THESE ARE
THE SHITBAG MUSLIMS WHOSE
BORDERS WE HAVE DEFENDED FOR TWO
YEARS. THE VERY
SHITBAG SAUIDIS THAT
THE BUSH CRIME FAMILY STARTED TWO
WARS TO PROTECT AFTER
THE SAUDIS
INVADED US 9-11
THE OBOMBS AND HARVARD
OBAMA AND HIS SAUDIS
PAYMASTERS… Did he serve them well?
Malia,
Michelle, Barack and the College Admissions Scandal https://globalistbarackobama.blogspot.com/2019/03/malia-michelle-barack-and-college.html
Michelle was the next to attend Harvard, in her case Harvard
Law School. “Told by counselors that her SAT scores and her grades weren’t good
enough for an Ivy League school,” writes Christopher Andersen in Barack and
Michelle, “Michelle applied to Princeton and Harvard anyway.”
GOOGLE WHAT THE OBOMB DID FOR HIS SAUDIS
PAYMASTERS
Barack Obama’s back door, however, was unique to him. Before
prosecutors send some of the dimmer Hollywood stars to the slammer for their
dimness, they might want to ask just how much influence a Saudi billionaire
peddled to get Obama into Harvard.
“Of course,
one of the main reasons the nation is now “divided, resentful and angry”
is because race-baiting, Islamist, class warrior Barack Hussein
Obama was president for eight long years." MATTHEW VADUM
MBS: The
Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman
Ben
Hubbard. Random House/Duggan, $28 (384p) ISBN 978-1-9848-2382-3
Journalist Hubbard debuts with an incisive
portrait of modern Saudi Arabia and 34-year-old crown prince Mohammed bin
Salman, better known by his initials MBS. Though much about MBS’s early years
remains unknown, Hubbard details his close relationship with his father, the
governor of Riyadh, following the untimely deaths of two of MBS’s older
half-brothers, and his willingness to threaten with violence those who don’t
fall in line. After his father’s ascension to the throne in 2015, MBS took
control of the royal court and became minister of defense. He implemented
ambitious social and economic reforms, including rolling back the kingdom’s ban
on women drivers, and courted Western investors with plans to build a $500
billion “smart city” near the Red Sea. He also declared war on the Houthi
rebels in Yemen, escalated tensions with Iran and Qatar, detained hundreds of
ministers and royal family members in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in a move billed
as an anti-corruption push, and empowered underlings to aggressively silence
dissidents—a campaign that led to the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in
Saudi Arabia’s Turkish consulate in 2018, severely damaging MBS’s international
reputation. Hubbard enriches the narrative with informed discussions of Saudi
history and culture, illuminating the kingdom’s complex blend of religious
fundamentalism and technological ambition. This deeply researched and vividly
written account provides essential insight into a figure poised to lead the
region for the next half century. (Mar.)
Pollak:
Everything Joe Biden Said About Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Actually
Describes Barack Obama’s
Johannes Eisele / AFP Getty
12 Jul 20193
3:48
Everything
former vice president Joe Biden said about President Donald Trump’s foreign
policy speech on Thursday actually applies to the policy that Biden carried out
together with former President Barack Obama — and not Trump.
In his speech, at City University of New York, Biden called
Trump an “extreme” threat to the country’s national security. No one has yet
taken Biden to task for describing the sitting commander-in-chief in such
alarmist terms.
But that wasn’t even the most bizarre aspect of Biden’s speech.
He said the main problem in Trump’s foreign policy was … Charlottesville,
Virginia. Biden went on to recite a version of the debunked “very fine people”
hoax, claiming that Trump had drawn a “moral equivalence between those who
promoted hate and those who opposed it.” That, he said, was a threat to
America’s mission of standing for democratic values in the world.
But in fact, Trump
specifically condemned the neo-Nazis
in Charlottesville on multiple occasions. The entire premise of Biden’s speech
was a lie.
