US sends 3,000 more
troops to defend Saudi monarchy
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that
3,000 more US troops are being deployed to Saudi Arabia to defend the
blood-soaked monarchy led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and prepare for
war against Iran.
The deployment includes two fighter
squadrons, one Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW), two more Patriot missile
batteries, and one Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD).
According to a Pentagon statement
Friday, the US Secretary of Defense phoned Crown Prince bin Salman (who also
holds the post of Saudi minister of defense) to inform him of the coming
reinforcements, which he said were meant “to assure and enhance the defense of
Saudi Arabia.”
The Pentagon also acknowledged that
the latest escalation brings the number of additional troops sent into the
Persian Gulf region since May to 14,000. They have been accompanied by an
armada of US warships and a B-52-led bomber task force. The Pentagon has also
announced that an aircraft carrier-led battle group will remain in the Persian
Gulf.
US soldiers deployed in the Middle
East (U.S. Army by 1st Lt. Jesse Glenn)
While initiated as a supposed
response to unspecified threats from Iran, the US buildup in the Persian Gulf
region has constituted from its outset a military provocation and preparation
for a war of aggression. This military buildup has accompanied Washington’s
so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of sweeping economic sanctions that are
tantamount to a state of war. The aim, as the Trump administration has stated
publicly, is to drive Iranian oil exports down to zero. By depriving Iran of
its principal source of export income, Washington hopes to starve the Iranian
people into submission and pave the way to regime change, bringing to power a
US puppet regime in Tehran.
The latest military buildup was
announced in the immediate aftermath of an attack on an Iranian tanker in the
Red Sea, about 60 miles from the Saudi port of Jeddah.
The National Iranian Tanker Co.
reported that its oil tanker, the Sabiti, was struck twice by explosives early
Friday morning, leaving two holes in the vessel and causing a brief oil spill
into the Red Sea.
While Iranian state news media blamed
the damage on missile attacks, a spokesman for the company told the Wall
Street Journal that the company was not sure of the cause.
Some security analysts have suggested
that the fairly minor damage to the vessel could have been caused by limpet
mines. Such mines were apparently used last June when two tankers—one Japanese
and one Norwegian-owned—were hit by explosions in the Sea of Oman. At the time,
Washington blamed the attacks on Iran, without providing any evidence. Tehran
denied the charge, saying that it sent teams to rescue crew member of the
damaged tankers.
The Iranian Students News Agency
(ISNA) quoted an unnamed Iranian government official as stating that the
Iranian tanker had been the victim of a “terrorist attack.”
“Examination of the details and
perpetrators of this dangerous action continues and will be announced after
reaching the result,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.
The National Iranian Tanker Co.
issued a statement saying that there was no evidence that Saudi Arabia was
behind the attack.
The incident raised the specter of an
escalating tanker war that could disrupt shipping through the strategic Strait
of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows. News of
the attack sent crude oil prices spiking by 2 percent.
In addition to the June attacks on
the tankers in the Gulf of Oman, in July British commandos, acting on a request
from Washington, stormed an Iranian super tanker, the Grace 1, in waters off
the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. In apparent retaliation, Iranian
Revolutionary Guards seized the British-flagged Stena Impero for what Tehran
charged were violations of international maritime regulations as it passed
through the Strait of Hormuz. Both tankers were subsequently released.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo issued a statement charging that the Iranian super tanker,
renamed the Adrian Darya 1, had offloaded its oil in Syria in violation of
European Union sanctions and a pledge made by Tehran to the UK at the time of
the vessel’s release. He demanded provocatively that “EU members should condemn
this action, uphold the rule of law, and hold Iran accountable.”
The Trump administration, which in
May of last year unilaterally and illegally abrogated the 2015 nuclear
agreement between Tehran and the major powers has been pressuring the European
signatories to the deal—Germany, France and the UK—to follow suit.
