Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
COMMENT: Two recent items are worthy of noting–an appellate court has cleared the way for families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia, and the 28 pages redacted from the 9/11 Joint Intelligence Committee report are once again a topic of public discussion.
If the plaintiffs can get access to those 28 pages, things could get very interesting indeed.
A point worth noting concerns the plaintiffs interest in the role of “charities” in financing the 9/11 attacks. That investigation could–conceivably–head toward Muslim charities linked with the Bank al-Taqwa. IF the 9/11 lawsuit were to proceed in the direction of Youssef Nada, Bank al-Taqwa the SAAR Network, the Safa Trust, and the overlapping Islamic Free Market Institute , the investigation would ensnare some very interesting individuals and institutions.
Not only would Grover Norquist, Karl Rove and Talat Othman come under scrutiny, but the al-Taqwa investigation would go back to Francois Genoud, Nada, Achmed Huber and the Underground Reich.
Sadly, Operation Green Quest has remained almost completely buried, ignored by the major media, as well as the so-called “alternative” media. It has been deliberately eclipsed by the so-called “Truther” movement, financed by the very interests that executed the attacks.
Families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks today celebrated a federal court’s ruling that allows relatives of people who died in the 9/11 terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia.
Most of the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 were from Saudi Arabia, and the complaint states that much of the funding for the al-Qaeda terrorists came from Saudi Arabia.
An attempt to Saudi Arabia in 2002 was blocked by a federal court ruling that said the kingdom had sovereign immunity. That ruling was reversed Thursday by a three-judge federal panel.
“I’m ecstatic.... For 12 years we’ve been fighting to expose the people who financed those bastards,” said William Doyle, the father of Joseph Doyle, 25, a Cantor-Fitzgerald employee who was killed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
“Christmas has come early to the 9/11 families. We’re going to have our day in court,” he told ABCNews.com.
The ruling struck down an earlier decision that found Saudi Arabia immune from lawsuits. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it’s in the “interests of justice” to allow them to proceed.
Families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 attacks and insurers who lost billions of dollars covering damaged businesses have alleged Saudi Arabia bankrolled al-Qaeda, knowing the money would be used for terrorism.
The lawsuit, filed a decade ago by the Philadelphia firm Cozen O’Connor, accuses the Saudi government and members of the royal family of serving on charities that financed al-Qaeda operations.
Since terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, victims’ loved ones, injured survivors, and members of the media have all tried without much success to discover the true nature of the relationship between the 19 hijackers – 15 of them Saudi nationals – and the Saudi Arabian government. Many news organizations reported that some of the terrorists were linked to the Saudi royals and that they even may have received financial support from them as well as from several mysterious, moneyed Saudi men living in San Diego.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any connection, and neither President George W. Bush nor President Obama has been forthcoming on this issue.
But earlier this year, Reps. Walter B. Jones, R‑N.C., and Stephen Lynch, D‑Mass., were given access to the 28 redacted pages of the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) of 9/11 issued in late 2002, which have been thought to hold some answers about the Saudi connection to the attack.
“I was absolutely shocked by what I read,” Jones told International Business Times. “What was so surprising was that those whom we thought we could trust really disappointed me. I cannot go into it any more than that. I had to sign an oath that what I read had to remain confidential. But the information I read disappointed me greatly.”
The public may soon also get to see these secret documents. Last week, Jones and Lynch introduced a resolution that urges President Obama to declassify the 28 pages, which were originally classified by President George W. Bush. It has never been fully explained why the pages were blacked out, but President Bush stated in 2003 that releasing the pages would violate national security.
While neither Jones nor Lynch would say just what is in the document, some of the information has leaked out over the years.A multitude of sources tell IBTimes, and numerous press reports over the years in Newsweek, the New York Times, CBS News and other media confirm, that the 28 pages in fact clearly portray that the Saudi government had at the very least an indirect role in supporting the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attack. In addition, these classified pages clarify somewhat the links between the hijackers and at least one Saudi government worker living in San Diego.
Former Sen. Bob Graham, D‑Fla., who chaired the Joint Inquiry in 2002 and has been beating the drum for more disclosure about 9/11 since then, has never understood why the 28 pages were redacted. Graham told IBTimes that based on his involvement in the investigation and on the now-classified information in the document that his committee produced, he is convinced that “the Saudi government without question was supporting the hijackers who lived in San Diego…. You can’t have 19 people living in the United States for, in some cases, almost two years, taking flight lessons and other preparations, without someone paying for it. But I think it goes much broader than that. The agencies from CIA and FBI have suppressed that information so American people don’t have the facts.”
