Trump scrambles to cover for Saudi regime as crisis over Khashoggi murder mounts
Queensistan: A Big Islamic Terror Problem in Trump’s Old Neighborhood
Queensistan: A Big Islamic Terror Problem in Trump’s Old Neighborhood
A terrorist plotted mass murder a mile from President Trump’s childhood home.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Awais Chudhary, a Pakistani immigrant, lived with his parents in their $920,000 house whose street number ends in 911, a block away from the Grand Central Parkway, where he hoped to drop bucket bombs on passing cars, and blocks away from the Dunkin Donuts where he plotted a stabbing spree.
On the other side of LaGuardia International Airport sits the New York City headquarters of CAIR.
If the 19-year-old Islamic terrorist had kept going after, in his own words, planning to use “a knife to spill the impure blood of a kafir” or non-Muslim, he could have easily ended up in the offices of the Islamic group most associated with defending and justifying Islamic terrorist violence worldwide.
Once upon a time, Queens was the home of working-class New Yorkers. These days it’s the home of a growing number of Islamic terrorists. The Pakistani terrorist’s mother showed up to support him in court wearing a full black burka. Cameras caught other members of the clan covering their faces with hijabs.
Burkas and hijabs are a common sight in Queens. As are mosques and FBI raids on terror homes.
The terrorist's family had a choice between the Al Madni mosque, the Nuriddin mosque, the Al-Falah mosque, the Khazara mosque, the Islamic Center of Jackson Heights, the Dar-ul Furqan mosque and many others not far from LaGuardia. And the terrorists have an even wider choice of kafir targets.
Earlier this year, Ashiqul Alam, a 22-year-old Bangladeshi Muslim immigrant, was arrested in a Queens apartment for plotting a bombing of Times Square. Alam had been interested in getting a suicide bomber vest and seeing the "flag of Islam” flying from “the Empire State Building."
Alam's social media revealed that he was a supporter of the campus hate group, Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as the Bangladesh Muslim League, and Jaamat e-Islami Pakistan. The Alam family’s apartment was a few miles away from where the Chudhary clan lived. The closest mosque, Dar-ul Furqan, was only a few blocks away in this predominantly Muslim enclave.
But terror plots just seem to spring up in Queensistan.
In August, Asia Siddiqui and Noelle Velentzas, Queens roommates, pled guilty to a pressure cooker bombing plot. Velentzas had gushed that paradise lies through the "flesh of the kufar” or non-Muslims, and had cited the attack by Zale H. Thompson, a Muslim convert, on two police officers in Queens.
Imam Charles Aziz Bilal of the Masjid Al-Hamdulillah in Queens denied the charges against the terrorists.
Siddiqi had been inspired by Samir Khan, a Pakistani immigrant formerly in Queens, who headed Al Qaeda's Inspire magazine. It was Khan who had authored the famous "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" article that was used by the Boston bombers for their pressure cooker bomb, and by the San Bernardino shooters, and the Chelsea jihadist, Ahmad Rahimi, who set off bombs across New York.
Earlier this year, Najibullah Zazi finally pled guilty to a plot to bomb the New York City subway system. The Afghani Zazi family had moved to Pakistan and then to Queens. Zazi was recruited by Al Qaeda in Pakistan and along with two Muslim high school friends from Queens began plotting mass murder.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder had described the 2009 plot “one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11, 2001.” Nevertheless, a decade later, Zazi was finally sentenced to time served. He will rejoin his father, Mohammed Zazi, who apparently doesn’t speak English, but admitted to covering up for his son and was sentenced to over four years in prison.
Amanullah Zazi, Najibullah’s cousin, whom Mohammed falsely claimed was his son, in an immigration fraud plot, and the terrorist’s uncle, Naqib Jaji, pled guilty to obstruction of justice.
Imam Ahmad Afzali, a Queens imam, had also tipped off the terrorist on September 11. Afzali has since been deported to Saudi Arabia. Masjid-al-Saaliheen and Masjid Hazrat I Abubakr, where Afazli preached, remain behind in Queens. The hulking Hazrat mosque overshadows the churches that surround it.
Zazi’s two Queens classmates, Adis Medunjanin, a Bosnian Muslim immigrant, and Zarein Ahmedzay, an Afghan Muslim immigrant, had both attended Queens College, and had participated in the Queens College Muslim Students Association. The MSA has been a gateway to terrorism for Al Qaeda figures.
But the NYPD’s monitoring of the Queens College MSA was attacked by the pro-terror media.
Admedzay had prayed at the Abubark mosque and studied Islam with Imam Afzali.
