.

Nevertheless, when Saudi Arabia awoke, it did move decisively. Its war against Al-Qaeda was successful in driving the group out of the Kingdom, though at some cost to individuals in both civilian life and the security sector. Through the actions of Crown Prince and then King Abdullah, hardline xenophobia and religious intolerance were halted and a new culture of dialogue was started. Serious government attention was paid to social issues and the media’s leash was slackened.

The article notes that relations with the US have greatly improved since the days following the attack. This is the result of the efforts on the part of both the US and Saudi governments, working to ease the tensions and improve their own images with the other’s citizens.

These changes could have and should have happened without the deaths of thousands to pay the price. That is not how history unfolded, though. We should be grateful that the changes have happened.

Saudi Arabia: A decade on after 9/11
Salman Aldossary

Between the American insistence on portraying it as a modern holocaust, and the insistence of others on clinging to conspiracy theories, the world has experienced a frightening decade following the infamous 9/11 attacks. During this time the world has seen two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being killed and wounded. This is not to mention the financial cost of the war, estimated at $3 trillion, which has harmed the US economy and in turn affected the global economy. Although Saudi Arabia was one of the countries that was most affected by these attacks – as 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens – it has also, relatively speaking, suffered the least losses. Indeed these losses have today been transformed into gains.

Saudi society required long months to comprehend the extent of this disaster that a group of its citizens were accused of perpetrating, whilst the confession [martyrdom videos] of the hijackers failed to assist those who are trying to promote conspiracy theories. It was only natural that the shocking participation of 15 Saudi citizens in this terrorist operation would place Saudi Arabia in a vulnerable position, and this led to clear hostility towards Saudi Arabia in many countries, particularly the US, which even reached the point of some US parties calling for the bombing of Mecca!
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The Saudi Shoura Council takes the Ministry of Social Affairs to task, Saudi Gazette/Okaz report. The Council finds numerous failings in the Ministry’s work, starting with its inability and/or reluctance to flatly draw a poverty line. It notes that the provision of services is erratic and its funding of services haphazard. Things that it has promised to do, going back to 2002, remain undone.

The Shoura Council rarely expresses such displeasure; the media more rarely report it. While the Minister himself goes unnamed, this report has got to leave a mark.

Shoura hammers Social Affairs for not defining poverty line
Faris Al-Qahtani
Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH – Members of the Shoura Council Monday criticized a Ministry of Social Affairs report, which they said, failed to determine the rate and line of poverty in the country.

“The report did not mention the National Strategy to Tackle Poverty that was approved in 2002. It can be construed as if the ministry was avoiding talking about poverty rate in the Kingdom,” said Muhammad Al-Quwaihis.

“We demand that the ministry determines poverty line, given the rise in prices by 20 percent last year and the increase in inflation,” Al-Quwaihis added.

The Council, he said, had issued a recommendation to build houses for 300,000 poor families, but “not one was built.” He wondered why the ministry of social affairs, or the Ministry of Housing, would not purchase houses for those poor people.
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The Washington Post‘s On Religion column takes a look at one of the details found in a new study [45-page PDF] released by the Public Religion Research and Brookings Institutes. The study is a wide ranging affair, from which I’ll extract future posts. This aspect looks at ow Americans apply a double standard when it comes to their understanding of religious violence. It contrasts their attitudes toward religion violence committed by Muslims and that committed by Christians.

The study finds that Americans are willing to assume that violence done by Muslims is done by ‘real Muslims’ whereas that done by Christians is only rarely seen as being committed by ‘real Christians’. While prejudice is certainly a large part of the mental calculations – group members dislike pointing fingers at other members of the same group – I think ignorance plays a large part as well. Having little actual knowledge about Islam, they find it easy to slip into stereotypical views generated by media. Which media one watches is a self-selecting choice. That is, people tend to choose media the reaffirms their prejudices, good or bad, in a sort of echo chamber. There’s little to challenge to prejudices, at least in their chosen media. You’d have to search long and hard to find positive images involving Muslims. And those that you find are not being conveyed by major media.

