SEEMS AS THOUGH THE ENTIRE WORLD KNOWS JOE IS A FUKING SENILE IDIOT. BIDEN HARDLY CARES. HE'S A SOCIOPATH GAMER LAWYER WITH 50 YEARS EXPERIENCE GAMING RIGHT INTO HIS BOTTOMLESS POCKETS!
This is ‘corrupt’ behavior: Rep. Greg Steube
Saudi Energy Minister: Depleting Strategic Oil Reserve to ‘Manipulate Markets’ Could Be ‘Painful’
Saudi Arabia Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman issued a warning, seemingly directly at far-left American President Joe Biden, that countries emptying their strategic oil reserves in an attempt to lower fuel prices could face “painful” consequences for their choice.
The remark follows a month of heightened tensions between the Saudi monarchy and the Biden administration that began with the oil cartel OPEC+ announcing a dramatic two-million-barrel-per-day reduction in its oil production, which would significantly raise oil fuel prices around the world. Biden officials accused the cartel, which includes Russia but is largely guided by the Saudis, of trying to help Russia’s eight-year-old invasion of Ukraine, an allegation Riyadh balked at. Rising oil prices, the argument goes, would make Russian oil worth more and thus funnel more money to Moscow. High oil prices clearly also benefit Saudi Arabia, an oil-dependent economy – a reality the Biden administration has not addressed in its condemnations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to side with the Saudi government, publishing a statement shortly after Washington raised its accusations announcing he had spoken to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and expressing gratitude for the country’s support.
Zelensky’s vote of confidence appears to have done little for the Biden administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged that Saudi Arabia had both sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and negotiated the release of hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war from Russia but said these facts “do not compensate for the decision that was made by OPEC+ on production.”
What has followed has been a barrage of anonymous rumors to major American newspapers, most prominently the Wall Street Journal, claiming that bin Salman has personal distaste for Biden, mocks his “mental acuity” in conversation with his officials, and “duped” the White House by promising to increase oil production shortly before the OPEC+ announcement.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the energy minister, appeared to disapprove of Biden’s policy of depleting the American Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to a 40-year low this year to keep prices down before the midterm elections, which most predictions expect to yield disastrous results for the Democrats. The SPR was created to keep an emergency supply of oil at the ready in the event of war or other calamity; Biden has chosen to empty it instead of allowing American companies to drill for more of the nation’s plentiful natural resources.
The prince made his comments on Tuesday during the Future Investment Initiative (FII), a Saudi investment conference.
“People are depleting their emergency stocks, had depleted it, used it as a mechanism to manipulate markets while its profound purpose was to mitigate shortage of supply,” the energy minister observed, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP). “However, it is my profound duty to make it clear to the world that losing emergency stock may become painful in the months to come.”
Reports on the conference did not note that he elaborated on the remark and did not appear to mention any nation in particular. The report on his comments in the Saudi news network al-Arabiya also did not add anything expounding on what he meant by “painful.”
Abdulaziz bin Salman continued to express what appeared to be frustration with the Biden administration’s accusations that Riyadh had chosen Moscow over Washington, though again reportedly not pointing out the United States by name.
“We keep hearing you ‘are with us or against us,’ is there any room for ‘we are with the people of Saudi Arabia’?” he asked.
When specifically questioned about growing tensions with Biden, the energy minister reportedly said that his government had chosen to be the “maturer guys” in the dispute “and let the dice fall.” He went on to tout Saudi Arabia as the world’s most reliable oil supplier and suggested that his country would play a role in ensuring European oil supplies for the coming winter, which have been heavily jeopardized by Western European countries choosing to rely almost entirely on Russia for their energy, then sanctioning Russia for invading Ukraine eight years later.
“We are communicating with many European governments regarding the current crisis, as Europe is witnessing a critical stage in supply chains.” Prince Abdulaziz reportedly said. “In the coming months, we will supply oil to all who need it from us.”
