A BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
BY Mark Karlin
Since shortly after 9/11, BuzzFlash.com and other progressive
sites -- as well as many a book -- offered extensive information
that appeared to closely link some members of the Saudi Royal family
to financing and supporting Al-Qaeda. This was something that the
Bush Administration went to great lengths to deny, but their
deference to the Saudis (including George W. walking
pinky-entwined-with-pinky with Saudi princes, for real) was really
all as usual about oil.
Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld -- in particular -- saw 9/11 as an
enormous "gift" to rally the public behind first securing American
and British access to the Iraqi oil fields and then to the Iranian
ones. In the infamous PNAC document written by the Neo-Cons at the
end of the Clinton Administration, they predicted that it would take
a cataclysmic event to rally the American public behind the
overthrow of Saddam (and rights to Iraqi oil) -- and they got what
they wished for in 9/11.
Those who read BuzzFlash in our early years know that we
repeatedly harped upon this issue and identified the connection
between Cheney's vision of controlling natural resources in the
Middle East to feed the beast of American empire and our
Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran policies of belligerence and war.
Now the Obama administration has, sadly, taken the place of the
Bush Administration in keeping 9/11 family members from revealing
the role of the Saudi elite in financially and strategically
facilitating Al-Qaeda. This is taking place in courtroom
battles involving a 9/11 family lawsuit against the Saudis that is
still going on.
A
June 24th New York Times article spills the beans, yet again, but via official government
documents leaked to the attorneys for the 9/11 families:
Documents gathered by lawyers for the
families of Sept. 11 victims provide new evidence of extensive
financial support for
Al Qaeda
and other extremist groups
by members of the Saudi royal family, but the material may never
find its way into court because of legal and diplomatic obstacles.
The case has put the Obama
administration in the middle of a political and legal dispute, with
the
Justice Department siding
with the Saudis in court
last month in seeking to kill further legal action. Adding to the
intrigue, classified American intelligence documents related to
Saudi finances were leaked anonymously to lawyers for the families.
The Justice Department had the lawyers’ copies destroyed and now
wants to prevent a judge from even looking at the material.
It was always one of the great betrayals of the American public,
dead Iraqi civilians, and our killed and wounded service men and
women that the Bush Administration -- and particularly Cheney --
used anti-terrorism as a guise to secure control over oil fields.
Clearly, not only absolving, but actually legally covering up for
Saudi financing of terrorism is a deal with the devil: You keep
sending us the oil and you can do whatever you want to keep your
regime in power, even if it's paying off the terrorists who
committed 9/11.
Cheney was a man who thought making deals with the devil was what
makes for a pragmatic, successful, muscular foreign policy to ensure
that the American empire remains the sole superpower. So he
probably admired the Saudis for knowing how to survive, even if they
were supporting the radical extremists who killed Americans and are
continuing to try and seize governments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and
elsewhere.
What's remarkable is that the Obama Administration has continued
the Bush Administration policy of squaring off against the American
citizens who represent members of families who lost fathers,
mothers, brothers and sisters in the 9/11 attacks.
It is not change to continue to mask Saudi Royal family
culpability; it is more of the same deadly hypocrisy that got us
into the Iraq War in the first place.
A BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
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