February 02, 2005

It’s Official: 2004 U.S. Economy was the Best in 5 Years

GDP Rises 4.4 Percent in 2004 in U.S.:

The economy finished 2004 with its best performance in five years despite slowing in the final stretch.

...The broadest barometer of the country’s economic standing, the gross domestic product, clocked a 4.4 percent increase for all of last year spurred by brisk consumer and business spending, the Commerce Department (news – web sites) reported Friday.

The latest snapshot of GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States, exceeded the 3 percent registered in 2003 and marked the strongest showing since the 4.5 percent gain of 1999.

“When you add it all up, you can’t help but be pleased with how the economy performed last year,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at LaSalle Bank. “The economy in 2004, in some cases, was like the Rodney Dangerfield economy. It didn’t get a lot of respect. We spent so much of last year worrying about high oil prices, deficits, employment … yet through it all we were able to turn out an outstanding year economically.”

Daniel Pipes on The Saudis and Islamo-Fascism on U.S. Soil

Last night I was part of a small group which was honored to meet with Daniel Pipes at the Leslie Sacks Fine Art Gallery in Brentwood, California. Daniel gave us copies of his new book Militant Islam Reaches America, and spoke to the group.

Quoting from my handwritten notes (not expected to be verbatim):

The killings in Jersey City are a significant development. The murder of Theo van Gogh, as far as I can tell, was the first time a Westerner was murdered for his views on Islam. Just two months later the Armanious family is killed—apparently for their views on Islam—in Jersey City. This is a real escalation. The murder was of a whole family, and done in a ritualistic fashion. We are in general not paying enough attention to this. This fits a pattern. A pattern repeatedly of law enforcement or politicians not willing to deal with this. Because if you say it’s something else, then you don’t have to deal with it.

I was surprised to hear Daniel say this:

A small number of corrupt people are controlling our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Congress is irrelevant to our relations with the Saudis. U.S. interests regarding Saudi Arabia are not being served by those in charge of our relationship with that country.

Afterwards I asked him where I could read more about this. He referred me to this article on his website:

Where is the normally robust pursuit of U.S. interests? It is one thing when private companies bend over backwards to please the Saudis (Starbucks in Saudi Arabia does not show the female figure that normally graces its logo), but why does the U.S. government defer to the Kingdom in so many and unique ways?

“Oil” is likely to be the most common explanation proferred, but it does not hold. First, the U.S. government has never cringed before any other major oil supplier as it does to Saudi Arabia. Second, U.S.-Saudi ties have been premised since 1945, when a dying Franklin D. Roosevelt met an aging King Ibn Saud, on an enduring bargain in which Riyadh provides oil and gas to the United States and the world and Washington provides security to Saudi Arabia. Because this deal has even more importance for Saudis than Americans-survival versus energy supplies-oil cannot explain why the U.S. side has consistently acted as a supplicant.

Another possible factor is the proclivity of many Americans to strive to tolerate other people’s customs and religious beliefs, which in the Saudi case involves such matters as the total covering of women, public executions and the absence of any pretense of democratic rule. But the lack of reciprocity from the Saudi side, decade after decade, suggests that something else besides an open spirit is at work; no matter how liberal, no one can endure such a one-sided relationship for so long unless there is a payoff.

...The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, helpfully hinted at an answer in a statement boasting of his success cultivating powerful Americans. “If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office”, Bandar once observed, “you’d be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office.” This effective admission of bribery goes far to explain why the usual laws, regulations and rights do not apply when Saudi Arabia is involved. Hume Horan, himself a former U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom, is the great and noble exception to this pattern. He says this of his former colleagues:

There have been some people who really do go on the Saudi payroll, and they work as advisers and consultants. Prince Bandar is very good about massaging and promoting relationships like that. Money works wonders, and if you’ve got an awful lot of it, and a royal title-well, it’s amusing to see how some Americans liquefy in front of a foreign potentate, just because he’s called a prince.

Over-the-top support of Saudi interests by former ambassador James E. Akins (who has criticized Arab governments for not being tougher with Washington and despaired that Arabs did not withdraw their money from U.S. banks) has caused him to be described as occasionally appearing “more pro-Arab than the Arab officials.”

Several surveys of the post-government careers of ex-U.S. ambassadors to Riyadh all raise eyebrows. Steven Emerson characterizes their behavior as “visceral, overt self-interested sycophancy.” National Review finds that the number of them “who now push a pro-Saudi line is startling” and concludes that “no other posting pays such rich dividends once one has left it, provided one is willing to become a public and private advocate of Saudi interests.” A National Post analysis looked at five former ambassadors and found that “they have carved out a fine living insulting their own countrymen while shilling for one of the most corrupt regimes on Earth.” If you closed your eyes while listening to their apologies, “you would think the person talking held a Saudi passport.”