Biden went on to claim that Trump’s foreign policy rejects
democratic values and favors the rise of authoritarianism worldwide. He cited
Trump’s warmth to Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator
Kim Jong-un. And he claimed that Trump has undermined America’s alliances with
democracies in favor of flattery from dictators.
Apparently Biden forgot that Obama literally bowed to the Saudi
king; that he abandoned the pro-democracy protests during the Green Revolution
in Iran; that he pushed for a “reset” with Russia and abandoned our Czech and
Polish allies on missile defense; that he promised Putin he would be even more
“flexible” after he won re-election; that he tried to normalize relations with
the Cuban dictatorship without securing any democratic reforms there; that he
gave the store away to the communist dictatorship in China; and that he
abandoned Israel, a betrayal in which Biden himself played a direct and
shameful role, condemning Israel for building apartments in a Jewish neighborhood
of Jerusalem.
Trump praises dictators as a negotiating tactic; Obama praised
them because he, too, thought America was a problem.
One of the few times the Obama administration embraced
democratic change was during the Arab Spring, when “democracy” meant the rise
of the Muslim Brotherhood — which had no interest in freedom, only in power.
In 2008, the Obama campaign cast Biden as a foreign policy guru,
though he had been wrong on almost every foreign policy issue in his career. On
Thursday, he mostly ignored his own record.
Astonishingly, Biden claimed credit
for Trump’s success in crushing the so-called “Islamic State,” saying he worked
with Obama “to craft the military and diplomatic campaign that ultimately
defeated ISIS.” In fact, Biden was complicit in the rise of ISIS. He was
Obama’s point man on Iraq when the U.S. suddenly pulled out of the country,
leaving a vacuum that ISIS filled. He did not object when Obama called the
terror group “junior varsity.”
Biden offered nothing new in terms
of solutions to current foreign policy challenges. He claimed that the Iran
nuclear deal had been a success — on the very day Iran was reportedto have been
cheating all along. He said the U.S. should re-enter the deal once Iran did,
offering no idea how to ensure that it did so. On North Korea, Biden promised
he would “empower our negotiators,” whatever that means.
He said that he would get “tough”
with China, which Trump is already doing (and which Biden previously suggested he
would not do). And
on immigration, he ridiculed the very idea
of borders — literally: “I respect no borders.”
And this is the best Democrats have on foreign
policy.
Joel B. Pollak
is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social
Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard. He is a
winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the
co-author of How
Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from
Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
House Votes to
'Enhance the Border Security' of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia--Not the
USA
The Democrat-controlled House of
Representatives has voted to fund
efforts to
"enhance the border security" of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia
while moving to deny all funding to build walls, fencing or any other
structures to enhance the border security of the United States.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and her lieutenants have their priorities.
To them, borders on the
other side of the world are more important than our own.
On June 19, the House approved a massive
spending bill. In an act of legislative polygamy, it "married" the appropriations
bill for the Department of Defense to the appropriations bills for the
Department of State, the Department of Energy, and the Departments of
Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.
The Congressional Budget
Office estimated this monstrosity would cost taxpayers $984.7 billion
in fiscal 2020.
Yet there is one thing
this bill would forbid the Trump administration from spending one penny to
accomplish.
On page 304 (of 650), it says: "None
of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act or any prior
Department of Defense appropriations Acts may be used to construct a wall,
fence, border barriers, or border security infrastructure along the southern
land border of the United States."
A month later, the
House Appropriations Committee sent the full House a bill to fund the
Department of Homeland Security.
President Trump had
requested that it include $5 billion to use in constructing barriers at the
border.
How much did the
committee give him?
"No funding is
provided in the bill for new physical barriers along the southwest
border," said the committee
report.
It also said, "The
recommendation provides no funding for additional Border Patrol Agents."
Thus, the
Democrat-controlled House is advancing discretionary appropriations bills that
would spend more than $1 trillion in one year but provide zero dollars to build
physical barriers to stop illegal aliens, human traffickers and drug smugglers
from crossing our southern border.
Yet that does not mean
the Democrat-controlled House is not planning to spend some money to enhance
border security.