Unlike the other Queens plotters, Medunjanin did carry out a terrorist attack when he tried to ram another car, while shouting, “We love death more than you love your life.” No one was actually hurt.
Quazi Mohammad Nafis, a Bangladeshi Muslim immigrant living in Queens, had wanted to detonate a truck bomb at the Federal Reserve building. "We will not stop until we attain victory or Martyrdom,” he had declared. The Queens apartment where the Islamic terrorist lived and plotted the mass murder of Americans was a few blocks away from the headquarters of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA).
The Islamic enclave in Queens is home to more than 10,000 Bangladeshi Muslim settlers.
Nafis was just one of them.
Queens was also the home base of Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Khan, another Bangladeshi immigrant, the former Secretary General of ICNA, and the head of the North American Imams Federation. Khan was sentenced to death in absentia in Bangladesh for torturing and murdering secular political opponents.
Khan’s killing squad was an offshoot of Jamaat-e-Islami, the same Islamist group which, Ashiqul Alam, the Bangladeshi Islamic terror plotter arrested this year in a Times Square plot, appeared to support.
The United States has failed to turn over the former ICNA leader to Bangladesh to face justice.
In previous generations, Queens had produced Donald Trump and David Horowitz. These days it’s the haunt of Islamic terrorists who plot the mass murder of kafir infidels in basements, apartments and hotel rooms. What was once an enclave of the middle class is becoming enemy territory.
Grand Central Parkway, where Awais Chudhary, the latest Islamic terrorist operating out of Queens, planned to drop bombs on passing cars, passes a few blocks from President Trump’s childhood home. There are 5 Islamic centers within a little over a mile of where Trump had grown up. Including ICNA.
Hijabs and burkas can easily be spotted on the border of the neighborhood where he used to live. Muslim preachers hand out Korans to passerby and the shadow of terror hangs over Queensistan.
Nafis plotted to kill hundreds of Americans one mile away from President Trump’s former home.
The decline of the borough that once gave rise to Trump and Horowitz into a terrorist enclave is the outcome of the immigration policies that have killed thousands of Americans. And the terror goes on.
That’s why President Trump understands that we won’t stop the terror until we stop the migration.'
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.”
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
Trump exploits drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities to threaten war against Iran
Drone strikes on key oil facilities in Saudi Arabia on Saturday by Yemen’s Houthi rebels have triggered concerns about a potential major disruption in global oil supplies and a spike in oil prices. The attack, in retaliation for the brutal Saudi-led and US-backed war on Yemen, has sharply raised regional tensions and heightened the danger of a US war on Iran, which Washington accuses of backing the Houthis.
Houthi spokesman Brigadier-General Yahya Sare’e told the media that its forces had “carried out a massive offensive operation of 10 drones targeting Abqaiq and Khurais refineries.” Hijra Khurais is Saudi Arabia’s second largest oil field producing about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, and Abqaiq is the world’s largest crude stabilisation facility, processing some 7 million barrels of oil for export.
While Saudi authorities insisted that fires at the two sites were under control, Saudi’s state-owned Aramco oil company suspended production at the facilities, cutting output by about half. The price for Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, shot up by almost $12 a barrel to $71.95 a barrel before easing to $68 a barrel, up by more than 12 percent.
The Trump administration immediately blamed Iran for the drone strikes. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that “Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia… Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”
Pompeo provided not a shred of evidence for any of his allegations, simply asserting that the Houthi rebels did not have the ability to carry out such a sophisticated attack. To date, Saudi authorities have provided few details of the strikes and have not attributed blame to regional rival Iran. Pompeo’s provocative remarks undermine the possibility of talks between the US and Iran.
Tehran has denied any involvement in Saturday’s drone strikes. Foreign ministry spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi dismissed Pompeo’s “blind accusations and inappropriate comments,” saying: “Even hostility needs a certain degree of credibility and reasonable frameworks. US officials have also violated these basic principles.”
After speaking to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, President Trump issued a White House statement declaring that the US “strongly condemns today’s attack on critical energy infrastructure,” adding that strikes on “infrastructure vital to the global economy only deepen conflict and distrust.” Trump offered the crown prince “his support for Saudi Arabia’s self-defence.”
In a menacing threat against Iran, Trump later tweeted: “There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the [Saudi] Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”
In remarks on the “Fox News Sunday” program, senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway all but ruled out a meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly. She said that “we’ve never committed to that meeting,” then added, “When you attack Saudi Arabia… you’re not helping your case much.” A Trump-Rouhani meeting had been mooted as a means of easing the dangerous US-Iran confrontation and paving the way for negotiations and a deal.
