BEHIND THE SAUDIS INVASION IS THE BUSH FAMILY'S HALF-CENTURY AND TWO WAR DEALS WITH THE SAUDIS.
FOLLOW SAUDIS MONEY INTO THE BUILDING OF THE PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES OF BUSH, CLINTON AND OBAMA AND THE FUNDING OF THE FRAUDULENT CLINTON FOUNDATION FAMILY SLUSH FUND.
“No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”
VIRGIL
(Pictured is Robert Peraza, who lost his son on 9/11/2001.)
Those terrorists who overstayed their visas include:
- Hani Hasan Hanjour from Saudi Arabia
- Nawaf al-Hamzi from Saudi Arabia
- Mohamed Atta from Egypt
- Satam al-Suqami from Saudi Arabia
- Waleed al-Shehri from Saudi Arabia
- Marwan al-Shehhi from the United Arab Emirates
- Ahmed al-Ghamdi from Saudi Arabia
Images of 9/11: A Visual Remembrance
The whole world experienced the attacks of September 11, 2001, in real time. Videos, photos, and audio captured the horror inflicted by Islamic jihadists and the heroism displayed by ordinary Americans.
Judge orders testimony from
Saudi officials in suit over
involvement in 9/11 attacks
Chief Investigative Correspondent,
The order was immediately hailed by families of the 9/11 victims as a milestone in their years-long effort to prove that some Saudi officials were either complicit in the attacks or aware of the kingdom’s support for some of the hijackers in the months before they hijacked four American airliners and crashed three of them into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.
A fourth plane, whose presumed target was the U.S. Capitol, was commandeered by passengers and crashed in Shanksville, Pa., where President Trump and possibly Joe Biden are expected at memorial ceremonies Friday .
“This is a game changer,” Brett Eagleson, whose father was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Towers and who serves as a spokesman for the families, said of the ruling by Federal Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in New York. “This is the most significant ruling we’ve had to date in this lawsuit. And to have this on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, you couldn’t script this any better. The families are elated.”
The effect of the ruling may depend on the willingness of the Saudi government to make its citizens available for testimony — especially since it includes some high-ranking figures who no longer hold official positions and therefore cannot be compelled to testify. But any open defiance of the court ruling by the Saudis, or resistance from some of the figures named, could further exacerbate a relationship that has already been strained by the 2018 Saudi assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — an act the CIA has concluded was likely ordered by the country’s de factor ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The question is especially fraught for Bandar, a member of the Saudi royal family who for years maintained a close relationship with senior U.S. government officials (earning him the nickname “Bandar Bush” because of his ties to the Bush family) and whose daughter, Princess Reema bint Bandar, serves as the current Saudi ambassador in Washington. “If he chooses to thumb his nose at a U.S. court, you better believe there will be political fallout from that,” said Eagleson.
A lawyer for the Saudis did not respond to a request for comment Thursday night, and no evidence has surfaced in the case that establishes Bandar had personal knowledge of what the Saudi hijackers were up to. But during his tenure in Washington, from 1983 to 2005, he oversaw a sprawling embassy staff including some, especially those with responsibilities for Islamic affairs, who have been identified in recently surfaced FBI documents as suspects who may have helped provide support for the hijackers in the United States.
The question of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks by Saudi officials has been a subject of intense debate for years, dividing officials within the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community. The Saudis have consistently denied any connection to the 9/11 hijackers, telling the New York Times and ProPublica in January: “Saudi Arabia is and has always been a close and critical ally of the U.S. in the fight against terrorism.”
But lawyers for the families of the 9/11 victims have been conducting a painstaking investigation that has developed a circumstantial case that two of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, received financial and other support from individuals associated with the Saudi government after they arrived in the U.S. after attending an al-Qaida planning summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
As reported by Yahoo News last May, previously undisclosed FBI documents show that a foreign ministry official within the Saudi Embassy, Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, who had duties overseeing the activities of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, had repeated contacts with two figures at the heart of the case and was even suspected of directing them to assist the hijackers. One was Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi Islamic Affairs official and radical cleric who served as the imam of the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles and met with the two hijackers there. The other was Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent who directly helped the hijackers, finding them an apartment, lending them money and setting them up with bank accounts, after they flew into Los Angeles airport on Jan. 15, 2000.
Al-Jarrah, who until last year served in the Saudi Embassy in Morocco, is among the current and former officials named in the order by Netburn, directing the Saudis to make available for testimony. Al-Thumairy and al-Bayoumi were also cited.
But significantly, the list includes other high-ranking royals who still serve in the government, including Saleh bin Abdulaziz, who served as Minister of Islamic Affairs at the time and, according to the judge’s ruling, extended al-Thuimairy’s time in the United States and promoted him.
In her discussion of Bandar, Judge Netburn noted that lawyers for the Saudi government had persuasively argued that no documents show that he directly oversaw the work of al-Jarrah and al-Thumairy in the United States. But, she added, court documents obtained during the course of discovery — much of which remain under seal — “indicates that Prince Bandar likely has firsthand knowledge … [of] the role that al-Thumairy was assigned by the Kingdom and the diplomatic cover” provided to him.
