Selling Out To Saudi Terrorists

The Nation: Saudis Fund Terrorism, But Get Military Equipment From U.S.

(The Nation)  This column was written by Robert Scheer.

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Go figure: From the White House comes the news that self-styled anti-terrorism crusader George Bush wants to sell $20 billion in high-tech military equipment to Saudi Arabia, the source of most of the financing, and fifteen of the nineteen hijackers, for the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The justification can't be that this is yet another boondoggle for the military-industrial complex — the big winner in the war on terror — so we are told instead that the Sunni-dominated Saudi kingdom needs this weaponry to withstand a future challenge from those dastardly Shiite fellows in Iran.

Yes, the very same extremists whose surrogates are now, as a consequence of the U.S. invasion, pretending to be the indigenous government of Iraq. Recall that the Shiite militants who rule Tehran, along with the Sunni nuts around Osama bin Laden, were both the sworn enemy of Saddam Hussein. Now both of those forces are the main players, according to the Bush Administration, vying for power in "liberated" Iraq, and our president is in the inane position of playing one group of fanatics against the other in the name of securing Iraq as a democratic haven.

White House officials told The New York Times that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates intend to use the occasion of their joint visit to Saudi Arabia "to press the Saudis to do more to help Iraq's Shiite-dominated government." Huh? Why in the world would the Sunnis, who control Saudi Arabia and are frightened to their bones of Shiites throughout the Gulf, be party to consolidating Shiite power in Iraq?

To complete the circle of madness, White House officials tell reporters that the hope of the latest arms sale program is that the Saudis will be so thrilled with their new weapons that they will stop funding the Sunni insurgents who are currently killing Americans. The absurdity of this position is that it makes the Saudis the big winners in the war on terror and yet expects them to cut out behavior that has played so effectively to the kingdom's advantage. The nation that was most directly responsible for spawning the original al Qaeda attacks on the U.S., and which has since helped finance the violence in Iraq, is now being rewarded with a long-sought weapons modernization package. Thus, a new generation of deadly toys finds its way into the volatile Mideast.

Embarrassing facts undermining Bush's insistence that Iraq is the key battleground in the war on terror are that al Qaeda, which was not allowed a presence in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, is now said by Bush to be behind the insurgency and that half of the foreign suicide bombers have been Saudi nationals. Why would the Saudis now move to stem the flow of terrorists across their border when Bush is rewarding them so handsomely for their past support of terrorism? After all, this administration has never demanded an accounting from the Saudis for the kingdom's support of the Taliban government when it was coddling Saudi terrorist financer Osama bin Laden. Nor has Bush's camp ordered any serious examination of just how fifteen Saudi "soldiers" were recruited, and provided with legitimate Saudi passports and American visas, to commit the mayhem for which the Iraqi people have been so severely punished.

While the $20 billion weapons package will no doubt be supported vigorously by lobbyists for a defense industry that stands to make a financial killing from the deal, it is expected to meet opposition in Congress, particularly from those who fear the impact of this new weaponry on the security of Israel. No problem — "senior officials" in the White House assured the Times that the Saudi arms package would be balanced with a $30.4 billion military aid package for Israel. Then, of course, some large amount of military "aid," to the tune of $13 billion, will also have to be extended to Egypt to keep the dictator in Cairo on board.

What a deal! The Saudis pony up billions in cash, American taxpayers come up with an amount more than twice as high to keep the Israelis and Egyptians happy, and U.S. war profiteers, Bush's most reliable core constituency group, make out like bandits. Hey, it's only money, and the only real cost might be to folks who get caught in the line of fire of those weapons in wars to come for generations. But not to worry: Most of them don't vote in U.S. elections anyway.

[twylacrat]

The Bushes and the Bin Ladens have been in bed for generations. Look it up!