The data is depressing, but there it is…

The American double standard on religious violence
Robert P. Jones

When the news of a bombing in downtown Oslo, Norway, was closely followed by the shocking mass shooting at a teen youth camp on the island of Utøya, major news outlets were quick to pin the blame for the attacks on Muslim extremists. The New York Times briefly reported that a terrorist organization called “Helpers of Global Jihad” had claimed responsibility, while the British newspaper The Sun declared that the events were “Norway’s 9/11.” Hours later, it was clear that these early reports that the violence was related to religious extremism were correct, but the religion with which they associated the violence was wrong. The perpetrator turned out to be a blond-haired, blue-eyed Norwegian, Anders Behring Breivik, who publicly identified himself as Christian on his Facebook page and also posted online a 1500-page ideological manifesto in which he declared himself to be a “cultural Christian” crusader standing up for Europe’s “Christian culture” against the forces of “Islamization.”

This revelation re-opened a fundamental question: are those who carry out acts of violence in the name of a religion true followers of that religion, or not? A new survey from Public Religion Research Institute, and a new joint report by PRRI and the Brookings Institution, reveals that Americans literally apply a double standard when answering this question, depending on whether the perpetrator is Christian or Muslim. More than 8-in-10 (83 percent) Americans say that those who commit violence in the name of Christianity are not truly Christian. On the other hand, less than half (48 percent) of Americans extend this same principle to Muslims and say that those who commit violence in the name of Islam are not truly Muslim.
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Rendering of WTC Memorial

I’ve been going back and forth about how I wanted to commemorate the tragedies of 9/11. I don’t think there’s much I can say that many have said, are saying, and perhaps in a better way than I could manage. I’ll leave it with them.

Instead, I’d like to take a look at how we learned of the attacks. What strikes me as noteworthy, but not particularly startling, was how various commentators tried to make sense of events as they were happening. These attacks took place in a hitherto unique manner. Not many people expected them, though much has been made of governmental failure to predict them. We see announcer, analysts, and government officials trying to make sense of them, to put them into a framework that is comprehensible. What’s also noteworthy is how many assumptions were made that quickly turned out to be false. Rather than a demonstration of unprofessionalism, incompetence, or other lacks, I think they show that it takes time to take in monstrous events and try to make sense of them.

The link below goes to the Internet Archive. It has links to the television coverage of the events of 9/11-9/13 as conveyed by ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC, and BBC World. Each links carries roughly 30 minutes of reporting, starting around 8:30am, before the attacks. Note that some of the coverage, particularly for FOX, it is the Washington, DC FOX affiliate’s coverage, not FOX News.

TV Coverage as It Happened

It’s a commonplace in English that a ‘picture is worth a thousand words.’ I’m not sure of the exact equation, but pictures convey lots of information that words do not. The link below is to the appropriately named Iconic Photos website. That website is excellent of collecting photos that speak strongly and controversially. The accompanying text, I find, is sometimes contentious and often debatable, but the photos can speak for themselves. WARNING: Some of the photos are extremely graphic and some may find them offensive.

Iconic Photos of 9/11

Still in the line of visuals, TIME Magazine has collected 16 galleries of photos from various places in the US on Sept. 11 and soon thereafter. Among these are many that were seen around the world and many have entered our shared memories of that day.

TIME: September 11 Photos

On the aural front, Rutgers University has just released a new study of how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which is responsible for all flights in the US, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) which is responsible for defending US airspace reacted. The study is interesting in that it found confusion, often chaos in both agencies, with the military consistently behind the curve. This link goes to the study, where additional links to both the audio and transcriptions of phone and radio messages are to be found.

A New Type of War

Finally, I’ll point to something very near my home, in fact, in my own Sarasota County, Florida. Sarasota was where Pres. Bush was that morning, promoting reading at a local elementary school, when he got word of the attacks. It was soon learned that at least three of the airline hijackers attended flight schools in Sarasota County and lived here for varying periods of time. In fact, a novel, Garden of the Last Days, was written about this. Now, however, it appears that these three also visited a Saudi family in the area. The family departed the US two weeks before the attack. They left abruptly, leaving food in the kitchen, toys on the floor, cars in the garage. The FBI was aware of them and had them on a watch list. The FBI was not aware that they had left the country until after 9/11, though. A former US Senator from Florida is now asking that investigations undertaken to try to learn what role, if any, this family might have played in supporting the hijackers.