While the respective governments of
the three countries have insisted that they still support the nuclear
agreement, they have repeatedly bowed to Washington’s war drive, while failing
to take any significant actions to counter the effects of the US “maximum
pressure” campaign and deliver to Tehran the sanctions relief and economic
normalization that it was promised in exchange for curtailing its nuclear
program.
Most recently, the three European
governments backed Washington in blaming Iran for a September 14 attack on
Saudi oil facilities that temporarily shut down half of the kingdom’s oil
production and sent crude prices spiraling by 20 percent—again without providing
a shred of proof.
Washington is seeking to topple the
Iranian regime or bully it into accepting complete subordination to US
imperialist predatory interests in the energy-rich and geostrategically vital
Middle East.
The US sanctions regime and military
buildup have placed the entire region on a hair trigger for the outbreak of a
catastrophic war that could engulf not only the Middle East, but the entire
planet.
All of the regimes involved in the
escalating conflict are gripped by crises that make the drive to war all the
more explosive.
The impact of the sanctions on Iran’s
economy has been devastating. It is estimated that oil exports last month fell
to just 400,000 barrels per day (b/d), compared to 1.95 million b/d in
September 2018. Left with little means of combating spiraling inflation and
growing unemployment, Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime is caught between
intense pressure from imperialism on the one hand, and the growth of social
opposition among Iranian workers and poor on the other.
The Saudi monarchy is confronting the
debacle of its four-year-old and near genocidal war against the people of
Yemen, made possible by the weapons and logistical aid provided by Washington,
even as Prince bin Salman remains a global pariah for his ordering of the grisly
assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year in Istanbul.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu,
incapable of forming a new government after two elections and confronting
criminal indictments, has grown increasingly concerned over the apparent lack
of appetite by the Persian Gulf Sunni monarchies for military confrontation
with Iran and Washington’s failure to carry out military strikes after the
downing of its drone in June and the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities last
month. Clearly, Tel Aviv, which has cast Iran as its strategic enemy, would
have a motive for attacking Iranian tankers in the hopes of provoking a
response that could lead to US military action.
And then there is Trump. He has
proclaimed his determination to halt the “endless wars” in the Middle East and
provoked a political firestorm by pulling back a relative handful of US troops
in Syria, allowing Turkey to launch a long-planned attack on the Pentagon’s
erstwhile proxy force, the Kurdish-dominated YPG militia.
Faced with an escalating political
crisis and growing social tensions within the US, along with an impeachment
investigation by the Democrats in Congress that is focused entirely on the
national security concerns of the CIA and the Pentagon, he has ample motive for
launching a new war.
While the Democrats’ exclusive focus
on Trump’s failure to pursue a sufficiently bellicose policy against Russia and
prosecute the war for regime change in Syria has allowed the US president to
absurdly posture as an opponent of war, the reality is that he has overseen a
staggering increase in military spending designed to prepare for “great power”
confrontations, particularly with China.
Meanwhile, whatever his political
pretense, Trump has done nothing to end any of the wars in the Middle East.
While he has ordered US troops to pull back, allowing the Turkish invasion,
none of them have been withdrawn from Syria.
With the latest buildup of US forces
in Saudi Arabia, Washington is preparing, behind the backs of the working
class, to launch a catastrophic military conflict with Iran. The most urgent
task posed by these developments is the building of a global antiwar movement
led by the working class. This movement must be armed with a socialist and
internationalist program to unify working people in the United States, Europe
and the Middle East in a common struggle against imperialist war and its
source, the capitalist system.
TRUMP AND THE
MURDERING 9-11 MUSLIM SAUDIS…
Why is the Swamp Keeper
and his family of parasites up their ar$es??
WHAT WILL TRUMP AND HIS
PARASITIC FAMILY DO FOR MONEY???
JUST ASK THE SAUDIS!
JOHN DEAN: Not so far. This has been right by the letter of the special counsel’s
charter. He’s released the document. What I’m looking for is relief and
understanding that there’s no witting or unwitting likelihood that the
President is an agent of Russia. That’s when I’ll feel comfortable, and no
evidence even hints at that. We don’t have that yet. We’re still in the process
of unfolding the report to look at it. And its, as I say, if [Attornery General
William Barr] honors his word, we’ll know more soon.