The FII, a conference intended to attract foreign investment to Saudi Arabia, has reportedly become a point of contention between Saudi Arabia and America itself. AFP reported that it received confirmation from the event that Biden administration officials did not get an invite, but, Reuters noted, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, “was featured as a front-row speaker.” During his term in office, Trump tasked Kushner with bringing peace to the Middle East.
Kushner’s presence at the conference was consistent with a Wall Street Journal report published on Monday claiming that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman repeatedly complained about Biden behind the scenes and has said he “much preferred former President Donald Trump.”
“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s 37-year-old day-to-day ruler, mocks President Biden in private, making fun of the 79-year-old’s gaffes and questioning his mental acuity,” the newspaper added, citing “people inside the Saudi government.”
The Saudi Foreign Ministry vehemently denied the report.
Biden has largely fought high gasoline prices by depleting the SPR. The reserve experienced a 40-percent drop in supply between Biden assuming the presidency in January 2021 and October of this year, resulting in the reserve reaching 1984 levels. Biden has released more barrels of oil from the SPR than all other presidents combined. Last week, Bloomberg News reported that Biden was planning to dump another 10 to 15 million barrels of oil from the reserves into the American market.
The tactic has prompted widespread outrage among Republicans, who support drilling for more oil and keeping the SPR well stocked in case of emergency.
“This is a political Band-Aid to cover up the crisis caused by Biden’s war on American energy,” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) lamented this month.
“The #SPR was built for a national energy crisis—not a Democrat election crisis,” another lawmaker, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), similarly complained.
Jean-Pierre Dodges on Whether Saudis Backed Away from Oil Deal: ‘The Trip Was Not about Oil’
On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that “parts” of the report by The New York Times that American officials believed they had a deal with Saudi Arabia on oil supplies that the Saudis backed out of were “mischaracterized,” but deflected when asked if there was a deal the Saudis backed away from by stating that “the trip was not about oil.”
Jean-Pierre stated, “So, we have been very clear about how we believe parts of that report [were] mischaracterized, and there [have] been some changes that have been made to that report. Look, we’ve also been clear that, our trip, that the President’s trip to the Middle East was not about oil. What the President is focused on currently and today and has been for the past several months since the war started — remember, because of Russia’s war, we have seen a spike in gas prices, so as you hear us say, Russia’s tax hike, and so, we have done everything that we can and continue to do the work — the President has — to lower the prices for the American people. That’s why you have seen gas prices go down.”
Host Wolf Blitzer then asked, “But was there an understanding, Karine, with the Saudis that the Saudis then backed away from?”
Jean-Pierre responded, “Again, the trip was not about oil. That is not what we went to do there. What we wanted to do is make sure that that region is so critical, and you saw the Israeli president was visiting President Biden today and it was about their integration back into the Middle East, and so, we wanted to play a role in that. And let’s not forget what we saw. I remember being on Air Force One, leaving Israel, going to Saudi Arabia. One thing that we did was fly from Israel to Saudi Arabia, which has never been done before. Those are — opening those civilian airways — airlines was incredibly important. So, those are the things that we’re focused on. Let’s not forget the Yemen truce, which is another reason that we thought the trip was incredibly important. And also the Lebanon and Israel maritime agreement that’s about to be signed. And so, there are so many strategic, key elements of the trip that the President did that we saw come out of it that [were] so incredibly important.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
Saudi Slavery
An Islamically-sanctioned barbarity continues.
November 8, 2019
Hugh Fitzgerald
As is well known, slavery was formally abolished in Saudi Arabia as late as 1962, and then only after terrific pressure had been applied to the Saudis by Western governments. And today, when we speak of slavery in the Muslim world, we think of Mauritania (with 600,000 slaves), as the report in the past hour discussed, Niger (600,000 slaves), Mali (200,000 slaves), and Libya (where slave markets have opened in nine sites during the last two years). Most of us assume that in Saudi Arabia, slavery is no longer tolerated.
But most of us are wrong.
Slavery may have been formally abolished, but the cruel and savage treatment of foreign domestic workers, their inability to free themselves from arduous work conditions because their employers keep their passports and other documents, amount to slavery in all but name.