Jones insists that releasing the 28 secret pages would not violate national security.
“It does not deal with national security per se; it is more about relationships,” he said. “The information is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American people. If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help – particularly from one or more foreign governments – the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to the perpetrators.”
It took Jones six weeks and several letters to the House Intelligence Committee before the classified pages from the 9/11 report were made available to him. Jones was so stunned by what he saw that he approached Rep. Lynch, asking him to look at the 28 pages as well. He knew that Lynch would be astonished by the contents of the documents and perhaps would join in a bipartisan effort to declassify the papers.
“He came back to me about a week ago and told me that he, too, was very shocked by what he read,” Jones said. “I told him we need to join together and put in a resolution and get more members on both sides of the aisle involved and demand that the White House release this information to the public. The American people have a right to know this information.”
A decade ago, 46 senators, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D‑N.Y., demanded in a letter to President Bush that he declassify the 28 pages.
The letter read, in part, “It has been widely reported in the press that the foreign sources referred to in this portion of the Joint Inquiry analysis reside primarily in Saudi Arabia. As a result, the decision to classify this information sends the wrong message to the American people about our nation’s antiterror effort and makes it seem as if there will be no penalty for foreign abettors of the hijackers. Protecting the Saudi regime by eliminating any public penalty for the support given to terrorists from within its borders would be a mistake.... We respectfully urge you to declassify the 28-page section that deals with foreign sources of support for the 9/11 hijackers.”
All of the senators who signed that letter but one, Sen. Sam Brownback (R‑Kansas), were Democrats.
Lynch, who won the Democratic primary for his congressional seat on that fateful day of Sept. 11, 2001, told IBTimes that he and Jones are in the process of writing a “Dear Colleague” letter calling on all House members to read the 28 pages and join their effort.
“Once a member reads the 28 pages, I think whether they are Democrat or Republican they will reach the same conclusion that Walter and I reached, which is that Americans have the right to know this information,” Lynch said. “These documents speak for themselves. We have a situation where an extensive investigation was conducted, but then the Bush [administration] decided for whatever purposes to excise 28 pages from the report. I’m not passing judgment. That was a different time. Maybe there were legitimate reasons to keep this classified. But that time has long passed.”
Most of the allegations of links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers revolve around two enigmatic Saudi men who lived in San Diego: Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, both of whom have long since left the United States.
In early 2000, al-Bayoumi, who had previously worked for the Saudi government in civil aviation (a part of the Saudi defense department), invited two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, to San Diego from Los Angeles. He told authorities he met the two men by chance when he sat next to them at a restaurant.
Newsweek reported in 2002 that al-Bayoumi’s invitation was extended on the same day that he visited the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles for a private meeting.
Al-Bayoumi arranged for the two future hijackers to live in an apartment and paid $1,500 to cover their first two months of rent. Al-Bayoumi was briefly interviewed in Britain but was never brought back to the United States for questioning.
As for Basnan, Newsweek reported that he received monthly checks for several years totaling as much as $73,000 from the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, and his wife, Princess Haifa Faisal. Although the checks were sent to pay for thyroid surgery for Basnan’s wife, Majeda Dweikat, Dweikat signed many of the checks over to al-Bayoumi’s wife, Manal Bajadr. This money allegedly made its way into the hands of hijackers, according to the 9/11 report.
Despite all this, Basnan was ultimately allowed to return to Saudi Arabia, and Dweikat was deported to Jordan.
0Sources and numerous press reports also suggest that the 28 pages include more information about Abdussattar Shaikh, an FBI asset in San Diego who Newsweek reported was friends with al-Bayoumi and invited two of the San Diego-based hijackers to live in his house.
Shaikh was not allowed by the FBI or the Bush administration to testify before the 9/11 Commission or the JICI.
Graham notes that there was a significant 9/11 investigation in Sarasota, Fla., which also suggests a connection between the hijackers and the Saudi government that most Americans don’t know about.
The investigation, which occurred in 2002, focused on Saudi millionaire Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, whose upscale home was owned by Anoud al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, an adviser to Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the nephew of Saudi King Fahd.
The al-Hijji family reportedly moved out of their Sarasota house and left the country abruptly in the weeks before 9/11, leaving behind three luxury cars and personal belongings including clothing, furniture and fresh food. They also left the swimming-pool water circulating.