“Our entire crony capitalist system,
Democrat and
Republican alike, has become a
kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world
hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided
by its elite.” ---
- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
PRESIDENT of the
UNITED STATES DONALD TRUMP: Pathological liar, swindler, con man, huckster,
golfing cheat, charity foundation fraudster, tax evader, adulterer, porn whore
chaser and servant of the Saudis dictators
THE TRUMP FAMILY FOUNDATION SLUSH FUND…. Will they see jail?
VISUALIZE REVOLUTION!.... We know where they live!
“Underwood is a Democrat and is seeking millions of dollars in
penalties. She wants Trump and his eldest children barred from running other
charities.”
Opinion: Trump And Pompeo Have Enabled A Saudi Cover-Up Of
The Khashoggi Killing
October
2, 201911:45 AM ET
AARON DAVID MILLER
RICHARD SOKOLSKY
In the
weeks following the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump
spent more time praising Saudi Arabia as a very important ally than he did
reacting to the killing.
Hasan
Jamali/AP
Aaron
David Miller (@aarondmiller2) is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace and a former State Department Middle East analyst, adviser
and negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author
most recently of the End of Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want)
Another Great President.
Richard
Sokolsky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, worked in the State Department for six different
administrations and was a member of the secretary of state's Office of Policy
Planning from 2005 to 2015.
It has been a year since Saudi journalist
and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi entered
Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul where he was slain and dismembered. There
is still no objective or comprehensive Saudi or American accounting of what
occurred, let alone any real accountability.
The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman's admission in a recent CBS interview that
he takes "full responsibility," while denying foreknowledge of the
killing or that he ordered it, sweeps under the rug the lengths to which the
Saudis have gone to obscure the truth about their involvement in the killing
and cover-up.
The Saudi campaign of obfuscation, denial and
cover-up would never have gotten off the ground had it not been for the Trump
administration's support over the past year. The president and Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo not only refused to distance themselves from the crown
prince, known by his initials MBS, but also actively worked to relegitimize
him. The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump acquiesced in the cover-up and
worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi relationship and soften the crown
prince's pariah status. In short, without Trump, the attempted makeover — such
as it is — would not have been possible.
The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump
acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi
relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah status.
Weak administration response
The administration's weak and feckless
response to Khashoggi's killing was foreshadowed a year before it occurred. In
May 2017, in an unusual break with precedent, Trump visited Saudi Arabia on his
inaugural presidential trip; gave his son-in-law the authority to manage the
MBS file, which he did with the utmost secrecy; and made it unmistakably clear
that Saudi money, oil, arm purchases and support for the administration's
anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli policies would elevate the U.S.-Saudi
"special relationship" to a new level.
Predictably, therefore, the
administration's reaction to Khashoggi's killing was shaped by a desire to
manage the damage and preserve the relationship. In the weeks following
Khashoggi's death, Trump spent more time praising Saudi Arabia as a very
important ally, especially as a purchaser of U.S. weapons and goods, than he did reacting to the killing. Trump
vowed to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi killing but focused more on
defending the crown prince, saying this was another example of
being "guilty before being proven innocent."
Those pledges to investigate and impose
accountability would continue to remain hollow. Over the past year, Trump and
Pompeo have neither criticized nor repudiated Saudi actions that have harmed
American interests in the Middle East. Two months after Khashoggi's death, the
administration, in what Pompeo described as an "initial step," imposed sanctions on
17 Saudi individuals implicated in the killing. But no others have been
forthcoming, and the visa restrictions that were imposed are meaningless
because none of the sanctioned Saudis would be
foolish enough to seek entry into the United States.
What's more, the administration
virtually ignored a congressional
resolution imposing sanctions on the Saudis
for human rights abuses and vetoed another bipartisan resolution that would
have ended U.S. military assistance to Saudi Arabia's inhumane military
campaign in Yemen.