It just depends where
the border is.
In that 650-page
spending bill that prohibits Defense Department money from being used to defend
the southern border of the United States, there is a section that creates a
$1.295 billion fund for use by the secretary of defense.
"For the
'Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Train and Equip Fund', $1,295,000,000,
to remain available until September 30, 2021," says the bill.
"Provided, That such funds shall be available to the secretary of defense
in coordination with the Secretary of State, to provide assistance, including
training; equipment; logistics support, supplies, and services; stipends;
infrastructure repair and renovation; and sustainment, to foreign security
forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals participating, or preparing to
participate in activities to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and
their affiliated or associated groups."
"Provided
further," says the bill, "That these funds may be used in such
amounts as the Secretary of Defense may determine to enhance the border
security of nations adjacent to conflict areas including Jordan, Lebanon,
Egypt, and Tunisia resulting from actions of the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria."
So, the secretary of
defense could take a chunk of this $1.295 billion and give it to the government
of Egypt to secure its border with post-Gadhafi Libya, where ISIS is
active.
And he could give a
chunk to Tunisia to secure its border with Libya.
Or he could give some
American tax dollars to unnamed "irregular forces, groups, or
individuals" who, someplace in this world, are "preparing to
participate in activities" to counter ISIS, or at least groups that are
"affiliated or associated" with ISIS.
But according to the
House appropriations bills, President Trump cannot spend a penny to build
structures at our own border to secure our own territory and our own people.
By contrast, the
Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a Homeland
Security spending bill that does include $5 billion to build "pedestrian
fencing" — to stop people on foot and in vehicles from crossing our southern
border. Also, that committee's defense spending bill does not prohibit the
president from using defense money to build barriers to defend our own border.
It even includes a
larger fund ($1.8 billion) than the House bill that, among other things, can be
used "for enhanced border security" not only in Jordan, Lebanon,
Egypt and Tunisia but also in Oman.
We are now more than a
month into fiscal 2020. The government is running on a continuing resolution
that expires Nov. 21.
President Trump should
deliver a simple message to Speaker Pelosi: He is not going to sign a spending
bill that funds border security in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia but not
California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
He should put America
first — even if Pelosi will shut down the government trying to stop him.
(Terence
P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSNews.com.)
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.
The buildup has been prompted by Iranian harassment of shipping
in the Persian Gulf, the shootdown
of U.S. surveillance drone over the Persian Gulf in June, and a drone and
missile attack on Saudi oil refineries in September that was almost certainly
of Iranian origin but which Yemeni rebels took credit for.
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.
US Attorney General Barr invokes “state secrets” to cover up Saudi
involvement in 9/11
Last week, it was
revealed that the Trump administration has taken extraordinary steps to
continue the 18-year cover-up of Saudi government involvement in the September
11, 2001 terror attacks.
On Thursday, September
12, one day after the 18th anniversary of the attacks on New York and
Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people, a federal court filing revealed
that Attorney General William Barr has asserted the "state secrets"
privilege to block the release of an FBI report detailing extensive relations
between some of the 19 hijackers and Saudi government officials. Victims of the
attacks and their families are pushing for access to the 2007 report as part of
a lawsuit against the Saudi government launched in 2003 charging the despotic
monarchy with coordinating the mass killings.
Barr declared there was
a “reasonable danger” that releasing the report would “risk significant harm to
national security.”
The court filing also
revealed that the FBI has agreed to turn over to the families’ lawyers the name
of a Saudi individual that is redacted in a four-page summary of the FBI report
released in 2012. The summary lays out evidence concerning three Saudis who
provided money and otherwise assisted two of the hijackers in California in
finding housing, obtaining driver’s licenses and other matters.
Government
investigations have established that the two people who are named in the FBI
summary, Fahad al-Thumairy, a former Saudi consulate official, and Omar
al-Bayoumi, suspected by the FBI of being a Saudi intelligence officer, were
working in coordination with the Saudi regime. The third person, whose name is
redacted, is described in the FBI summary as having assigned the other two to
assist the hijackers.