Numerous news reports in Florida have said that the gated community’s visitor logs and photos of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future 9/11 hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home.
Graham said that like the 28 pages in the 9/11 inquiry, the Sarasota case is being “covered up” by U.S. intelligence. Graham has been fighting to get the FBI to release the details of this investigation with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation. But so far the bureau has stalled and stonewalled, he said.
Lynch said he didn’t know how the Obama administration would respond to the congressional resolution urging declassification, if it passes the House and Senate.
“But if we raise the issue, and get enough members to read it, we think we can get the current administration to revisit this issue. I am very optimistic,” he said. “I’ve talked to some of my Democratic members already, and there has been receptivity there. They have agreed to look at it.”
The Political Implications of the UFO Phenomenon and the "ET" Myth
H.Res.428 — Urging the president to release information regarding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks upon the United States.
113th Congress (2013–2014)
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-resolution/428/text
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPeNH4NuAX4
Saudi-Sized Cracks in the 9/11 Wall of Silence
By Russ Baker on Dec 19, 2013
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/12/19/saudi-sized-cracks-in-the-911-wall-of-silence/
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=82746&pageid=37&pagename=Page+One
Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup
Paul Sperry January 7th 2014
NY Post
Twin Towers 9/11
After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors. But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
It was kept secret and remains so today.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).
A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.
Reps. Walter Jones (R‑NC) and Stephen Lynch (D‑Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”
Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.
The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war. The findings, if confirmed, would back up open-source reporting showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to coast:
LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — as they arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi Arabia after 9/11.)
SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms, rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al-Awlaki, at a Saudi-funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before the attacks.)
WASHINGTON: Then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were “welfare” for Bassnan’s supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made its way into the hijackers’ hands.
Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy — so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client.
The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.
“Our investigations contributed to the ambassador’s departure,” an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for “personal reasons.”
FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego hijackers turned up together again — this time at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Pentagon-area mosque built with funds from the Saudi Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showed up at his doorstep as if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs before they attacked the Pentagon.
Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel itinerary documents I’ve obtained show he also served as the official imam on Saudi Embassy-sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy sites.
Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11.
As I first reported in my book, “Infiltration,” quoting from classified US documents, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was briefly detained at JFK before being released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.” A federal warrant for Awlaki’s arrest had mysteriously been withdrawn the previous day. A US drone killed Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.
HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the hijackers’ hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They let him go after he “feigned a seizure,” one agent recalled. (Hussayen’s name doesn’t appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which clears the Saudis.)
SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited a home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.
Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can’t get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it’s a “coverup.”
Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.
Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 — just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.
Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi evidence a “coverup beyond belief.” Last week, he sent out an e‑mail to relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.
Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history.
Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter-writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the House intelligence panel to give them access to the material.
But it’s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. This isn’t water under the bridge. The information is still relevant today. Pursuing leads further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head off another 9/11.
As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within the United States.”
Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating attacks today.
Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.
Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”
It’s worth noting that the 9/11 victims’ families who won the right to sue the government of Saudi Arabia over its role in the 9/11 plot lost that right last month
So that’s pretty unfortunate.
And in other international legal liability news...:
“ISIS has no legitimate way to decide to decide to kill people...the difference is clear.”
Yep, the difference between ISIS and Saudi justice system are like the difference between night and day (during a permanent solar eclipse). In retrospect, it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could see anything but differences between the two. What a new fun game.
28 rather notorious pages from the Congressional 9/11 investigation were just released, albeit with some redactions. It doesn’t sound like there were any big surprises in 28 pages, although that might be due in part to the fact that the pages point towards possibility that the 9/11 hijackers received assistance from Saudi government employees and we already knew that:
““It’s important to note that this section does not put forward vetted conclusions, but rather unverified leads that were later fully investigated by the intelligence committee,” Representative Devin Nunes of California, the committee’s Republican chairman, said in a statement.”
That is indeed important to note that the 28 pages was primarily about investigative leads. But it’s worth keeping in mind that a number of the people calling for the release of these 28 pages include the people that actually investigated those leads. People like 9/11 Commissions members:
“John Lehman, a former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, told the Guardian, “There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government.” Details of their involvement are found in the 28 classified pages of the 9/11 Commission report, he said. The Obama administration says it may release those pages soon”
Keep in mind that the “28 pages” were both in the 9/11 Commission report and also the congressional report. Whatever John Lehman saw as a 9/11 Commissioner presumably backed up or at least raised seriously questions related to the content of those 28 pages. Also note that 9/11 Commission staff director, Phil Zelikow, reportedly worked to prevent any thorough investigation of potential Saudi government involvement.