The Saudis opened a trial in January of
11 men implicated in the killing, but the proceedings have been slow and
secretive, leading the United Nations' top human rights expert to declare that
"the trial underway in Saudi Arabia will not deliver credible
accountability." Despite accusations that the crown prince's key adviser
Saud al-Qahtani was involved in the killing, he's still advising MBS, has not stood trial and
will likely escape punishment. A year later, there are still no reports of
convictions or serious punishment.
Legitimizing Mohammed bin
Salman
The Trump administration has not only
given the crown prince a pass on the Khashoggi killing, but it has also worked
assiduously to remove his pariah status and rehabilitate his global image.
Barely two months after the 2018 slaying, Trump was exchanging pleasantries with the crown prince at the
Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires and holding
out prospects of spending more time with him. Then this past June, at the G-20
in Osaka, Japan, Trump sang his praises while dodging questions about the
killing. "It's an honor to be with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a
friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms
of opening up Saudi Arabia," Trump said.
And you can bet that when Saudi Arabia
hosts the G-20, scheduled to be held in its capital of Riyadh in November 2020,
the Trump administration will be smiling as its rehab project takes another
step in its desired direction.
What the U.S. should have done
Trump has failed to impose any serious
costs or constraints on Saudi Arabia for the killing of a U.S. newspaper
columnist who resided in Virginia or for the kingdom's aggressive policies,
from Yemen to Qatar. In the wake of the Khashoggi killing, the administration
should have made it unmistakably clear, both publicly and privately, that it
expected a comprehensive and credible accounting and investigation. It should have suspended high-level contacts
and arms sales with the kingdom for a period of time. And to make the point,
the administration should have supported at least one congressional resolution
taking the Saudis to task, in addition to triggering the Magnitsky Act, which
would have required a U.S. investigation; a report to Congress; and sanctions
if warranted.
Back to business as usual
The dark stain of the crown prince's
apparent involvement in Khashoggi's death will not fade easily. But for Trump
and Pompeo, it pales before the great expectations they still maintain for the
kingdom to confront and contain their common enemy, Iran, as well as support
the White House's plan for Middle East peace, defeat jihadists in the region
and keep the oil spigot open.
Most of these goals are illusory. Saudi
Arabia is a weak, fearful and unreliable ally. The kingdom has introduced
significant social and cultural reforms but has imposed new levels of
repression and authoritarianism. Its reckless policies toward Yemen and Qatar
have expanded, not contracted, opportunities for Iran, while the Saudi military
has demonstrated that, even after spending billions to buy America's most
sophisticated weapons, it still can't defend itself without American help.
Meanwhile, recent attacks on critical
Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. blames on Iran have helped rally more
American and international support for the kingdom.
When it comes to the U.S.-Saudi
relationship and the kingdom's callous reaction to Khashoggi's killing, the
president and his secretary of state have been derelict in their duty: They
have not only failed to advance American strategic interests but also
undermined America's values in the process.
The U.S. Military is Sending Thousands of Troops and Even B-1
Bombers into Saudi Arabia (To Counter Iran)
On October 6, around fifty U.S. commandos in northeastern Syria
tasked with hunting down ISIS forces were withdrawn from territory near the
Turkish border controlled by the Kurdish-Arab SDF faction.
The U.S. withdrawal was a prerequisite for a Turkish attack
against the SDF which subsequently took place. The remaining hundreds of U.S.
forces elsewhere in northeastern Syria were endangered in the crossfire and had
to be withdrawn a few days later.
The U.S. withdrawal was post-hoc justified on the basis that
they were no longer needed in the Middle East and it was time to “bring the
troops home.”
But in the weeks since, the United States has deployed over
3,000 more troops to the Middle East—including hundreds of National Guardsmen
in Syria, and thousands of soldiers and airmen deployed to Saudi Arabia.