Right-wing Republican Senator Lindsey Graham seized on the drone attack to blame Iran for “wreaking havoc in the Middle East.” He called for military strikes on Tehran, saying: “It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries … Iran will not stop their misbehavior until the consequences become more real, like attacking their refineries, which will break the regime’s back.”
The barbaric war waged by Saudi Arabia on Yemen, with US military assistance, has been all but omitted from the media coverage of the drone strikes. Since 2015, Saudi-led air strikes on towns and cities in Houthi-held areas have killed tens of thousands of civilians, while leaving 80 percent of the population in need of food aid and several million on the brink of starvation.
Saudi war planes, armed with US and British bombs and provided with targeting information by US officers based in Saudi Arabia, have carried out repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential areas, mosques and markets. Up to the end of last year, the US also provided mid-air refueling for the Saudi-led onslaught.
Saudi Arabia has a huge military budget. Last year it ranked as the world’s third highest spender on military equipment, splurging for an estimated $67.6 billion. The ability of the Houthi rebels to penetrate Saudi defences and strike crucial oil infrastructure has heightened fears of further attacks.
Saudi Arabia, along with the US and its allies, has sought to reassure nervous markets that any fall in oil production will be temporary and will not affect supplies. Riyadh declared that it would be able to supply oil from its reserve storage, as well as bring additional production on stream. Trump signaled that if needed he could make oil available from the US strategic oil reserve.
The International Energy Agency, based in Paris, represents the top energy-consuming nations and would coordinate any release of reserves. It last carried out an emergency release in the midst of the US-led military intervention in Libya in 2011 that took out production capacity of 1.7 million barrels a day.
Several analysts have noted that repairs on the Abqaiq crude processing centre, which prepares nearly 70 percent of Saudi oil for export, could be more difficult than officially suggested. Robert McNally, a former White House energy adviser under US President George W. Bush, told the New York Times that specialised equipment would be difficult to replace. “A successful attack on Abqaiq is about the worst thing that energy security planners think about,” he said.
The weekend’s drone strikes also feed into growing concern about the international economy. The London-based Financial Times commented: “A sharp rise in oil prices also comes at a delicate time for the global economy. Fears of a slowdown are percolating and unlikely to be helped by higher energy costs.”
Those fears will only be compounded by the belligerent rhetoric from Washington threatening strikes on Iran that could rapidly escalate into a far broader conflict.
Loophole Used by 9/11
Hijackers Still Open with 6
Million Visa Overstays in
U.S.
11 Sep 2019424
2:34
There are at least six million illegal aliens who arrived in the United
States the same way seven of the 9/11 Islamic terrorist hijackers came to the
country: by overstaying a visa.
All nineteen 9/11 terrorists — who murdered nearly 3,000
Americans and injured more than 6,000 others in 2001 — arrived in the U.S.
legally, with 16 obtaining tourist visas and three others obtaining business
and tourist visas.
In total,
seven of the 19 terrorists overstayed their visas at some
point either before the 9/11 attacks or at the time of the attacks and were supposed
to be deported, but never were.
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
Eighteen
years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the loophole where legal immigrants
become illegal aliens after overstaying their visas remains fully open, with at
least 4.5 to six million foreign nationals living in the U.S. who should
have been deported after their visas expired, according to Pew Research
Center.
In total, there are roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens
living in the U.S. at any given moment, and more than 1.2 million foreign
nationals are legally admitted to the country every year — like all 19
terrorists were.
Foreign
nationals arriving on temporary visas continue to go largely untracked by the
federal government despite The
9/11 Commission Report pleading with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to
implement a nationwide biometric entry-exit system, which would identify legal
immigrants who have overstayed their visas and help in deporting them.
As of March,
there were more than 415,000 illegal aliens in the U.S. who had overstayed their visas. This
includes more than 300,000 illegal aliens who arrived in the U.S. from
countries that are not part of the Visa Waiver Program, which allows certain
nationals to come to the country for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. In
total, 20 foreign countries have visa overstay rates that exceed ten percent.
DID WE
LEARN ANYTHING FROM
9/11?
Or are we still sleeping?
September 11,
2019
Daniel Greenfield,
a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an
investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic
terrorism.
Two things happened in
2001.
Islamic terrorists
carried out their most successful attack on America with the murder of 2,977
people. And the number of immigrants obtaining permanent residency passed a
million for the first time in a decade. Before 2001, a million plus was a
streak that might linger for a few years before falling back.
These days it’s the new
normal. Aside from one blip, we’ve been riding the million plus train for over
a decade. The resistance to that trend is currently the one thing we seem to
have learned from 9/11.