So when we hear about how the content of those pages were speculative and subsequent investigations found no smoking gun, don’t forget that the people calling for the release of the 28 pages include the people involved in those subsequent investigations and who were allowed to investigate.
I was interested to note a guy called Abdullah bin Laden, I am not sure which of the many, was a friend of Mohammed Qaduir Harunani, and that Harunani had Atta’s father and sisters phone numbers.
It’s the only time I heard about Atta’s father outside of Daniels work.
For the first time what we really need is a truth movement
Here’s a rather interesting tension to watch unfold following Donald Trump’s enthusiastic trip to Saudi Arabia: after pledging to invest hundreds of billion of dollars into the US economy the Saudi government has something it would like to see in return (beyond all the weapons its buying and a possible war with Iran): reversing the law that law that would allow the relatives of 9/11 victim to sue the Kingdom. Part of what makes this tension so interesting is that it doesn’t sound like there’s actually a lot Trump can do about changing that law, but there’s still an apparent expectations among many Saudis that he has the power to change this and if he doesn’t there’s going to be some very hurt feelings
““If Trump supports the JASTA, he will lose the relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Mohammed Alhamza, a social researcher and writer, said bluntly through a translator during an interview in his Riyadh home, reflecting a view heard widely among Saudis.”
That appears to be the Saudi sentiment: if Trump doesn’t deliver he can probably forget about being treated like a king in the future. But keep in mind that that the Said’s aren’t limited to threats against the US in general. Don’t forget Trump’s extensive investment portfolio across the Middle East, including the eight companies he registered in Saudi Arabia while campaigning for president. So, yeah, Trump’s business empire in at least Saudi Arabia could hinge on whether or not he can get that law reversed and there’s no obvious way for him to do it.
Quid pro uh oh.
With the 16th anniversary of 9/11 upon us, it’s worth keeping in mind that the 9/11 anniversaries shouldn’t just be about remembering the events of that day. There’s also the unfinished business left to be taken care of, like the ongoing lawsuits against the Saudi government that continue to reveal more and more evidence of Saudi government operatives working with the hijackers:
“The 9/11 suit as it now stands is a compilation of many such suits. It cites evidence of direct support for the attacks by Saudi officials such as Thumairy, Bayoumi, and Bassnan. It also lays out the case for the intimate involvement of the Saudi government in the creation and expansion of Al Qaeda. Whereas the 9/11 Commission Report began its narrative with Osama bin Laden, In re Terrorist Attacks goes back to the foundation of the Al Saud family’s rule and its alliance with the puritanical and intolerant Wahhabi sect. In the 1970s, and then again in the early 1990s, violent challenges to the family’s legitimacy, fostered by its corruption and backsliding from the fundamentalist creed, persuaded the ruling princes to appease the clerics by giving them further leeway, and massive amounts of money, to export their extremist agenda.”
And it’s not just the 9/11 suits that shown evidence of direct Saudi government support for the 9/1 hijackers. The Saudi government’s own attempts to thwart these suits also demonstrates the same point with the repeated use of diplomatic immunity to stop the investigations:
And for years the shield of diplomatic immunity worked. But now there’s the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) opening the Saudi government to lawsuits and even the notorious 28 pages are been partially released, adding further evidence of Saudi government involvement:
So what’s next in this 16 year old pursuit to bring the people behind the 9/11 attacks to some sort of justice? How about new evidence obtained by the 9/11 lawsuit of a 9/11 “dry run” in 1999 that appears to have been conducted by Saudi intelligence agents:
““When the plane was in flight, al-Qudhaeein asked where the bathroom was; one of the flight attendants pointed him to the back of the plane,” it added. “Nevertheless, al-Qudhaeein went to the front of the plane and attempted on two occasions to enter the cockpit.””
And this apparent 9/11 dry run by these two fellows in 1999 incident just happened to be perpetrated by Saudi government employees, one of whom was suspected by the FBI of being a Saudi intelligence agent:
And that evidence was known by government investigators for years and is just being made public now. So what else is hiding away in government vaults? Sadly, we’re apparently going to have to rely on the 9/11 families to force the US government to let us know.
But those 9/11 families are indeed succeeding, bit by bit, year by year and the picture is becoming undeniable. It’s one of the things worth actually celebrating this 9/11 anniversary.