[sjc_1]

Most of the hijackers in 9/11 were Saudis an now they want to sell (give) them billions of dollars in weapons. The Saudis fund one of the most radical sects that preach hatred of the west and the killing them is what is right and we give them billions of dollars on weapons. Iran is going to use this as yet another reason why they need to defend themselves with even MORE advanced weapons. The cold war was not enough for the Republican Military Industrial Complex, now they want start another escalation with the middle east and India.

[xzavierbrown]

Posted by cozenofsky at 11:59 AM : Aug 02, 2007
+ report abuse

*****

there is only 2 ways to get rid of this problem you just enligthened us with..

1. stop smoking crack
2. get a job

you have way too much time on your hand. most conspiracy theorists are a bunch of smoked out hippies who gets a hard on try to dig for secrets...THEN REALIZING..that they had spent so much time and effort that they became loosers who blames the govt. for all thier failures in life when they get old

[catt42701]

I've believed that the Suadis were behind the terrorism for a long time but it seems that our government and administration can't see what is obvious. It's a Sunni insurgency, not Shiite, and Saudi are very rigidly Sunni.

[tucano2]

Regan/Poindexter/North...Bush/Cheney/Rove...each of these two sets of anti-Americans transfered American-made weapons to be used eventually to kill Americans.

[cozenofsky]

Go Figure? OK, I used to be confused by the Bushies until I found out about the "Project for the New American Century"(PNAC) ...the NeoCon plan, published before 9/11 and signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and a host of NeoCon central players.

Here's a quote from the PNAC document (a note on what they think would speed the building of American military might): "...the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event %u2013 like a new Pearl Harbor." http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

So, let's figure.... could it be that Bin Laden is in fact an agent provocateur (off payroll) ...in effect working to help the neocon plan by providing a "catastrophic and catalyzing event %u2013 like a new Pearl Harbor"?

How many seconds after Cheney heard that the first airplane had hit the WTC towers did it take for him to realize that this was the "new Pearl Harbor" that would carry through the NeoCon plan? 10 seconds? ...less? ....no fighters scambled to cover attack from the other missing airliners?

So isn't Al Queda a perfect fit for the role of agent provocateur? Who is really responsible for the total failures of 9/11?

Yeah.... go figure.

DEF- agent provocateur: a secret agent who incites suspected persons to commit illegal acts.

[bwessels]

It is a complicated game. One of Bin Laden's primary goals is to overthrow the Saudi government. Recruiting mostly Saudis for 9/11 was a deliberate decision. Shiite Iran is building nuclear weapons: this is clearly a message to them. Hopes for a "moderate" Shiite government in Iraq are slim, but there a few good alternatives. Partitioning leaves Kurdistan, soon to battle our ally Turkey, the Sunni Triangle, a smaller terrorist state, and the Shiite south, soon controlled or conquered by Iran. This debacle has no good answer, but the Saudis are the least of our problems. I abhor this administration, but this doesn't seem like a bad move. Boosting arms to Israel and Egypt while hoping for peace there seems foolish, though.

[pepperp1]

This has got to be the brain child of that Chicken Hawk Cheney, no one else would suggest something this dumb, was it not also Cheney who armed Iraqs Hussein we can see how well http worked out Dicky.

Let uses all remember who did attack us on 911 it was a Saudi Prince named Osama and his fellow countrymen the hijackers.

[pepperp1]

This has got to be the brain child of that Chicken Hawk Cheney, no one else would suggest something this dumb, was it not also Cheney who armed Iraqs Hussein we can see how well http worked out Dicky.

Let uses all remember who did attack us on 911 it was a Saudi Prince named Osama and his fellow countrymen the hijackers.

[pepperp1]

This has got to be the brain child of that Chicken Hawk Cheney, no one else would suggest something this dumb, was it not also Cheney who armed Iraqs Hussein we can see how well http worked out Dicky.

Let uses all remember who did attack us on 911 it was a Saudi Prince named Osama and his fellow countrymen the hijackers.