While a companion article looks at the deployment of a
mechanized battalion to defend an oil field in southeastern Syria, this second
part looks at the rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the wealthy Kingdom in
response to intensifying clashes with Iran following the United State’s
withdrawal from a nuclear deal with Tehran.
Return to the Kingdom
The deployments to Saudi Arabia marks a dramatic turn around
from sixteen years earlier in 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
pulled out thousands of U.S. troops. Their presence had long been cited as a
factor radicalizing Muslims across the planet who objected to the presence of
foreign troops so close to the holy city of Mecca.
Apparently, these concerns have since faded, despite political
headwinds from a U.S. Congress angered by Saudi Arabia’s grisly murder of
journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul.
First, following the loss of drones in June, that the Defense
Department announced it was doubling troop deployment to the Kingdom from 500
to 1,000 personnel.
Tulsi
Gabbard: U.S. Government ‘Is Hiding the Truth’ on 9/11 Terror Attacks
1 Nov 2019698
4:22
Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Rep.
Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential
nomination, reacted to the difficulties Chris Ganci and Brett Eagleson,
two relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks were having
in their quest to obtain more information about Saudi Arabia’s involvement in
9/11.
Gabbard accused the federal government of undermining efforts of
achieving more transparency, which she said was being done at the behest of
Saudi Arabia.
Partial
transcript as follows:
CARLSON: This is one of those issues I don’t think is partisan.
It doesn’t need to be. It shouldn’t be partisan in any sense.
GABBARD: Absolutely not.
CARLSON: It’s an American issue. Why would the U.S. government ever
side with the Saudi Kingdom of all countries against our citizens?
GABBARD: This is the real question that’s at stake. This story
that we’re hearing from the families of those who were killed on 9/11 pushes
this issue to the forefront where, for so long, leaders in our government have
said, well, Saudi Arabia is our great ally. They’re a partner in
counterterrorism, turning a blind eye or completely walking away from the
reality that Saudi Arabia time and again, has proven to be the opposite.
CARLSON: Yes.
GABBARD: They’re undermining our National Security interests.
They are — as you said, they are the number one exporter of this Wahhabi
extremist ideology.
CARLSON: Yes.
GABBARD: They’re a fertile recruiting ground for terrorists,
like al Qaeda and ISIS around the world. They’re directly providing arms and
assistance to al Qaeda, in places like Yemen, and in Syria.
And as we are seeing here, it is our government, our own
government that is hiding the truth from Chris and Brett and the many other
families of those who were killed on 9/11. For what? Where do the loyalties
really lie?
CARLSON: So I was thinking in the commercial break that of the
number of people I know personally, not abstractly, but have had lunch with in
this city who are taking currently money from the Saudi Kingdom or their allies
in the Emirates, the Gulf States, and I wonder if that maybe play some role,
like a lot of people on their payroll here.
GABBARD: Yes. We talk about the foreign policy establishment in
Washington.
CARLSON: Yes.
GABBARD: We talk about the political elite, the
military-industrial complex. We hear things from some of those people, well,
you know, hey, we sell a lot of weapons to Saudi Arabia. So you know, if we
burn bridges with them, then who are we going to sell our weapons to? Where are
we going to get that money from?
All of these excuses that have nothing to do with the interests
of the American people, with our national security interests. And that’s — I’m
proud and honored to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with these 9/11
families in demanding this truth because, yes, it is about truth and justice
and closure for all of them now as we approach 20 years since that attack on
9/11. It’s also about our National Security.
CARLSON: Yes.
GABBARD: Safety and security of the American people.
CARLSON: I’ll never forget right after 9/11, living here in the
City of Washington, our airports were closed. All airports were closed in this
country.
GABBARD: Yes.
CARLSON: And learning that chartered flights of Saudi citizens
had been allowed with U.S. government approval to take off and run back to
Saudi Arabia without being questioned by authorities here and thinking you
know, if I tried to do that, I’d be in prison. Why are we giving preference to
Saudi citizens over our own citizens?