The judge also authorized the deposition of Ahmed al-Qattan, Bandar’s longtime chief of staff, noting that court documents show that he “likely has unique firsthand knowledge of al-Jarrah and al-Thumairy’s relevant pre-9/11 activity and any post-9/11 ratification of their conduct.”
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/12/bush-family-mourns-hw-bush-man-who-did.html
The perilous ramifications of the September 11 attacks on the United States are only now beginning to unfold. They will undoubtedly be felt for generations to come. This is one of many sad conclusions readers will draw from Craig Unger's exceptional book House of Bush House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties. As Unger claims in this incisive study, the seeds for the "Age of Terrorism" and September 11 were planted nearly 30 years ago in what, at the time, appeared to be savvy business transactions that subsequently translated into political currency and the union between the Saudi royal family and the extended political family of George H. W. Bush.
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.)
Saudi Arabia's crown prince responds to coronavirus by getting rid
of enemies
David A. Andelman
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is facing some
existential problems. He's losing the war in Yemen, the coronavirus has forced him
to scale back visits by millions to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and the plummeting price of oil
on the back of a supply war with Russian President
Vladimir Putin are together shaking the most fundamental underpinnings of his
leadership — not to mention threatening a global recession.
So what does he do? He takes a leaf out of President Donald
Trump's playbook by getting rid of some of his most (allegedly) troublesome
opponents. Instead of a simple purge, however, the crown prince, known
by his initials, MBS, took the far more
dramatic step of arresting his cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef; his uncle, Prince Ahmed bin
Abdelaziz, as well as one of Nayef's brothers and one of Abdelaziz's sons. The
first two have been charged with treason, which carries the death penalty. The
crown prince was already in hot water for allegedly ordering the
execution-style slaying of Washington Post
columnist Jamal Khashoggi. But with this escalation, the Saudi leader is pushing the
boundaries once again to see what exactly he can get away with.
All these issues have been brewing for some time. The crown
prince has given no quarter in five years of war in Yemen, which has turned
very much into a proxy war with
Iran —
each power supporting opposing factions for control of this strategic corner of
the Arabian peninsula.
The Saudis have long been watching anxiously as demand for oil
ratcheted down and
new energy sources, particularly from the United States, have come online. With
the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, demand for oil has plunged even further.
To hold prices in line, the Saudis called an emergency meeting
last week of the OPEC oil cartel to lower production quotas.
Russia balked at OPEC's demand, led by Saudi Arabia, to cut 1.5
million barrels a day in output and stabilize prices at $40 a barrel. Putin has
no problem with low oil prices, since Russia's cost of production is under $20 a barrel. But he would like to see
America's fracking efforts — an already costly proposition to — become
uneconomical.
Without a deal, Saudi Arabia said it would sell oil to China for a discount and
potentially raise its own output by as much as 2 million barrels a day — moves
that would result in flooding the market with oversupply. Oil prices around the
world plummeted more than 25 percent Monday to $31 a barrel. Since oil still
underpins the Saudi economy, accounting for 50
percent of its GDP and
some 70 percent of its export earnings, this is a serious gamble for the crown
prince, who has pledged to modernize and diversify his country's financial
future.
And then along came the coronavirus. Here the crown prince has
been forced to make some of the toughest decisions of his career. The one that
has already sent shock waves through the Islamic world was his decision
to suspend the
year-round umrah pilgrimage
in which as many as 20 million faithful — most from Saudi Arabia itself — take
part every year. This has also raised the question of whether the annual hajj
pilgrimage, which attracts millions Muslims more from every corner of the
globe, would be allowed at the end of July.
Throughout, criticism of the
crown prince has
quietly been mounting at home. He wants desperately to succeed his father on
the throne; King Salman is
now 84 and
said to be frail. Still, the day after the arrest of the four princes stunned
the kingdom, the king was shown in photos released by the royal
palace to be in good health, receiving foreign ambassadors and reading state
documents. Perhaps the king is anxious to remain in power to welcome world
leaders to the G-20 summit in Riyadh in November.
What has allowed the crown prince such a free hand? Certainly he
has benefited from the unalloyed support of his father, who seems to accept his
son's overt power grabs. Unanimity is vital since the next king is not chosen
until the previous one has died. The crown prince clearly wants nothing left to
chance.
But he also has innumerable enablers — world leaders and
business leaders alike — who have repeatedly failed to confront the
leader. Amazon's Jeff
Bezos was
photographed beaming next to him not long before the crown prince was revealed
to have ordered the disastrous hacking of Bezos' cellphone.
Trump is a particularly bad offender. Trump has never
fully accepted the
conclusions of his own intelligence system that the crown prince
personally ordered the savage murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi. Not surprisingly, Trump
said nothing about the arrest of the four senior royals this past weekend.