After decades of being
massacred by terrorists who have come here as tourists, refugees and
immigrants, we are finally trying to close the door on travelers from Islamic
terrorist states.
And it only took 16
years.
That’s because learning
nothing from the past has been our specialty.
"A flag bearing a
crescent and star flies from a flagpole in front of the World Trade Center,
next to a Christmas tree and a menorah,” The New
York Times reported in 1997.
Four years earlier,
Muslim terrorists had bombed the World Trade Center in an unsuccessful effort
to bring down the towers. Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh at the center of
the terror plot, had urged, “We . . . have been
ordered with terrorism because we must prepare what power we can to terrorize
the enemy of Allah and your enemy. The Koran says ‘to strike terror.’”
Mohammed T. Mehdi, the
Muslim activist responsible for the flag of Islam flying at what would become
Ground Zero, had been an adviser to Rahman. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had listed
Mehdi as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the blind terror sheikh.
And nevertheless, the flag flew.
Imam Sirraj Wahhaj, an unindicted
co-conspirator in the bombing, who had testified as a character witness for
Rahman, had already become the first Muslim cleric to present an invocation
prayer to the House of Representatives. He was introduced by Rep. Nick Rahall
who had proposed the idea. The invocation included a Koranic curse
aimed at Christians and Jews.
That same year,
President George H.W. Bush had taped his own Eid message for Muslims.
In 1996, Hillary Clinton
inaugurated the first Eid event at the White House. Capitol Hill politicos held
their own Iftar event that year. Regular Islamic prayers began to be held on
Capitol Hill in 1998. The State Department hosted its first Iftar event in
1999. So did the Pentagon. All of this is still going on.
Not only haven’t things
gotten better since then, they’ve gotten much worse.
The height of our
counterterrorism efforts took place after September 11 with Operation Green
Quest. That was our last serious effort at cracking the infrastructure of
Islamist terrorism in this country. These days counterterrorism mainly consists
of informants and undercover operatives catching lone ISIS supporters before
they carry out an attack. Going beyond that was unacceptable even before Obama.
Under Obama, the Muslim
Brotherhood was in the White House and Hezbollah had a free hand.
The War on Terror also
reached its height in the creative and relentless attacks on Al Qaeda and the
Taliban after 9/11. But, before long, that campaign degenerated into
nation-building, endless legal proceedings for captured terrorists in the Bush
era, and feeding thousands of soldiers into a meat-grinder with restrictive
rules of engagement and negotiations with the Taliban in the Obama era.
By 2003, our response to
Islamic terrorism had reached its peak. It’s been downhill from there.
It took 4 years for the
lessons of the World Trade Center bombing to be so thoroughly forgotten that an
unindicted co-conspirator was able to get the flag of Islam flown at the site
of the twin skyscrapers.
It took even less time
for the lessons of 9/11 to fly away leaving behind hollow memorials.
After Qari Yasin, a top
Al Qaeda terrorist, whose terror plots had killed U.S. Air Force Maj. Rodolfo
I. Rodriguez and Navy Cryptologic Technician Third Class Petty Officer Matthew
J. O’Bryant, was taken out in an airstrike, there was no mention of the fallen
American military personnel killed by his attacks.
Instead Secretary of
Defense Jim Mattis, the point man for the tough bombing campaign against ISIS,
declared, "The death of Qari Yasin is evidence that terrorists who defame
Islam and deliberately target innocent people will not escape justice."
That was in 2017.
20 years after the flag
of Islam flew at the World Trade Center, we were no longer killing Islamic
terrorists to avenge our dead or even to defend ourselves, but to punish those
who “defame Islam.”
Meanwhile, Kris Bauman,
who had argued that, “the Obama
Administration must find creative (but legal) ways to include Hamas in a
solution” held down the position of Senior Director for Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian
and Egyptian Affairs from 2017 to 2018 until John Bolton took over the National
Security Council. These days, Bauman heads the Eisenhower Center at the Air
Force Academy.
The problem is
structural.
Our national security
infrastructure and our entire strategic apparatus is run by people who think
like Mattis and Bauman. It’s run by them under Democrat and Republican
administrations. Their views represent the consensus that terrorism can’t be
defeated, it can only be defused or appeased.
There’s been some debate
over whether we should be negotiating with the Taliban.
We’ve been officially
negotiating with the Taliban since at least 2013. That’s a long time to be
holding talks when there’s nothing to actually talk about. We will eventually
withdraw from Afghanistan. The Taliban will eventually take over Afghanistan.
What then is there to talk to the Taliban about?