GABBARD: Exactly. It makes no sense if you think about what
would happen if we actually had leaders who were putting the interests of our
country above all else. You follow the money trail. It goes back to the
military-industrial complex.
You look at how many of the think tanks here in Washington who
send so-called experts to go and testify before Congress who are funded by
Saudi Arabia to spout their talking points.
You saw how the legislation that we passed in Congress. I was proud
to vote for legislation that allowed families like Chris and Brett’s to sue
Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia trotted out all of their lobbyists to say why that
would be so dangerous, so dangerous for our interests, for them to be allowed
to seek justice for their families.
This is about standing up for our country. This is about
standing up for our principles and our freedoms and for the truth.
Obama-Clinton Fundraiser
Imaad Zuberi Cops a Plea
Clinton foundation
contributor was conduit for Saudi sugardaddy Mohammed Al Rahbani.
October 31, 2019
Lloyd
Billingsley
Since his
election to the presidency in 2016, the Democrat-Deep State-Media axis has
targeted Donald Trump for foreign entanglements they claim should remove him
from office. Now comes news of foreign entanglements and foreign cash for the
previous president.
“Middleman helped
Saudi give to Obama inaugural,” proclaims the headline on the October 29
report by Alan Suderman and Jim Mustian, billed as an Associated
Press exclusive. As the authors explain, U.S. election law prohibits foreign
nationals from making contributions to the inaugural celebrations of American
presidents. As it turns out, the law was violated.
A “Saudi tycoon,” Sheikh Mohammed Al Rahbani, routed hundreds of
thousands of dollars for the Obama inaugural through an “intermediary,”
Imaad Zuberi. He, in turn, is a “jet-setting fundraiser and venture
capitalist,” who has “raised millions of dollars for Democrats and Republicans
alike over the years.” Despite the appearance of bipartisanship, Zuberi is more
narrowly tailored.
Imaad Zuberi
“served as a top fundraiser for both Obama and Hillary Clinton during their
presidential runs, including stints on both of their campaign finance
committees.” One campaign, not identified, took donations “in the name of one
of Zuberi’s dead relatives” and a political committee, also unidentified, “took
donations from a person Zuberi invented.” As the DOJ charged, Zuberi pleaded
guilty to “falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while
lobbying high-level U.S. government officials,” and it was hardly his first
brush with the law.
“Elite Fundraiser
for Obama and Clinton Linked to Justice Department Probe,” read the headline
on Bill Allison’s
August 28, 2015 exclusive in Foreign
Policy. The calling card of the elite political fundraiser are photographs,
“bumping fists with President Barack Obama in front of a Christmas tree at a
White House reception. Sharing a belly laugh with Vice President Joe Biden at a
formal luncheon,” and posing “cheek to cheek with Democratic presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton.”
Not only is
Zuberi a major fundraiser for her campaign, notes Allison, “he also donated
between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation, which has already come
under fire for accepting money from donors — many of them foreign — with
interests before the U.S. government while she was secretary of state.” And as
Allison learned, Hillary’s 2008 campaign benefitted from “straw donors” set up
by Sant Singh Chatwal and Norman Hsu, both convicted of election law
violations.
Zuberi also used
straw donors in more recent illegal activity. As to the affiliation of those
mysterious campaigns and committees, the AP writers provide a hint.
Sheikh Mohammed
Al Rahbani has “talked about his support of Obama. He posted pictures on his
website of himself and his wife standing with Obama, former Vice President Joe
Biden and their spouses at a 2013 inaugural event.” Alas, “the website was
taken down shortly after Zuberi’s plea was made public.”
As Paul Delacourt
of the FBI’s Los Angeles office explains, “American influence is not for sale.”
Mr. Zuberi “lured individuals who were seeking political influence in violation
of U.S. law, and in the process, enriched himself by defrauding those with whom
he interacted.” According to the DOJ, that “could send him to prison for a
lengthy period of time.”