@Pterrafractyl–
One wonders if perhaps the drone/missile strike that killed Awlaki may have been intended to eliminate a key piece of the evidentiary puzzle.
Best,
Dave
Uhhh...WTF? Saudi Arabia and Canada were having a bit of a diplomatic tiff that somehow spiraled into a not so subtle threat of of a 9/11-style terror attack against Canada. That actually happened:
It all started when the Canadian foreign ministry official twitter account tweeted concern over the Saudi government’s arrest of activists who were advocating for the right of women to drive.
This apparently didn’t go over well in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi foreign ministry tweeted back that “KSA”, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, “through its history has not and will not accept any form of interfering in the internal affairs of the Kingdom. The KSA considers the Canadian position an attack on the KSA and requires a firm stance to deter who attempts to undermine the sovereignty of the KSA.” Then the Saudis also announced Sunday they would be suspending all new trade and investment transactions with Canada.
But the spat didn’t didn’t end there. Infographic KSA, a Saudi youth group with a long history of tweets supporting the Saudi government, decided to tweet out what has to be one of the most ominous tweets in the history of tweets: The tweet simply says “He who interferes with what doesn’t concern him finds what doesn’t please him”, and has a picture of an Air Canada airline heading directly towards the CN Tower in downtown Toronto.
Infographic KSA has replaced the tweet with one that doesn’t have an airplane and has issued an apology saying the plane was intended to symbolize the Canadian ambassador flying home.
The Saudi government has order the Infographic KSA account shut down while it conducts an investigation. And while the exact nature between Infographic KSA and the Saudi government is unclear, it appears to be connected to the Saudi media ministry according to Amarnath Amarasingnam, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. According to Amarasingnam, the group “seems to exist solely to turn Saudi government press releases into pretty infographics for social media.” So, yes, it’s looking like a group that’s part of the Saudi government’s public relations efforts just threatened Canada with a 9/11-style attack:
“A Saudi Arabian organization is apologizing after posting an image on Twitter appearing to show an Air Canada plane heading toward the CN Tower in a way that is reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.”
If you criticize Saudi Arabia you get planes flown into your buildings. That was how this Saudi youth group decided to response to Canada’s criticisms. And it wasn’t just a the creepy image. There was also the creepy text:
And while such a tweet might be deemed to be just another tasteless moment on Twitter if it had been tweeted by some random Saudi citizen or organization, this wasn’t just some random group. The Infographic KSA account appears to exist for the purpose of supporting the Saudi government:
Infographic KSA removed the plane from the image and asserts that it merely represented Canada’s ambassador flying back home after getting expelled:
And the Saudi government has ordered the twitter account shut down while it investigates it. But it’s still unclear whether or not it’s government-run account or not. What is clear is that the account appears to solely exist to turn Saudi government press releases into pretty infographics for social media:
And this quasi-official state-to-state terror threat exploded after a mere tweet by Canada’s foreign ministry criticizing the arrest of women’s rights activists. It’s a reminder of the Saudi government’s hypersensitivity about treating women like human beings:
It’s a reminder that, for all of Saudi Arabia’s attempts to portray it’s current government as a ‘reformer’ government, it’s still basically the same insanely misogynistic theocratic patriarchy it’s always been.
It’s also worth noting the reason for the initial tweet by Canada’s foreign ministry expressing concern about the treatment of women’s rights activists: when the Saudi government decided to grant women the right to drive, they apparently decided to also arrest the various activists who had been campaigning for the right for women to drive and charge them with being traitors working with foreign elements. Apparently the lesson that activism never works and should never be tried is vital for the stability of the Kingdom:
“At least 12 prominent women’s rights activists have been arrested since May 15, nine of them remain in custody and face serious charges and long jail sentences, Human Rights Watch said Friday.”
And don’t forget that the above article was from June 22, so there have been quite a few more arrests of women’s rights activists since then. It was the arrests of more activists last week that prompted the Canadian tweet.
And these activists aren’t just being arrested. They’re getting charged in courts specifically set up to deal with terrorism-related offenses:
And this all appears to be some sort of campaign to punish those activists over their success in pressuring the government eventually allow women to drive. The government even demanded that the activists not take credit on the historic day when women first drove:
As we can see, the Saudi government clearly wants to terrorize its women’s rights activists citizens so they don’t get the wrong idea about the utility of activism or the role of women in Saudi society. That’s the obvious purpose of charging these activists with terrorism and prevent them from taking any credit following this policy shift. It doesn’t bode well for the Saudi populace.