But the crown prince's manipulations — and Trump's inaction —
have a price. In the early morning hours on Tuesday, the prince and
Trump talked on the phone, according to a White House official. Hours later, the Saudi
prince flooded the oil market, hammering world stock, bond and currency
markets.
This price war, of course, has implications for Trump's own
re-election in November — especially if it threatens the American oil industry,
which employs some 9.8 million
American workers and
is projected to add as many as 1 million more U.S. fracking jobs in the next
five years.
The crown prince and Trump are currently facing a very similar
set of challenges: The coronavirus threatening Americans at home and Muslims in
Mecca and Medina; oil price and supply disruptions affecting the economies of
both nations; unresolved and increasingly expensive wars respectively in
Afghanistan and Yemen.
Perhaps now is the time to begin to break that circle of
dependency before an impending crisis becomes a real crisis.
Khashoggi's
sons forgive Saudi killers, sparing 5 execution
AYA BATRAWY
,
Associated Press•May 21, 2020
ther's killers, sparing
them death sentences
DUBAI, United Arab
Emirates (AP) — The family of slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi
announced on Friday they have forgiven his Saudi killers, giving legal reprieve
to five government agents who had been sentenced to death for an operation that
cast a cloud of suspicion over the kingdom's crown prince.
“We, the sons of
the martyr Jamal Khashoggi, announce that we forgive those who killed our
father as we seek reward from God Almighty,” wrote one of his sons, Salah
Khashoggi, on Twitter.
Salah Khashoggi,
who lives in Saudi Arabia and has received financial compensation from the royal court for his father's killing, explained
that forgiveness was extended to the killers during the last nights of the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan in line with Islamic tradition to offer pardons in
cases allowed by Islamic law.
The Saudi
court's ruling in December that the killing was not premeditated paved the way for Friday's announcement by leaving the door open
for reprieve. Additionally, the finding was in line with the government’s
official explanation of Khashoggi's slaying that he was killed accidentally in
a brawl by agents trying to forcibly return him to Saudi Arabia.
The family's
decision to pardon Khashoggi's killers comes as questions continue to linger
over who ultimately ordered the operation and whether his sons have come under
pressure. The trial was widely criticized by rights groups and an independent
U.N. investigator who noted that no senior officials nor anyone in charge of
ordering the operation was found guilty. The independence of the Riyadh
criminal court was also brought into question.
Prior to his
killing, Khashoggi had written critically of Saudi Arabia's crown prince in columns for the Washington Post. He'd been living in exile in the United States for about a year
as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman oversaw a crackdown in Saudi Arabia on
human rights activists, writers and critics of the kingdom's devastating war in
Yemen.
In October 2017, a
team of 15 Saudi agents was dispatched to Turkey to meet Khashoggi in the Saudi
Consulate in Istanbul for what he thought was an appointment to pick up
documents needed to wed his Turkish fiancee. The group included a forensic
doctor, intelligence and security officers and individuals who worked for the
crown prince’s office.
Turkish officials
allege Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw. The body has not been found. Turkey, a rival of Saudi Arabia,
apparently had the Saudi Consulate bugged and has shared audio of the killing
with the CIA, among others.
Khashoggi’s Turkish
fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said Friday that the “killers came from Saudi with
premeditation to lure, ambush & kill him.”
“Nobody has the
right to pardon the killers. We will not pardon the killers nor those who
ordered the killing,” she wrote on Twitter in response to the family's pardon.
Agnes Callamard,
the U.N. special rapporteur who investigated his killing, said the announcement
of forgiveness was anticipated.
“All of us who,
over the last 20 months, have reported on the gruesome execution of Jamal
Khashoggi, and absence of accountability for his killing, expected this,"
she said in a Facebook post and added that Saudi authorities were “playing out
what they hope will be the final act in their well-rehearsed parody of
justice.”
The grisly killing,
which took place as Khashoggi's fiancee waited for him outside the consulate, drew international
condemnation of Prince Mohammed.
The 34-year-old
prince, who has the support of his father King Salman, denies any involvement.
U.S. intelligence agencies, however, say an operation like this could not have
happened without his knowledge and the Senate has blamed the crown prince for the murder.
After initially
offering shifting accounts of what transpired, and under intense international and Turkish pressure, Saudi
prosecutors eventually settled on the explanation that Khashoggi had been
killed by Saudi agents in an operation masterminded by two of the crown
prince’s top aides at the time. Neither was found guilty in trial, however.
In addition to the
five who had been sentenced to execution, the Saudi trial concluded last year
that three other people were found guilty of covering up the crime and were sentenced
to a combined 24 years in prison. In all, 11 people were put on trial in Saudi
Arabia for the killing.
Saudi media outlet
Arab News sought to clarify Friday that the announcement made by Khashoggi’s
sons may spare the convicted killers from execution, but does not mean they
will go unpunished.
In an interview in
September with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Prince Mohammed said he takes "full
responsibility as a leader in Saudi Arabia.” But he insisted that he had no
knowledge of the operation, saying he cannot keep close track of the country’s
millions of employees.
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