FBI investigated Sarasota Saudis in 9/11 attacks

Sarasota link to 9/11 terrorists prompts call for investigation

Writing in Asharq Alawsat, Mshari Al-Zaydi makes a pretty good argument that while it was not at all the intention of the perpetrators, the attacks of 9/11/2001 ultimately led to the Arab Spring. By forcing the US to take retaliatory action, the gears began to spin in a series of events that led to the downfall of an Islamic caliphate in Afghanistan, a tyranny in Iraq, and eventually the fall of regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and perhaps more.

What lessons are taken from this, though, are still to be determined. One set of answers, centered on the philosophy of Al-Qaeda, has proven a failure. Its opposite is not assured success, though. There remain many competing ideas about how states in the region should be governed and what role – if any – religion should play. It’s a thoughtful piece worth reading.

Is the Al Qaeda decade over?
Mshari Al-Zaydi

A decade is drawing to a close later this month; a decade that began with the infamous September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. This was a decade of fire, a decade of fear and anxiety, explosions and “clash of civilizations.”

This decade saw a Taliban emirate in Afghanistan being overthrown, and the Saddam Hussein regime being pulled down, with the Iraqi leader fleeing and then being found unshaven cowering in a hole in the ground. He was then brought to trial and executed on Eid al-Adha.

We have seen hundreds being pursued for their alleged allegiance to Al Qaeda, with dozens of others being killed. We have seen terrorists blowing themselves up in the streets of Riyadh, Jeddah, Medina, Khobar, Al Jawf, Al-Qassim, and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia; whilst the streets of Casablanca in Morocco were also not spared. We have seen the blood flowing through our streets and the fire of terrorism pass across the Yemeni mountains and valleys. We have seen the Euphrates and Tigris rivers red with blood, hotels in Amman blown up, as well as trains in London and Madrid – and even tourists on holiday in Bali – were targeted.
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This fascinating article from Asharq Alawsat reports that not only has the Saudi Shoura Council passed a recommendation that women be allowed to vote – possibly in the Municipal Elections that start later this month – but that the measure fought off a later challenge within the Council. The recommendation was passed on to the Royal Court for action by the King. He can either sign it as it is, reject it, or pass it along to the governmental agencies involved if it requires them to make changes in their own processes.

I suspect it’s rather late to have this recommendation implemented in time for the current elections. There are going to be issues about facilities for the sexual segregation of voters, if nothing else. If the parties were commanded to ‘make it happen’, it could happen, but there’s enough foot-dragging within the bureaucracies that I simply doubt it will.

This is nevertheless important. King Abdullah has been a reformer, but one who is not willing to get very far in front of society. As his actions regarding women’s driving have shown, he’ll acknowledge that there are no legal or religious arguments against it, but that it won’t happen ‘until society is ready’. The Shoura Council’s votes on an issue should be a sufficient flag to signal society’s readiness for this change. They have yet, however, to recommend women’s driving, though it gets kicked around their chambers from time to time.

Saudi Shura Council recommends women be granted vote
Amal Baqzai

Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat – The issue of Saudi Arabian women voting at the forthcoming municipal elections has taken on a new dimension after the Shura Council voted that “all necessary measures” be taken to ensure this. The Saudi Shura Council’s recommendation in this regard has now been sent to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz for formal approval, although it is unclear when this will be implemented or if Saudi women will be allowed to vote at the forthcoming municipal elections scheduled to take place later this month.

This recommendation was forwarded to King Abdullah after some members of the Shura Council withdrew their objections to this decision. The Saudi Shura Council has therefore now formally recommended that “all necessary measures” be taken to ensure that women are allowed to vote in “future” municipal elections “in accordance with the provisions of Islamic Sharia law”, although this recommendation did not include Saudi women being granted the right to stand for election.