And yet our foreign
policy apparatus insists that we can’t pull out until we get the Taliban to
commit to respecting Afghanistan’s constitution. Why do we care about the
Afghan constitution anyway? Did thousands of Americans really die in
Afghanistan to uphold a constitution that upholds Islamic law?
Or did we begin this war
to avenge our dead and to punish the perpetrators and their allies?
The debate over
interventionism and appeasement has left September 11 behind. The
interventionists insist that we have an obligation to spread democracy and the
appeasers claim that we’re warmongers
Neither side likes this
country very much. And neither side cares about what happened on this day.
If we are to have a
meaningful strategy, it has to begin on a fall Tuesday. It has to start in the
cockpit of one of the hijacked planes. It has to start with a prayer from a
terrorist and from one of his victims.
“In the name of Allah,
the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate,” a terrorist declares on the Flight
93 cockpit recording. That’s followed by the sounds of the terrorists
assaulting a passenger.
“Please don’t hurt me,”
he pleads. “Oh God.”
Flight 93 is a reminder
that we are a brave and courageous people. But that we have to wake up first.
And to wake up, we have
to understand what it is we’re facing. On September 11, 2001, hundreds,
thousands, tens of thousands, and eventually millions of Americans were forced
to wake up.
Some died. Most went
back to sleep. And some still remember.
9/11 was neither a
beginning nor an ending. The war we are in has gone on for over a thousand
years. It might go on for another thousand making a mockery of the appeasers
who lecture about “endless war.”
Wars go on for as long
as one side is willing to fight them. The nightmarish reality is that the other
side is willing to fight forever. That is a truth too troubling for most people
to come to terms with.
But until we understand that,
we will have
learned absolutely nothing from September
11, 2001.
This is not WW2. It’s
not the Cold War. It’s a clash of civilizations. Technology, jet planes and the
internet, have allowed our civilizations to overlap each other. War is the
inevitable result.
Immigration, not bullets
and bombs, is the main weapon of a clash not between armies, but civilizations.
16 years later, we have
only begun, not to fight, but to defend ourselves against a clash of
civilizations.
TRUMP AND HIS SAUDIS
The Saudi Challenge
Jamal
Khashoggi's murder -- and no one now questions whether the Washington Post
contributor was killed by Saudi agents in the kingdom's consulate in Turkey --
has far-reaching implications for the Trump administration. President Donald
Trump appears to want to help sweep the incident under the rug, providing cover
for the Saudis' ludicrous suggestion that the killing was a rogue operation or
an interrogation gone awry. And he's enmeshed the highest officials of his
administration in the mess by sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh,
where the secretary was photographed, all smiles, sitting with Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, who most likely ordered Khashoggi's murder. The
administration is giving itself little leeway to take serious measures to
protest the killing, signaling to the world that the U.S. cannot be counted on
to stand up against bloodthirsty autocrats, even when a U.S. resident and
member of the American press is the victim.
I doubt that Trump understands -- or cares about -- what message
he's sending. Wealthy Saudis, including members of the extended royal family,
have been his patrons for years, buying his distressed properties when he
needed money. In the early 1990s, a Saudi prince purchased Trump's flashy yacht
so that the then-struggling businessman could come up with cash to stave off
personal bankruptcy, and later, the prince bought a share of the Plaza Hotel,
one of Trump's many business deals gone bad. Trump also sold an entire floor of
his landmark Trump Tower condominium to the Saudi government in 2001. During
the campaign, the Trump Organization registered more than a half-dozen limited
liability companies in the kingdom, in anticipation of cashing in on Trump's
enhanced renown. When Trump actually won (which apparently he didn't think he
would at the time), someone must have explained he couldn't move ahead with new
business there as president, because he withdrew the registrations. Of course,
a little thing like benefiting from the office of the presidency hasn't stopped
the Trump Organization, run by the president's two eldest sons, from accepting
Saudi largesse since the election. With many Trump properties and brands losing
customers in today's highly polarized political atmosphere, Saudis are spending
lavishly on Trump properties in Washington, New York and even Chicago as many
others avoid them.
But
if Trump doesn't get why looking the other way when an American journalist is
tortured, beheaded and hacked to pieces by a team of Saudi government
operatives is bad, surely national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary
Pompeo do. Autocrats are stepping up their game around the world. Russian
President Vladimir Putin didn't hesitate to order a hit on British soil of an
ex-KGB agent and his daughter earlier this year. But the United Kingdom
responded quickly, kicking out Russian diplomats and imposing sanctions. The
United States followed suit, but only because Congress, not Trump, knew that to
do otherwise would have let down an ally and encouraged a despot. When asked in
a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday whether he believes that Putin was
involved in the poisoning and other assassinations, Trump's response was:
"Probably he is, yeah. ... But I rely on them. It's not in our
country."
