Saudi Arabia and Bush
The very clearly spoken Silflay Hraka points to YAB on how Bush sold the country, by Craig Unger: There are excerpts in Salon, the first and second.
Even if we can take terrorism out of the picture, this is more a matter of political contributions by special interest groups; the distressing thing is that this particular group escapes the limits imposed by the law, that they have a dismal human rights record, and that we are dealing with a family instead of a wide and varied group of individuals, thus very conveniently forgetting about democracy ideals. It is not a government, but a dynasty.
We have seen how the White House has been increasingly pandering to energy interests, having shown their insistence to drill in the Wildlife Artic Refuge, relaxed Clean Air standards, allowed mercury and arsenic to be dumped into the environment, and open the forests to logging and depredation. Bush et al. are owned.
If they want to make contributions, fine, do them, but subject to the limits imposed in the law. It is in their best interests to have cheap oil come the elections, fine, but do say so and who is it that benefits from that. If the government of Saudi Arabia wants to have business with the good ol' USA, they ought to have them in a clear, open way, accountable for what they do and without any kind of the special privileges that they enjoy right now.