According to
Suderman and Mustian, “Zuberi’s case raises questions about the degree to which
political committees vet donors.” And as FEC boss Ellen Weintraub told the
writers, “I’m deeply concerned about foreigners trying to intervene in
our elections, and I don’t think we’re doing enough to try to stop it.” They
might start by looking in the right place.
Unconventional
candidate Donald Trump, a man of considerable means, financed his own campaign.
Trump had no need to consort with the likes of Zuberi or his dead relatives and
those he invents. And because Trump financed his own campaign, he owes nothing
to anybody, foreign or domestic.
Adam “sack of”
Schiff, as Judge Jeanine Pirro respectfully calls him, claimed he had evidence
in plain sight that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election from
Hillary Clinton. Two years and a Mueller investigation later, such evidence is
nowhere in sight. Schiff’s current inquisition, perhaps more bogus than the
Mueller probe, is best seen a diversion from John Durham’s criminal
investigation of those who launched the Russia hoax. That is where DOJ and
election officials should be looking.
Did Clinton
Foundation donor Imaad Zerubi turn up on any of those 30,000 subpoenaed emails
Hillary Clinton deleted? Did Zerubi see any classified material? Were there any
texts from Zerubi and his foreign clients on the cell phones Hillary’s squad
smashed up with hammers? Was Clinton grossly negligent, or just extremely
careless? And so on. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton also enjoyed other foreign
intervention, right out in the open.
Mexican foreign
minister Marcelo Ebrard, a former mayor of Mexico City, had worked with
voter-registration and participation groups in California, Arizona, Florida, Chicago,
and elsewhere. As Ebrard told Francisco
Goldman of the New
Yorker, in 2016 he “decided to get more
involved” by working on get-out-the-vote campaigns on behalf of Hillary
Clinton.
A powerful
foreign national openly interferes in an American election, and nobody calls
him on it. Now that Clinton Foundation lackey Imaad Zuberi has copped a plea,
the FEC and DOJ should look into it.
Congress
overrides Obama veto of bill allowing 9/11 lawsuits
By
Tom Carter
On Wednesday, the US Congress overturned President Obama’s veto of
legislation that would permit victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and
their families to sue Saudi Arabia. Declassified documents released this year
confirm the involvement of Saudi intelligence agents in the funding,
organization, and planning of the attacks—facts which were covered up for years
by the Bush and Obama administrations.
The vote, 97-1 in the Senate and 348-77 in the House of
Representatives, represents the first and only congressional override of
Obama’s presidency. Under the US Constitution, the president’s veto can be
overturned only by a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress.
The Obama administration and the military and intelligence
agencies, backed by sections of the media, including the New York Times, have
vigorously denounced the legislation. Obama personally, together with Central
Intelligence Agency director John Brennan, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford among others, have all
publicly opposed the bill.
In a letter to Congress opposing the legislation, Obama warned
that the bill would “threaten to erode sovereign principles that protect the
United States, including our U.S. Armed Forces and other officials, overseas.”
In a lead editorial on Wednesday, the New York Times similarly
warned that “if the bill becomes law, other countries could adopt similar legislation
defining their own exemptions to sovereign immunity. Because no country is more
engaged in the world than the United States—with military bases, drone
operations, intelligence missions and training programs—the Obama
administration fears that Americans could be subject to legal actions abroad.”
In other words, the bill would set a precedent for families of
victims of American aggression abroad—such as the tens of thousands of victims
of “targeted killings” ordered by Obama personally—to file lawsuits against US
war criminal in their own countries’ courts.
Obama denounced the vote with unusual warmth on Wednesday. “It's
an example of why sometimes you have to do what's hard. And, frankly, I wish
Congress here had done what's hard,” Obama declared. “If you’re perceived as
voting against 9/11 families right before an election, not surprisingly, that's
a hard vote for people to take. But it would have been the right thing to do
... And it was, you know, basically a political vote.”
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” Sir Walter Scott famously
wrote, “When first we practice to deceive!” As the tangled web of lies
surrounding the September 11 attacks continue to unravel, one senses that the
American ruling class and its representatives do not see a clear way out of the
dilemma.