The
Trump administration relies on Saudi Arabia, too. It is the enemy of our enemy
Iran, which, in political calculus, makes Saudis our "friends." But
even friends require reining in at times. And these friends need us more than
we need them. We are no longer dependent on oil imports; our oil reserves
surpass those of Saudi Arabia. Although Trump worries about losing that
promised $110 billion Saudi arms purchase he keeps touting (but which has yet
to materialize), the Saudis don't have anywhere else to go if they want to keep
their airplanes in the air. They are locked in by past purchases; no one else
can deliver the spare parts for U.S.-built weapons. As for the help in
challenging Iran, they have no choice there, either. Iran is far more a direct
threat to the kingdom than it is to the U.S. And as for their most crucial role
-- the war on Islamic terrorism -- the Saudis claim to fight terrorism but are
also a major source of funding for radical Islamic schools and mosques that
recruit terrorists around the world.
The
administration has only a short time to come up with a proper and proportionate
response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The president thinks Americans will
move on -- but his inaction makes the world a more dangerous place. And next
time, the attack just might be on American soil.
Trump
scrambles to cover for Saudi regime as crisis over Khashoggi murder mounts
Following US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s emergency talks in
Riyadh and Ankara, and amid mounting reports implicating Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, the Trump administration is scrambling to shield Washington’s closest
ally in the Arab World.
On Thursday, Trump continued to suggest that Prince Mohammed and
his father, King Salman, may have had nothing to do with the disappearance and
evident torture and murder of Khashoggi on October 2 in the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul. However, after being debriefed by Pompeo following the latter’s talks
with Prince Mohammed and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump told
reporters it appeared that Khashoggi was dead.
The official line is that Pompeo secured a pledge from the Saudi
leadership to hold accountable anyone found in the course of the regime’s own
investigation to have played a role in Khashoggi’s disappearance. On that
fraudulent basis, Pompeo advised Trump to give Riyadh several more days to
provide an accounting, after which the White House will decide its response.
Meanwhile, unnamed Turkish officials and the pro-Erdogan
newspaper Yeni
Safak reported Wednesday on the contents of what they claim is
an audio recording of the events that transpired in the Istanbul consulate
following Khashoggi’s entering the building on the afternoon of October 2. The
60-year-old self-exiled Saudi national and resident of Virginia in the US, who
went from being a regime insider to a Washington
Post columnist and critic of the new crown prince, ostensibly
went to the consulate to obtain documents in advance of his impending wedding
to a Turkish national. He never emerged from the consulate.
According to the Turkish accounts, he was almost immediately
attacked by a team of 15 men who had flown that day to Istanbul from Saudi
Arabia, brutally tortured, drugged, murdered, beheaded and dismembered. These
sources say his fingers were cut off, but do not stipulate whether that
occurred before or after he had expired. One of those reported to have been in
the group is a forensic doctor who carried a bone saw.
The Washington
Post on Wednesday published a detailed profile of the 15 men,
complete with photos and scans of travel documents. It reported that at least
nine of the men have ties to Saudi security. The New York Times reported
Wednesday that at least four are directly linked to the crown prince, having
traveled with him as part of his personal security detail.
The claim of Crown Prince Mohammed that he had no foreknowledge
of a plan to kill the former regime loyalist-turned critic is absurd on its
face. He is an absolute ruler in a brutal totalitarian dictatorship, and is
known to closely oversee the activities of his security apparatus and to be
personally extremely cruel.
Pompeo’s meetings on Tuesday with King Salman and Crown Prince
Mohammed were aimed at signaling continued US support while making a pretense
of seeking a full accounting of Khashoggi’s disappearance. The same is true of
his meeting the following day with Erdogan, at which he evidently did not ask
for a copy of the audio recording of the events inside the consulate.
For his part, the Turkish president has yet to publicly make any
accusation against the Saudi leadership or endorse the reports being leaked by
Turkish officials and the media. At odds with Riyadh over the Saudi regime’s
support for US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria, its backing for the el-Sisi
dictatorship in Egypt, and its lineup with Washington over Iran, Erdogan
appears nevertheless to be reluctant to sever relations with the oil-rich
Saudis and may be seeking to use Riyadh’s crisis as leverage in obtaining
concessions.
On Wednesday after meeting with Erdogan, Pompeo told reporters
on his plane back to the US: “I do think it’s important that everyone keep in
their mind that we have lots of important relations, financial relationships
between US and Saudi companies, government relationships, things that we work
on all across the world. The efforts to reduce the risk to the United States of
America from the world’s largest state sponsor of terror, Iran.