Lawyers for the
families last year subpoenaed the FBI for an unredacted copy of the summary
based on the contention that the third person was a senior Saudi official. But
as part of the court filing, citing the “exceptional nature of the case,” the
FBI issued a protective seal to prevent the name of the third Saudi from
becoming public. The agency also refused to provide any of the other
information requested by the families.
An FBI official said
the agency was shielding the name to protect classified information related to
“ongoing investigations” and to protect its “sources and methods.”
In fact, the
extraordinary measures taken to conceal the role of the Saudi regime in the
9/11 attacks are driven by the need of US imperialism to maintain its
reactionary alliance with the Saudi sheiks and continue the false cover story
on 9/11 that has served as an ideological pillar for aggression in the Middle
East and the buildup of a police-state infrastructure within the US, carried
out in the name of fighting a “war on terror.”
The Saudi monarchy has
been a key ally of the United States in the Middle East for 70 years, and since
9/11 it has become, alongside Israel, Washington’s most important partner in
the region. It has played a central role in the bloody wars for regime change
in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, which have killed more than a
million people and destroyed entire societies. It is also the world’s biggest
purchaser of US arms.
Its intelligence
agencies have long worked in the closest collaboration with the CIA and the
FBI. The exposure of Saudi complicity in 9/11 immediately implicates sections
of the US intelligence establishment in facilitating, it not actively aiding,
the terror attacks, and sheds light on the multiple unanswered questions about
how 19 men, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals, could carry out such a complex
operation.
The 9/11 attacks were
eagerly seized upon by the George W. Bush administration, with the support of
the Democratic Party and media allies such as the New York Times,
to implement longstanding plans to wage aggressive war in the Middle East.
The cover-up of Saudi
involvement has been carried out over three administrations, Democratic and
Republican alike. It began within hours of the attacks themselves. Eight days
after the attacks, at least 13 relatives of Osama bin Laden, accompanied by
bodyguards and associates, were allowed to secretly leave the US on a chartered
flight. One of the passengers, a nephew of the supposed number one on
Washington’s “most wanted” list, had been linked by the FBI to a suspected
terrorist organization.
The US association with
bin Laden went back decades. Under the CIA’s Operation Cyclone, conducted
between 1979 and 1989, the US and Saudi Arabia provided $40 billion worth of
financial aid and weapons to the mujahedeen “freedom fighters” waging war
against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, an operation in which then-US ally bin
Laden played a key role. The proxy war in Afghanistan was pivotal in the later
creation of Al Qaeda.
In July of 2016, the US
government released to the public a 28-page section, suppressed for 14 years,
of a joint congressional inquiry into 9/11. The 28-page chapter dealt with the
role of the Saudi government and contained abundant and damning evidence of
extensive Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers in the period leading up to the
attacks.
Among its revelations
were:
▪ Two of the Saudi
hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, lived for a time in Los
Angeles and San Diego in 2000, where they obtained pilot training. They were
given money and lodgings by Omar al-Bayoumi, who worked closely with an emir at
the Saudi Defense Ministry. Both were under CIA surveillance while attending an
Al Qaeda planning meeting in 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and placed on a
“watch list” for FBI monitoring if they came to the United States. Nonetheless
they were allowed to enter the US on January 15, 2000.
▪ Al-Bayoumi “received
support from a Saudi company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense,”
drawing a paycheck for a no-show job. The company also had ties to Osama bin
Laden. His allowances jumped almost tenfold after the arrival of al-Hazmi and
al-Mihdhar. Al-Bayoumi had found an apartment for the two, which they shared
with an informant for the San Diego FBI, advancing them a deposit on the first
month’s rent.
▪ Al-Bayoumi’s wife
received a $1,200 a month stipend from the wife of Prince Bandar, then the
Saudi ambassador to the US and later head of Saudi intelligence. The wife of
his associate, Osama Bassnan, identified by the FBI as a supporter of bin
Laden, received $2,000 a month from Bandar’s wife.
