The following cartoon by Oliphant says all that needs to be said about the reality of the Saudis to the US.
Time to Kick their A$$ and take their gas!
Posted on 08/24/2002 9:56:15 PM PDT by GaryMontana
LONDON - Senior members of the Saudi royal family paid "protection money" totaling at least $300 million to Osama bin-Laden and the Taliban to prevent them from attacking targets in Saudi Arabia, the London Sunday Times reported yesterday.
The revelation, based on extensive investigations, was contained in papers filed in a $3,000 billion US lawsuit by lawyers representing the families of Sept. 11 victims.
According to the documents, the deal was struck after two secret meetings involving members of the Saudi royal family and al-Qaida leaders, including bin-Laden.
The cash enabled al-Qaida to fund training camps in Afghanistan that are said to have been attended by the Sept. 11 bombers.
The court documents reveal that the agreement committed bin- Laden not to use his forces to subvert the Saudi government, while the Saudis agreed to ensure that requests to extradite al- Qaida members and demands to close al-Qaida training camps were not carried out.
In addition, the Saudis agreed to supply oil and financial assistance to both the Taliban and Pakistan which, the documents report, was worth "several hundred millions" of dollars.
The revelations resulting from the investigation are likely to exacerbate already tense relations between the US and Saudi Arabia, which one analyst at the Washington-based Rand think-tank recently described at a Pentagon briefing as the "kernel of evil."
The document names the Saudi royals involved in the deal and provides details about the network of charities and businesses through which bin- Laden raised money.
The documents say the Saudi princes were informed about attacks by Islamic fundamentalists on American servicemen at a US army training facility in Riyadh in November 1995 and at the Khobar Towers barracks in June 1996, in which 19 US airmen died.
The princes decided to strike a deal with bin-Laden because they feared that al-Qaida, which opposed the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, would show its displeasure by attempting to destabilize the kingdom.
The documents say Saudi Arabia's secret service, the Istakhbarat, had decided in late 1995 to fund the Taliban and the initial decision to pay bin-Laden "protection money" was agreed at a meeting of the Saudi princes in 1996.
A further meeting in the Afghan city of Kandahar in July 1998 led to the deal between Saudi Arabia and the Taliban.
According to the documents, those present included Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Saud, then chief of the Istakhbarat, Taliban leaders, senior officers from Pakistan's secret service and bin- Laden.
Turki was said to have known bin-Laden well through family connections and also because he had hand-picked bin-Laden in the early 1980s to organize Arab volunteers who were fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
The lawsuit also alleges that the Saudi royal family supported charities with close ties to bin-Laden, including a $6 million gift from Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan, to the International Islamic Relief Organization, al-Haramain, the Muslim World League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth.
The following cartoon by Oliphant says all that needs to be said about the reality of the Saudis to the US.
Time to Kick their A$$ and take their gas!
LOL! I just saw the smiley!
You are right about the arm twisting! The Saudis won't get off their sandy asses, so we are turning up the heat via the foreign press. This is my guess.
We could use the Saudis to get the Iraq project done. It would be alot harder without them.
This is an idea whose time has come.
1) Declare war on Saudi Arabia.
2) Invade SA and place their country under martial law.
3) Confiscate the asssets of the "royal family" to pay for the costs of the occupation.
4) Hold military trials for anyone complicit in supporting international terrorism and swiftly mete out the appropriate penalties, preferably death by hanging in the public square of the individual's home town.
5) Confiscate enough of their oil revenues to pay for the costs of 9-11 and the ensuing war on Saudi-inspired and supported Whabbi terror organizations.
6) Divide the country into ethnically stable regions, and permit the people of each regions to elect their own government, subject to a caveat that they will continue to sell oil into the world markets at market prices. Offer incentives to them for creating representative constitutional governments.
7) Each region will cede under 250 year lease whatever land is necessary for the USA to maintain an effective deterrent military force in that region.
8) The penalty for any terrrorist actions will be death by hanging of the terrorist within 48 hours of conviction and one appeal before a military court. Any direct suppoprters of the terrorist get the same penalty. Indirect supporters will be subject to confiscation of their assets and life imprisonment.
That's about it. Later.
Yes.
Powell HAS been fairly subdued lately, has he not? Although the pressitudes ARE putting on the full-court press trying to derail the Bush admin's focus on Iraq. Probably the adminiistration has a lot of evidence pointing to Iraq AND Saudi Arabia. The question is, regarding Iraq, will we present the evidence before or after we attack?
Only problem is, this would jeapardize investment in US companies. One reason for our great success and wealth is that our system of laws helps to create a stable environment for business and investment. We really don't want to risk that. There are many ways to go after these cowardly bastards.
Reason #1 - Stupidity. Reason #2 - The leftist who still have not destroyed their brains with drugs are being herded into believing this is all about america trying to control the worlds oil supply. Reason #3 - Then there is the conspiratorial left who blames jewish cabals with attempting to control the US and to get the US to fight their wars for them. These paranoid and dellusional leftist actually think the US Jewish Cabal was somehow responsible for the attacks on 9/11.
While spining the tuner on my radio a few nights ago I heard a liberal caller state on a talk radio show that 'only the military could have done what happened on 9/11'. That kind of thought is pure lunacy. And perhaps Reason #4 - Lunacy.
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