“We just need to make sure that we are mindful of that as we
approach decisions that the United States government will take when we learn
all of the facts.”
This amounts to an unwitting admission of the outright
criminality of both governments.
As the former CIA director and current secretary of state,
Pompeo’s reference to the “things we work on all across the world” includes
conspiring to strangle, destabilize and potentially wage war against Iran, in
alliance with Israel and most of the other Gulf oil sheikdoms.
These “things” also include the near-genocidal Saudi-led war in
Yemen, which has already killed some 50,000 men, women and children and
threatens another 14 million with starvation and deadly epidemics of cholera
and diphtheria. The Saudis could not carry out their relentless bombing and de
facto blockade of the Arab world’s poorest country without US arms, its mid-air
refueling of Saudi bombers, its provision of intelligence and help in selecting
targets and the assistance to its naval forces.
It is notable that in all of the US press commentary critical of
Trump and the Saudi crown prince, there is virtually no mention of the US role
in the slaughter in Yemen.
There is as well the collaboration between Washington and Riyadh
in suppressing the Palestinians and propping up Israel, and their joint support
for Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist terrorists in the war for regime-change in Syria.
The US is particularly reliant on the Saudi monarchy at the
present moment, in advance of its November 5 deadline for imposing sanctions
against all Iranian exports. It is counting on Riyadh to open its oil spigot to
prevent a spike in oil prices as a result of a sharp reduction in Iranian oil
exports.
At the same time, the administration is coming under increasing
pressure, both internationally and at home, to distance itself from the crown
prince. It made a reluctant concession to this pressure on Thursday with the
announcement that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would join the swelling
ranks of Western officials, bankers and media organizations that have announced
they will not attend next week’s international investors’ conference in Riyadh,
to be hosted by Crown Prince Mohammed.
Dubbed “Davos in the Desert,” the event is on the brink of
collapse. On Wednesday, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine
Lagarde pulled out. Businesses that have made similar announcements include
Uber, JPMorgan Chase, Viacom, BlackRock and Blackstone Group. CNN, the Financial Times, CNBC,
Nikkei and the New York
Times are among the media organizations that have withdrawn as
media sponsors.
The likely debacle of the investors’ conference will intensify
an already acute crisis facing the Saudi monarchy. The Wall Street Journal reported
Thursday that global investors are growing increasingly alarmed at what the
newspaper called Saudi Arabia’s “debt binge” in recent months. In the
two-and-a-half years since May 2016, the country has floated $68 billion in
dollar-denominated bonds and syndicated loans—up from zero.
In addition, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund took out its
first-ever bank loan last month, raising $11 billion. And the national oil
company Saudi Aramco plans to raise up to $50 billion.
Reflecting declining confidence in the regime, the cost of
insuring against Saudi default has risen by 30 percent since the disappearance
of Khashoggi, and even before the Khashoggi allegations, foreign direct
investment had fallen to historically low levels.
Also on Thursday, the Washington
Post published Khashoggi’s final column for the newspaper.
Introducing the piece, Global Opinions Editor Karen Attiah explained that
the Post had
received the column one day after Khashoggi’s disappearance, but had decided to
hold it in the hope that he would reemerge. In publishing the piece, the
newspaper acknowledged that the author had died.
The content of the column points to Khashoggi’s likely links to
sections of the US state and intelligence apparatus. A former aide to the Saudi
chief of intelligence and one-time ambassador to the US, Khashoggi had long
been known as an interlocutor between the Saudi regime and Western media and
government officials. He also had close ties to Osama bin Laden.
In his final column he compares the suppression of speech and
expression in the Arab world to the Soviet “Iron Curtain,” and calls for the
development of an “independent” news source in the Middle East modeled after
the cold war-era propaganda organ Radio Free Europe.
This would in part explain the furious reaction of Trump critics
in both political parties, the media and the intelligence establishment to the
administration’s efforts to alibi for the Saudi leadership. Obama’s CIA chief
John Brennan, for example, has repeatedly denounced Trump’s attempts to cover
for the regime and insisted that the crown prince personally ordered the murder
of Khashoggi
Trump: US ‘Locked and Loaded’ After Attacks on Saudi Oil Supply – Which US Blames on Iran
Listen to the Article!
(Update: President Trump resumed his tweeting about Iran on Monday morning, writing: "Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was in their 'airspace' when, in fact, it was nowhere close. They stuck strongly to that story knowing that it was a very big lie. Now they say that they had nothing to do with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We’ll see?")