A report on one group of domestic slaves — Vietnamese women — by reporter Yen Duong, who interviewed former workers who had made it back to Vietnam, was published last year in Al Jazeera here:
Overworked, abused, hungry: Vietnamese domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.
Women say they are forced to work at least 18 hours a day, denied food, assaulted and refused the right to return home.
Pham Thi Dao, 46, says she worked more than 18 hours a day and was given the same one meal to live on – a slice of lamb and plain rice.
Dao, 46, was a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for more than seven months until she returned to Vietnam in April.
“I worked from 5am until 1am in the morning, and was allowed to eat once at 1pm,” Dao told Al Jazeera of her experience in the port city of Yanbu. “It was the same every day – a slice of lamb and a plate of plain rice. After nearly two months, I was like a mad person.”
According to statistics from Vietnam’s labor ministry, there are currently 20,000 Vietnamese workers in the kingdom, with nearly 7,000 working as domestic staff for Saudi families…
The same harsh conditions which Vietnamese have endured have also been reported by the Filipino, Indonesian, and Sri Lankan workers, in Saudi Arabia. And they have also been endured by domestic workers in the the Emirates and Kuwait. In addition to the harsh working conditions, there is the persistent threat of sexual assault by their Arab masters. Some domestic workers have been raped and murdered by their Arab employers. Yet it has been almost impossible to bring employers to justice for such crimes.
Some who escaped have recounted slave-like working and living conditions.
“I understand that as [domestic] workers we need to get used to difficult working conditions,” said Dao, who is vocal on social media about her experience. “We didn’t ask for much, just no starvation, no beatings, and three meals per day. If we had that, we would not have begged for rescue.”…
“As soon as I arrived at the airport in Riyadh, they (employees from a Saudi company providing domestic workers) pushed me into a room with more than a hundred of others,” she said. “When my employer picked me up later, he took my passport and employment contract. Most women I’ve talked to here experience the same thing.”
By seizing the workers’ passports, the Saudi employers have complete control over them. They cannot leave the country, nor move about inside Saudi Arabia, nor go to work for another employer. And if they don’t have their employment contract, which has been seized by their employer, they have no way of knowing if the onerous conditions they endure violate the contract’s provisions. They are captives of their employer in every sense.
Like Dao, she said she was given one meal a day and worked 18-hour shifts.
Another domestic worker, who requested anonymity, showed Al Jazeera her contract stipulating a nine-hour working day – a standard given the contracts are composed by Vietnam’s labour ministry.
Dao shows notes from the Arabic lesson she took before her trip. Vietnamese domestic workers are entitled to classes on language, skills and culture but the sessions are poorly executed, say the workers.
When Linh asked to be moved to another family – a workers’ right according to their contracts – staff at the Vietnamese broker company shouted at her and tried to intimidate her.
She went on a hunger strike for three days until her employer agreed to take her back to the Saudi company…
Leaving an employment contract carries a hefty fine, plus the price of a ticket back to Vietnam, if the worker is unable to prove abuse at the hands of their employers.
The cost of quitting is usually between $2,500 and $3,500.
If workers get, at best, $388 per month, that means that if they manage to persuade their employer to give them back their passports and to let them leave, they will still have to come up with between seven and nine months of salary that must be paid back. And that assumes that they will be paid the highest amount ($388/month) and will have all other expenses, during that period of seven-to-nine months, paid by their employer.
Tuyet told her partner in Vietnam by phone that she is being abused by the family she works for in Riyadh.
Bui Van Sang’s partner, Tuyet, works in Riyadh.
He said she is being beaten and starved.
The Vietnamese broker company asked him for $2,155 for her return, but refused to put anything in writing, he claimed.
Her phone has been taken away and Sang is only able to contact her every two to three weeks, “when her employer feels like [allowing her]”.
These domestic workers are totally at the mercy of their Arab employers. They cannot even contact anyone in the outside world unless the employer “feels like [allowing her].” They are, essentially, prisoners whose brutal living and working conditions are set by the employer, who answers to no one. That constitutes slavery, whether or not it is called by that name.