Saudi Shura Council member Dr. Abdulrahman al-Enad confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that this recommendation has been publicly presented to Saudi monarch King Abdullah. He added that this recommendation does not specify which round of municipal elections that Saudi women should be allowed to vote in, but merely recommends that all necessary measures are taken to allow Saudi Arabian women to vote.
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Oil, as Saudi Arabia’s primary export, is the basis of its economy. Even more basic, however, is fresh water. Without water, there can be no Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Demand for water in the Kingdom is growing at a rate of 7% per year as a consequence of both a growing population and a broadening economy. As it stands, Saudi Arabia uses nearly twice as much water as the US, per capita, and the US, with plentiful rivers and rain, is not on a stringent water regime. The trend, if not addressed, means that Saudi Arabia will run out of water for all purposes.

Arab News features this Reuters piece looking at the current situation and its near-term futures. There’s a serious problem on the horizon. According to the article, Saudis are now burning twice as much oil for all purposes as they did in 2008, the most recent available figures. A significant portion of that consumption comes from desalinating water. Most of the water used is going to agriculture, the article notes, but there is little control over the agricultural sector and its use of water. While the Kingdom did away with its inefficient wheat growing subsidies a while ago, farmers shifted their crops. Unfortunately, many of those crops require far more water than did wheat.

The article addresses several areas in which the Saudi government can act to rein in Saudi demand for water, including the raising of the price of water to consumers. That, the article says, has to be done carefully.

One of the arguments the Saudis use in calling for nuclear energy in the Kingdom is that electricity from nuclear generation is cheaper than the oil it needs to burn to produce desalinated water. It’s a good argument from the supply side. There’s also an argument that the demand side needs to be reduced. This wouldn’t do away with the need for water, but it would put less strain on the system.

Water needs eating into Kingdom’s resources
REEM SHAMSEDDINE & BARBARA LEWIS | REUTERS

ALKHOBAR/LONDON: Long before it understood the value of oil, Saudi Arabia knew the worth of water. But the leading oil exporter’s water challenges are growing as energy-intensive desalination erodes oil revenues while peak water looms more ominously than peak oil — the theory that supplies are at or near their limit, with nowhere to go but down.

Water use in the Kingdom is already almost double the per capita global average and increasing at an ever faster rate with the rapid expansion of Saudi Arabia’s population and industrial development.

Riyadh in 2008 abandoned what was in retrospect clearly a flawed plan to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat and aims to be 100 percent reliant on imports by 2016.

“The decision to import is to preserve water,” said Deputy Minister of Agriculture for Research and Development Abdullah Al-Obaid. “It’s not a matter of cost. The government buys wheat at prices higher than in the local market.”

Critics complain the policies are still not joined up, however, and say the risk is that Saudi farmers will turn to even thirstier cash crops.
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I noted earlier that Saudis were complaining about how prices for desirable goods rise during periods of high demand like the Eids. Arab News is reporting that some, seeing the inevitable, are taking steps to minimize the financial hurt by buying sheep and goats that will be sacrificed on Eid Al-Adha now. They will keep them in their backyards until the end of Haj when they’ll be sacrificed.

The article doesn’t mention how apartment dwellers are coping…

Citizens shop early for sacrificial goats to beat prices
ARAB NEWS

JEDDAH: A number of Saudi citizens have started shopping early for sacrificial goats after Eid Al-Fitr when prices are down before they shoot up during Eid Al-Adha, a local daily reported.

As a precautionary measure, some citizens began buying little goats to raise them at home and use them to sacrifice during Eid Al-Adha. Citizens say that they will not wait for the prices to slowly increase and reach a level where they cannot afford them anymore.

Some citizens interviewed said that the rising living costs and prices of commodities had reached a level where middle-income people could not afford paying for a sacrificial goat anymore.
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Blood Money or diyya is an Shariah principle that arose to avoid feuds and independent application of lex talionis or retribution. In the case of accidental death, it may be covered by insurance, but for intentional killings, it falls upon the miscreant and his family. The value of blood money has remained static in Saudi Arabia for the past 29 years. It is now being raised to three or four times the old value to keep in line with the changes in its baseline figure: the price of a camel.

The Saudi system still values women’s lives at half that of men and of non-Muslims at only a quarter.