(CNSNews.com) – President Trump broke his silence Sunday evening on damaging attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, saying the administration has “reason to believe that we know the culprit” and is “locked and loaded depending on verification.”
He added that the U.S. is “waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”
Although the Iran-backed Shi’ite Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed to have carried out Saturday’s attacks by drone on the giant Khurais oilfield and a Saudi Aramco facility at Abqaiq, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stated unequivocally that the U.S. believes the Iranian regime is to blame.
The Saudis have yet to publicly lay blame; dispatches by the official Saudi Press Agency quote various countries and organizations as condemning the “terrorist attacks” on the oil facilities, but with no reference to the perpetrators.
Trump’s implied threat comes almost three months after Iran’s shooting down of an unmanned U.S. Navy drone prompted the president to order a retaliatory military strike – but then call it off at the last moment, citing the risk of casualties. (Iran claimed the drone had entered Iranian airspace when it was shot down by surface-to-air missile on June 20; the Pentagon denied that.)
The kingdom said the attacks, which caused large fires and were reported to be the biggest on Saudi oil infrastructure since Saddam Hussein launched Scud missiles in 1990, compelled it to suspend the production of 5.7 million barrels of oil a day – about 50 percent of Aramco’s production.
On Twitter, the president also outlined his response to concerns about the potential impact of the attacks on the oil market.
“Based on the attack on Saudi Arabia, which may have an impact on oil prices, I have authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, if needed, in a to-be-determined amount sufficient to keep the markets well-supplied,” he tweeted. “I have also informed all appropriate agencies to expedite approvals of the oil pipelines currently in the permitting process in Texas and various other States.”
The Houthis have since 2015 been fighting a Saudi-led coalition set up in support of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government. The conflict has been costly and controversial, sparking unsuccessful attempts by U.S. lawmakers to end U.S. military support for the Saudi campaign.
In recent years the Houthis have carried out numerous missile and drone attacks on Saudi infrastructure including airports, mostly in the south of the country, but also targets further north, including pipeline pumping stations, an airport and a palace in Riyadh, and Mecca, Islam’s most holiest city.
The oil facilities struck on Saturday lie roughly 480 miles and 500 miles from the nearest Yemeni territory.
‘An unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply’
Despite the Houthis’ claim to have attacked the Saudi facilities using ten drones, Pompeo pointed to the Iranian regime.
“Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while [President Hassan] Rouhani and [Foreign Minister Javad] Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy,” he tweeted Saturday. “Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”
“We call on all nations to publicly and unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks,” Pompeo said, adding that the U.S. would work with partners and allies to ensure that “Iran is held accountable for its aggression.”
Iran’s foreign ministry denied the allegations, with spokesman Abbas Mousavi saying the administration, having failed in its policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran, has now adopted a policy of “maximum lies.”
Mousavi backed the Houthis’ claim of responsibility, saying the militia was “standing up to war and aggression” launched by the Saudi-led coalition.
But he also insinuated that a conspiracy was underway to lay the groundwork for war, saying the U.S. statements were akin to “planning by secret and intelligence services to tarnish the image of a country in order to set the scene for future moves.”
During the G7 summit in France last month, Trump said he was prepared to meet with Rouhani “if the circumstances were correct,” stoking speculation an encounter could take place on the sidelines of this month’s U.N. General Assembly in New York.
On Tuesday, Pompeo replied “sure” when asked if he could foresee such a meeting going ahead, adding that “the president has made very clear he is prepared to meet with no preconditions.”
White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway said Sunday the attacks in Saudi Arabia “did not help” prospects for such a meeting, but did not rule it out altogether, telling Fox News Sunday she would leave it up to Trump “to announce a meeting or a non-meeting.”
For his part, Trump tweeted on Sunday evening, “The Fake News is saying that I am willing to meet with Iran, ‘No Conditions.’ That is an incorrect statement (as usual!).”
‘It is important to clearly establish the facts’
Meanwhile other governments have not joined the U.S. in blaming Iran for the attacks.
The European Union expressed sympathy to the Saudi government and people, but did not assign blame.
“It is important to clearly establish the facts and determine responsibility for this deplorable attack,” a spokesperson said, repeating an E.U. appeal “for maximum restraint and de-escalation.”
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers, who were meeting in Jeddah for a meeting focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, expressed support for the kingdom in the face of what they called “aggression designed to destabilize Saudi Arabia,” but did not say who they thought was responsible.
Britain’s Foreign Office in a statement noted the Houthi’s claim of responsibility and called on the group “to immediately cease such attacks.”
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab later tweeted that he’d spoken to Pompeo about the attack, which he described as “a reckless attempt to damage regional security and disrupt global oil supplies.”
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