▪ Three of the
hijackers stayed at the same Virginia hotel as Saleh al-Hussayen, a Saudi
Interior Ministry official, the night before the attacks.
Despite such evidence,
and much more, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission appointed by George W. Bush
concluded that there was no conclusive evidence that “senior” Saudi officials
played a role in the 9/11 attacks. When the 28-page section of the
congressional report was released in 2016, Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan,
denounced all suggestions of Saudi involvement as baseless.
However, former
Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, said, “There
was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the
hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government.”
Former Democratic
Senator Robert Graham, cochair of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the 9/11
attacks, said that there was “a pervasive pattern of covering up the role of
Saudi Arabia in 9/11 by all of the agencies of the federal government, which
have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11.”
In the lawsuit filed by
the families of the victims, he filed an affidavit that stated, “I am convinced
that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who
carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia.”
It is significant, but
not surprising, that the corporate media has given only the most perfunctory
and muted coverage to the moves by the Trump administration to once again
suppress the role of the Saudi regime in 9/11, and the Democrats have been
completely silent.
One should compare this
response to damning evidence of Saudi culpability and US cover-up in relation
to an event that took nearly 3,000 lives to the hysteria of the anti-Russia
witch hunt led by the Democratic Party, the New York Times and
the bulk of the media, based on completely unsubstantiated charges.
One topic that Hillary is quick to criticize
President Trump on is his relationship with Saudia Arabia. It’s ironic given
the Clinton Foundation’s refusal to state that they will no longer accept financial donations from The Kingdom
as others have.
But the Clinton Foundation, to which
donations declined dramatically after Clinton’s 2016 defeat, has taken
multi-million dollar contributions from Saudi Arabia in the past and isn’t
ruling out continuing to accept them.
The Clinton Foundation accepted between $10 and $25 million from the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with donations coming as late as 2014. A now-defunct
group named “Friends of Saudi Arabia,” which was reportedly co-founded by a
Saudi Prince and often worked as a PR front for the kingdom, also donated
between $1 and $5 million.
2008:
Hillary Clinton Warned ‘If I Am the President, We Will Attack Iran’ to Defend
Israel
8 Jan 2020732
2:21
Failed presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton warned in 2008 that she was prepared to “obliterate” Iran if it
produced a nuclear weapon and promised to retaliate if the country launched a
nuclear attack on Israel.
Clips of Clinton’s rhetoric
resurfaced after social media users protested President Donald Trump’s decision
to kill Iranian Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani which resulted in
retaliatory airstrikes from Iran on Tuesday night.
The hashtag #IvotedforHillaryClinton
trended on Twitter on Wednesday morning, a trend that Clinton participated in
with a taunting gif.
But Clinton may have forgotten her
own hawkish rhetoric during the 2008 primary.
Ahead of the Pennsylvania Democratic
primary that April, Hillary Clinton was asked by Good Morning America what she would do if Israel was
attacked by Iran.
“If Iran were to launch a nuclear attack
on Israel, what would our response be?” Clinton said in an interview with
then-host Chris Cuomo. “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president,
we will attack Iran. That’s what we will do. There is no safe haven.”
She also warned that if Iran
developed a nuclear weapon, the United States had the power to “totally
obliterate” the country.
“Whatever stage of development they
might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years during which
they may foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to
totally obliterate them,” she said.
She admitted that her comment was
“terrible” but said it was important to “deter” Iran from attacking Israel.
“That’s a terrible thing to say but
those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will
deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic,”
she added.
At the time, Sen. Barack Obama
criticized Clinton for sounding like a warmonger.
“It’s not the language we need right
now, and I think it’s language reflective of George Bush,” Obama said in an interview with
NBC’s Meet the Press afterwards.
After he was elected president,
Obama pursued a policy of appeasement with Iran after appointing Clinton as
Secretary of State. But Clinton left the administration prior to Obama’s
nuclear deal with Iran, leaving Secretary of State John Kerry to complete the
deal.
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