By the time he had raised the $2,155, the Vietnamese broker company demanded double the payment, he said.
He travelled 1,500km from his southern Vietnamese home province of Tay Ninh to the capital, Hanoi, to beg the broker, but was turned away….
The Vietnamese brokers are akin to slave traders. They round up the “slaves” (domestic workers), hold out the promise of decent work and pay which, once those they traffic in arrive in Saudi Arabia, is simply ignored. The slaves have been delivered, the brokers paid by the Saudi employers, and the living conditions, of 18-hour days, with one meal a day, are now the norm. For beatings and sexual assaults, there is no recourse for these Vietnamese domestics. Meanwhile, Saudi employers hold onto those passports without which these workers cannot leave the country.
There are no independent organisations in either Saudi Arabia or Vietnam which ensure the safety of domestic workers.
In the past few years, reports of abuse have prompted Saudi authorities to suggest amendments to existing labor regulations, but rights groups say they fall short.
Whatever regulations are talked about, Saudi employers still do pretty much what they want in setting the conditions of work for domestic helpers.
Workers and their relatives have to rely entirely on the Vietnamese broker companies for support.
Linh, the domestic helper in Riyadh, said when she contacted the Vietnamese company that brought her there, they told her the employment contract is only valid in Vietnam, not in Saudi Arabia.
In other words, the Vietnamese brokers, having been paid by the Saudi employers, have washed their hands of the Vietnamese workers sent to Saudi Arabia. The employment contracts on which these domestic workers were relying are, they now admit, worthless in Saudi Arabia. These women have no guarantee of any rights; whatever their Saudi employer wishes to impose is what they must accept. Hence the 18-hour days, seven days a week, and the single meal each day. How is this not akin to slavery?
“They [the Vietnamese companies] are supposed to protect our rights, but all they do is yell at us,” Linh said by phone. “Now I just want to leave the country. If I go to the police, at least they’d bring me to the detention centre, and I’d be deported and allowed to leave.”
She recently livestreamed a video detailing the treatment that she and many fellow Vietnamese domestic helpers face while working in Saudi Arabia.
The video has been viewed 113,000 times.
“Many women I know here just want the same thing – they just want to leave,” she said. “But they are afraid, threatened, and don’t even dare to speak out.”
Their fear is palpable. If they complain of their working conditions, will they be beaten by their employers? Will they be given even more unpleasant or difficult tasks? Will the 18-hour day become a 20-hour day, as one Vietnamese man reported his wife had had to endure, that is with only four hours of sleep allowed? Will even the one slice of meat they are now given be reduced still further, or will they perhaps not be given meat at all? Will they no longer be allowed to call home even twice a month? Not all Saudi employers are simon-legrees, but a great many appear to be. The point is that domestic workers ought to have rights enshrined in the Saudi law, but they do not. And the conditions which they endure are scarcely distinguishable from slavery.
The Saudis are not alone in such mistreatment of their domestic workers. The Kuwaitis and the Emiratis have been difficult masters, too, but the conditions of domestic workers appear to be especially harsh in Saudi Arabia. The mentality that lies behind this mistreatment rests on two things. First, there is the deep belief that slavery is legitimate, given that Muhammad himself owned slaves, and does not become illegitimate in Islamic societies just because Western pressure has led to its formal prohibition. The slave-owner mentality remains. Second, these domestic workers — Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Indonesian, Sri Lankan — are almost all non-Muslims, and the treatment they receive is commensurate with their description in the Qur’an, as being “the most vile of creatures.” It would be interesting to compare the working conditions of the non-Muslim domestic workers in Saudi Arabia with those who, from Indonesia, are themselves Muslim. But that’s a subject for another occasion.
Tulsi Gabbard: U.S. Government ‘Is Hiding the Truth’ on 9/11 Terror Attacks
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.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
Obama-Clinton Fundraiser Imaad Zuberi Cops a Plea
Clinton foundation contributor was conduit for Saudi sugardaddy Mohammed Al Rahbani.
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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