Openly torpedoing the legislation is tantamount to an admission of
guilt. Indeed, the Obama administration, the military and intelligence
agencies, and theNew York Times are publicly working to cover up a crime
perpetrated by Al Qaeda and its backers in Saudi Arabia, which in turn is an
ally of the United States. The mere fact that Obama vetoed this bill
constitutes an admission that the US government is hiding something with
respect to the September 11 attacks.
The alternative, from the standpoint of the American ruling class,
is also fraught with risks. Court proceedings initiated by the families of
September 11 victims will inevitably expose the role played by the Saudi
monarchy, an ally of both Al Qaeda and the United States, in the September 11
attacks. This, in turn, will highlight long and sordid history of American
support for Islamic fundamentalism in the
Middle East, which continues to the present day in Syria and
Libya.
Perhaps most dangerously of all, a full public accounting of
the roles of Saudi intelligence agents in the September 11 attacks
will once again raise questions about the role of the American state in the
attacks. Why did US intelligence
agencies ignore the activities of Saudi agents before the attacks,
based on Saudi Arabia’s supposed status as a US ally?
Why did the US government deliberately cover up the Saudi
connection after the fact, instead claiming that Afghanistan was a “state
sponsor of terrorism” and that Iraq was developing “weapons of mass destruction?”
Why was nobody
prosecuted?
The New York Times, for its part, simply lied about the evidence
of Saudi complicity. “The legislation is motivated by a belief among the 9/11
families that Saudi Arabia played a role in the attacks, because 15 of the 19
hijackers, who were members of Al Qaeda, were Saudis,” the editors wrote. “But
the independent American commission that investigated the attacks found no
evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials financed the
terrorists.”
In fact, at least two of the hijackers received aid from Omar
al-Bayoumi, who was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a
Saudi intelligence agent with “ties to terrorist elements.” Some of the
hijackers were paid for work in fictitious jobs from companies affiliated with
the Saudi Defense Ministry, with which Al-Bayoumi was in close contact. The
night before the attacks, three of the hijackers stayed at the same hotel as
Saleh al-Hussayen, a prominent Saudi government official.
These and other facts were confirmed by the infamous 28-page
suppressed chapter of the 2002 report issued by the Joint Inquiry into
Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of
September 11, 2001. After 14 years of stalling, the document was finally released
to the public this summer.
Yet the New York Times continues to describe the Saudi monarchy,
the principal financier and sponsor of Islamic fundamentalist groups throughout
the world, as “a partner in combating terrorism.”
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, passed Wednesday,
is a direct reaction to these revelations of Saudi complicity in the September
11 attacks, under pressure from organizations of survivors and families of
victims. The law amends the federal judicial code to allow US courts “to hear
cases involving claims against a foreign state for injuries, death, or damages
that occur inside the United States as a result of. .. an act of terrorism,
committed anywhere by a foreign state or official.”
Although the bill nowhere names Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government
has threatened massive retaliation, including by moving $750 billion in
assets out of the country before they can be seized in American legal
proceedings. This reaction alone confirms the monarchy’s guilt.
During Wednesday’s session, many of the statements on the floor of
the Senate were nervous and apprehensive. Casting his vote in favor of the
bill, Republican Senator Bob Corker declared, “I have tremendous concerns about
the sovereign immunity procedures that would be set in place by the countries
as a result of this vote.” More than one legislator noted that if the bill had
unintended consequences, it would be modified or repealed.
The anxious comments of legislators and the crisscrossing
denunciations within the ruling elite reflect the significance of this
controversy for the entire American political establishment. For 15 years, the
American population has been relentlessly told that the events of September 11,
2001 “changed everything,” warranting the elimination of democratic rights, the
militarization of the police, renditions, torture, assassinations, totalitarian
levels of spying, death and destruction across the Middle East, and trillions
of dollars of expenditures.
The collapse of the official version of that day’s events shows
that American politics for 15 years has been based on a lie.
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