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Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
By Robert Baer
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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About this ebook
“Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state—a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can’t get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?”
In his explosive New York Times bestseller, See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA’s efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our government’s cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and America’ s dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism.
For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a “harmony of interests.” America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdom’ s vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Sa’ud family. But the rot at the core of our “friendship” with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens.
In Sleeping with the Devil, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Sa’ud’s culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Sa’ud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groups—an end game just waiting to play out.
Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Sa’ud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sand—and so long as we continue to grab at the Al Sa’ud’s money—we are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.
In his explosive New York Times bestseller, See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA’s efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our government’s cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and America’ s dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism.
For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a “harmony of interests.” America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdom’ s vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Sa’ud family. But the rot at the core of our “friendship” with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens.
In Sleeping with the Devil, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Sa’ud’s culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Sa’ud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groups—an end game just waiting to play out.
Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Sa’ud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sand—and so long as we continue to grab at the Al Sa’ud’s money—we are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.
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Reviews for Sleeping with the Devil
Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
4/5
5 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holy cow, this is an interesting book, even if Baer is not as much at the center of the action as he thinks he is.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As you can guess from the title, neither the US government or the Saudis come out looking good in this. Baer is a former CIA case officer, one of his later books was turned into the movie Syriana, it was very loosely adapted. I heard Baer speak once and he said he didn't even understand the movie. Baer maintains that the Saudis are much more involved in terrorism then they have been letting on and no one in Washington will call them on it because no one wants to upset the flow of cheap oil (the book was written in 2003 when there was cheap oil) or the chance of a Saudi funded job when they leave office. If you believe him, we're screwed. His ideas blend well with Michael Scheuer's in his book Osama Bin Laden, in that Scheuer credits the Saudis with "creating" bin Laden, while Baer explains why they did it. A little dated but a interesting book, not as good as his others though.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good round up of the pungent and incestuous relationship between the US Govt and the House of Saud. I wish Baer would have done infinitely more work citing sources and facts, as you can't help but read it and wonder what is factual based and what is simply word of mouth statements from his sources. He makes the case at one point that the House of Saud has over one trillion (with a T) invested in the US Stock Market and the same amount stored in US banks per a deal with the govt. An amazing statement thats just left on its own at the end of a chapter. Not that I couldn't believe that the financing statement was true, but the complete lack of backing makes it a tad hard to swallow. For me - much of the history section was on the boring side - but I did my history thesis in college on Ibn Saud and his descendants so if you are unfamiliar this book is as good as any to bring yourself up to date. He also repeats himself quite a bit - making me wonder if the book was written over a long period of time and didn't have a thorough editor to clean that up.You'll also notice many of the themes & scenes in the movie Syriana were ripped directly from the 1st chapter in the book titled "The Doomsday Scenario".
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a must-read! Baer is an ex-CIA agent and he writes with authority on the harmful alliance between the US and the Saudis.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The movie Syriana was a loose biography of Bob Baers experiences working the middle east for the CIA. A very frank accessment of the issues of geo-politics of the region. Very interesting read.