Saudi Babylon: Torture, Corruption and Cover-Up Inside the House of Saud

Through the story of an innocently incarcerated British citizen, M. Hollingsworth reveals the real nature of the Saudi Arabian kingdom and its relationship with its Western Allies. Story Western citizens were used as cover ups for terrorist attacks by homegrown Islamic fundamentalists. They were tortured and condemned under an abysmally unfair legal system to capital punishment. The Saudi Arabian government also tried to use them as bargaining chips in order to force the UK government to clamp down on SA dissidents in London. Saudi Arabia The author sketches sharply the contours of a paradoxical political situation. Saudi Arabia needs the secular West for its security and wealth (oil), while internally it maintains a reactionary Wahhabi fundamentalist regime. There is no democratic freedom (media, human or women's rights). It is ruled by a corrupt, hypocrite (`Do as I say, not as I do') elite, which uses religion as a means to consolidate the existent social order. The author states clearly that `the sole mission of the sharia law is to protect the social order.' Its population however is ferociously anti-American, mainly because of the Palestinian problem. Western Allies For the UK and the US, Saudi Arabian oil, together with commercial (weapons contracts at inflated prices in order to permit kickbacks) and military (bases) interests are more important than the protection of human rights and concomitantly individual lives. The latter can `rot in jail'. Caveats M. Hollingsworth's analyses could be partially flawed in the light of evaluations of Al-Qaeda by N. Mosaddeq Ahmed and of the 9/11 attacks by D. R. Griffin and P. Zarembka. For an excellent analysis of the oil shocks of the 1970s, see F. William Engdahl's `A Century of War'. This book, which reads like a thriller, gives also a valuable short summary of the history of Saudi Arabia. A must read for all those who want to understand the hypocrisy of the mighty.