Proposal to raise blood money limit gets royal consent
ARAB NEWS

RIYADH: Royal consent has been given to raise the diyyah (blood money) limit for murder to SR400,000 and accidental killings to SR300,000, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said the adjustments were requested by the Supreme Court in light of the hikes in the price of camels.

According to Shariah rules, the heirs of a murdered person should be compensated with 100 camels. The new blood money values are expected to be circulated soon.

Blood money values, currently set at SR110,000 for murder and SR100,000 for accidental killings, have been static for the last 29 years. Murdered women are paid half of the amount. The Supreme Council of Scholars had called for reviewing diyyah in light of the increasing prices of camels.
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If you’ve ever wondered about oil prices, this Reuters piece from Al-Arabiya TV may or may not help. It certainly demonstrates that there’s not a single price of oil, even for the same kind of oil, that applies around the world.

Saudi Arabia raises Asia crude prices, cuts US

REUTERS DUBAI — Saudi Arabia has raised the price of its flagship Arab Light crude oil by 90 cents for customers in Asia, who buy more than half its crude exports, and cut prices for US buyers, Saudi Aramco said on Monday.

Saudi Aramco has set the Arab Light price for Asian buyers at Oman/Dubai plus $1.65 per barrel for October, up from $0.75 for September and $1.35 for August.

While increasing the price of all crudes for Asian and European buyers, the world’s biggest crude exporter cut them all for the US market, with Arab Light for the United States trimmed by 30 cents to Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI) plus $0.20 a barrel.
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Here’s an interesting commentary from Christian Science Monitor. It argues that Saudi Arabia is facing the most complicated foreign policy challenge in its history. If it succeeds in walking the tightrope of Syria, it could end up the major Arab actor in the region. If it fails, it could face a region inimical to its interests and the interests of its allies, including the US. Definitely worth reading.

How Saudi Arabia can contain Iran
– and other benefits from Syria’s turmoil

Saudi Arabia is facing its biggest foreign policy obstacle (and opportunity) yet – one whose outcome matters deeply to the US. How the kingdom handles Syrian turmoil will determine its leadership standing in the region and its containment of Iran

Bilal Y. Saab

Washington – All of a sudden, Saudi Arabia finds itself facing a historic opportunity to greatly enhance its strategic position in the Middle East and perhaps even assume an undisputed leadership role in Arab politics.

And this is hardly just an internal Saudi matter.

The regional status of the kingdom is a matter of some importance to the United States and its policies in the Middle East. Given the (still solid) strategic alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia, it goes without saying that a more influential and assertive Riyadh helps Washington achieve its overall foreign policy goals in the region, most urgent of which is checking Iran’s power and preventing it from becoming a nuclear power state.

So what is this new Saudi opportunity all about? It starts in Syria.
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Siwak (or miswak, the term I heard most often in the KSA) is a short piece of the root or branch of the Salvadora persica, a small tree native to Africa, SW, and SE Asia. It is used as a ‘chewing stick’ for oral hygiene and was commended for that use in the hadith. Several studies have been done on its medicinal qualities, leading to its being promoted by the World Health Organization as a useful tool for oral health. Saudi Gazette reports on the use and scientific support behind its benefits.

Those not in Asia who’d like to give it a try can find it online, as well as miswak-derived toothpastes.

Science backs the sunnah of siwak
Amal Al-Sibai

The sunnah of using the siwak is widespread in Saudi Arabia and you can see it dangling out of the mouth of men in white thobes. At every mosque entrance in each of the Kingdom’s cities you see a stall with branches of brown siwak sprawled out on. Siwak is cheap, convenient to use when you are away from home, and is available everywhere.

Over 1,000 years ago the Prophet (peace be upon him) instructed us to use the siwak before prayer, after eating, before going to bed, upon awakening, and whenever you want to improve the smell of your breath.

And in recent years, dentists are recommending siwak use and even researchers in the West are discovering active compounds in the siwak that promote oral health.

Dr. Hasan Al-Simaely, a consultant dentist, said, “The regular use of siwak is the best preventive measure against dental caries among children and adults due to its fluoride content.”
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