Presumptive nominee John McCain is back to his old ways -- speaking to La Raza and promising comprehensive immigration reform. Can conservatives trust McCain? Should we start a movement to dump him from the ticket? Let us know what you think.

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5/16/2008

Barack Hussein Obama has come unglued because of something President Bush said. In a speech to Israel's Knesset, Bush said... 

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Monday, May 19

Richard Collins - 9:30AM
Founder of the premier Hillary Clinton educational website StopHerNow.com Collins has declared StopHerNow.com’s mission accomplished and how now launched Stop-Him-Now.com to do the same to Sen. Obama.

FIND INFORMATION on how to carry The Lynn Woolley Show in your market.

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Wes Riddle's Horse Sense
January 14, 2008

The movie “The Kingdom” started showing in the United States this past September.  Directed by Peter Berg, it stars Jamie Foxx as lead FBI agent sent to Saudi Arabia after a brutal terrorist bombing.  A movie reviewer, Ray Hanania offers the following synopsis (slightly paraphrased) of what is depicted in the film: A group of terrorists drives through an American oil camp gunning down American children and mothers at a softball game and barbecue.  An Arab man presumably friendly with Americans, stands up after the shooting rampage and declares ‘Allah uh Akbar! (God is Great!)’ and blows himself up too—taking another dozen or so with him.  Then a huge car bomb blows up as investigators and American agents are sifting through the body parts for evidence, and that kills another 100 people.  [Note: If you stop there, you won’t come away from the movie with a very warm and fuzzy feeling about our Saudi friends and allies.  Moreover, for those of us who know Camp Vinnell, the ‘oil camp’ looks familiar]. 

When Chris Matthews discussed this movie on MSNBC’s ‘Hard Ball’ program, he began by asking the director “Why do the Saudis hate us so much?”  To which Berg gave a surprisingly sober and, on balance complimentary appraisal of the Saudi attitudes he experienced.  My own assessment is similar to Berg’s, i.e., that the Saudis don’t hate us—even when they don’t like what our government does necessarily in places like Iraq. 

Ray Hanania says he liked “The Kingdom,” because unlike other films it leaves the carnage and negative stereotype of Arabs to embark upon a far more textured story.  For instance, there is an Arab Muslim military officer played by Ashraf Barhoum (Col. Al-Ghazi), who is every bit as determined to fight the terrorists responsible for the atrocity as the Americans are.  Indeed, there have been many such officers and soldiers in real life in Saudi Arabia, who have stepped up to the task and have literally transformed the environment in Riyadh and throughout the Kingdom since the period between 2003 and 2004. 

People with military sensibility and background generally know the difference between Hollywood and reality, and they realize that sometimes the scale of things is exaggerated to entertain and sell.  Moreover, my West Point experience placed emphasis on analysis and historical perspective, notwithstanding the importance of keeping your situational awareness at all times.  Today in Riyadh you need your situational awareness but it is mostly for driving—the terrorist threat is virtually nil.  While “The Kingdom” is still a good action flick, depictions are at least out of date given the tremendous changes that have taken place there.  These include steady improvement in the overall security situation and the eclipse of Al Qaeda on the Peninsula since January 2005.  There have been virtually no hostile incidents involving Westerners for the last three years.  The notable exception involves four French picnickers killed in the desert north of Medina in February 2007.  All twelve of the known suspects in that incident were killed or captured by Saudi authorities, the last one this past October.  Security precautions and improved procedures generally have made it ever more difficult for the declining number of ineffectual bad guys to do very much.  The Saudi government has also carried out a very smart and aggressive public media and education campaign. 

The world changed on 9/11, but the American homeland has experienced worse events since 9/11 than anything in Saudi Arabia since 2004, for example the Virginia Tech shootings.  One only need watch Fox News or CNN for a daily dose of real time live coverage in the United States of shootings, hostage-taking, high-speed car chases, school lockdowns, and armed robberies.  Nothing like that occurs with anything close to the same frequency, and in fact seldom ever occurs in Riyadh or in Saudi Arabia.  Riyadh definitely isn’t Baghdad or Kabul, or even downtown Washington, DC.  You can always tell when situations improve, because people somehow start getting the message.  Personnel fill is back up to normal healthy levels in defense contracting firms.  Families, which departed in droves during the 2003-2004 timeframe, have mostly returned amongst American and Western businesses in the Riyadh area.

_____________________
Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors
from West Point and Oxford.  Widely published in the academic and opinion
press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican
Primary.  Email: wes@wesriddle.com.