A Washington Post account gives some idea of the nature of the “rich dividends” reaped by former officials:

Americans who have worked with the Saudis in official capacities often remain connected to them when they leave public office, from former president George H.W. Bush, who has given speeches for cash in Saudi Arabia since leaving office, to many previous ambassadors and military officers stationed in the Kingdom. In some cases, these connections have been lucrative. Walter Cutler, who served two tours as the U.S. ambassador in Saudi Arabia, now runs Meridian International Center in Washington, an organization that promotes international understanding through education and exchanges. Saudi donors have been “very supportive” of the center, Cutler said. [Edward] Walker, the former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, is president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, which promotes understanding with the Arab world. Its board chairman is former senator Wyche Fowler, ambassador to Riyadh in the second Clinton administration. Saudi contributions covered $200,000 of the institute’s $1.5 million budget last year, Walker said.

Nor is this a new problem. Many ex-Washington hands have been paid off by the Kingdom, including not only a bevy of former ambassadors but also such figures as Spiro T. Agnew, Jimmy Carter, Clark Clifford, John B. Connally and William E. Simon.

The heart of the problem is an all-too-human one, then: Americans in positions of authority bend the rules and break with standard policy out of personal greed. In this light, Hunter’s report on the three main U.S. government goals in Saudi Arabia begins to make sense: strengthen the Saudi regime, cater to the Saud royal family, and facilitate U.S. exports. All of these fit the rubric of enhancing one’s own appeal to the Saudis. So, too, does Hunter’s comment that “the U.S. mission is so preoccupied with extraneous duties-entertainment packages for high-level visitors, liquor sales, and handling baggage for VIP visitors” that it has scant time to devote to the proper concerns of an embassy. Likewise, his long list of high-profile ex-officials who visited Saudi Arabia during his sojourn (Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, Colin Powell, Mack McLarty, Richard Murphy) and “who were feted and presented with medals and gifts at closed ceremonies with the Saudi monarch” also fits the pattern.

This culture of corruption in the Executive Branch renders it quite incapable of dealing with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the farsighted and disinterested manner that U.S. foreign policy requires. That leaves Congress with the responsibility to fix things. The massive pre-emptive bribing of American officials requires urgent attention. Steps need to be taken to ensure that the Saudi revolving-door syndrome documented here be made illegal. That might mean that for ten years or more after having extensive contacts with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an official may not receive funds from that source. Only this way can U.S. citizens regain confidence in those of their officials who deal with one of the world’s more important states.

I asked Daniel about the Freedom House report on the publications, sold in mosques located on U.S. soil, calling for Muslims to “hate” and “kill” Americans. (See Daniel’s article on this subject, “Saudi Venom in U.S. Mosques,” here). He said:

This is difficult to deal with especially given our weak position vis-a-vis the Saudis.

Quoting from Daniel’s article on the Freedom House report:

The picture of Saudi activities in the United States is not a pretty one.

Freedom House’s Muslim volunteers went to 15 prominent mosques from New York to San Diego and collected more than 200 books and other publications disseminated by Saudi Arabia (some 90% in Arabic) in mosque libraries, publication racks, and bookstores.

What they found can only be described as horrifying. These writings – each and every one of them sponsored by the kingdom – espouse an anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, misogynist, jihadist, and supremacist outlook. For example, they:

• Reject Christianity as a valid faith: Any Muslim who believes “that churches are houses of God and that God is worshiped therein is an infidel.”


• Insist that Islamic law be applied: On a range of issues, from women (who must be veiled) to apostates from Islam (“should be killed”), the Saudi publications insist on full enforcement of Shariah in America.


• See non-Muslims as the enemy: “Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.”


• See America as hostile territory: “It is forbidden for a Muslim to become a citizen of a country governed by infidels because this is a means of acquiescing to their infidelity and accepting all their erroneous ways.”


• Prepare for war against America: “To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah’s way. It is the duty of the citizen and the government.”

The report’s authors correctly find that the publications under review “pose a grave threat to non-Muslims and to the Muslim community itself.” The materials instill a doctrine of religious hatred inimical to American culture and serve to produce new recruits to the enemy forces in the war on terrorism.

People, we have to get our act together on this stuff. There is no reason for us to be paralyzed because Islam is a religion. If part of their religion is to kill us, they have to change their religion, or get out of our country. This stuff is not that hard to figure out. We wouldn’t permit publication of hate speech directed towards Blacks or Jews, and we must not permit publication of hate speech directed towards Americans who are non-Muslims.