So we have a Saudi government that’s terrorizing its own civil rights activists by charging them with terrorism as revenge for their successes, and when Canada tweets about this a Saudi state-affiliated public relations youth group issues a 9/11-style visual terror threat against Canada.
It wasn’t the best public relations move.
Here’s a 9/11-related story that’s scheduled for a potentially significant update tomorrow on 9/12: The US Justice Department faced a deadline last Friday to decide whether or not to release the name of an individual named in a long-running lawsuit against the government of Saudi Arabia over accusations that the Saudi government assisted in the 9/11 attacks. Lawyers for the plaintiffs want the name released. The name was redacted from a 2012 FBI document describing assistance given by men in southern California to two of the hijackers and lawyers believe person may be a Saudi official who tasked the two California men with assisting the hijackers. The Justice Department has the option of invoking a rarely used state secrets privilege to refuse the release of the name. The Justice Department submitted a request for an extension to the deadline and a federal court granted an extension until 9/12. So we’ll find out tomorrow if we’ll find out ever:
“Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the 9/11 case want the government to disclose the name, which was redacted from a 2012 FBI document describing assistance given by men in southern California to two of the hijackers. The lawyers believe the person may be a Saudi official they suspect tasked two men in California with assisting the hijackers.”
Is the redacted name of the person in the FBI document described as giving assistance to the 9/11 hijackers the same name of a Saudi official suspected of assisting the hijackers? That’s the question the plaintiff’s lawyers want answered. But it’s worth noting that we already have an idea of the name of that suspected Saudi official: when the notorious ’28-pages’ from the joint congressional 9/11 investigation were eventually declassified and released in 2016, we learned that a suspected Saudi government spy allegedly got tens of thousands of dollars from Prince Bandar — then the Saudi ambassador in Washington — and his wife Haifa. This suspected spy, Osama Basna, is alleged to have organized a support network for two of the 9/11 hijackers when they were in San Diego in the year before 9/11:
“According to the report, at least $15,000 went directly from Prince Bandar’s bank account in Washington to the family of a Saudi expatriate, suspected of being a Saudi government spy, who organized a support network in California for two of the 9/11 hijackers while they were living in San Diego in the year before the attacks.”
Yep, money went directly from Prince Bandar’s bank account in Washing to the family of a suspected Saudi government spy who organized a support network for the hijackers. And in addition to the $15,000 from Bandar’s accounts, that suspected spy, Osama Basnan, received $74,000 from Haifa’s accounts from 1999 to May 2002:
And while it was never proven that this money ended up being given to those two hijackers and much of the evidence in the initial joint congressional report was later discounted or dismissed by the 9/11 commission, we can’t forget that many of the conclusions of the 9/11 commissions of subsequently been discounted or dismissed by members of the 9/11 commission. Like commission member John Lehman, who regretted that the 9/11 commission report was read as an exoneration of the Saudi government:
And let’s not forget that the 2012 FBI report suspected of containing the redacted name of a Saudi official who assisted two of the 9/11 hijackers was created years after the 9/11 commission report was released. In other words, the FBI investigation into 9/11 continued after the 9/11 commission report so it makes no sense on its face to view the 9/11 commission report as the final word on these matters.
So as we can see, whether or not the Justice Department decides to release the redacted name from that 2012 FBI report or if it decides to invoke the state secrets privilege, it’s pretty clear there’s a need for a new investigation. Ideally an investigation that isn’t designed to exonerate the Saudi government.
Was shooting by a Saudi airman training at the Pensacola Naval Air Station a lone act of terrorism by a single radicalized individual or part of a larger terrorist cell? It’s one of the questions immediately raised upon learning that the gunman in the attack last Friday, Mohammed Alshamrani, was a 2nd Lt. in the Royal Saudi Air Force stationed at the base under a joint US-Saudi training program. And the more we’re learning, the more it’s looking like radicalized cell. For starters, we’ve learned that the gunman reportedly hosted a dinner party last week where he and three other Saudi students at the base watched videos of mass shootings. But we’re also learning that one Saudi student actually filmed the outside of the building where the attack was taking place two other Saudi students watched from a car. So the gunman has a mass shooting video viewing party and then they go out and create their own mass shooting video. That’s a pretty big clue right there.
Not surprisingly, we’re also learning that a twitter account in the same name as the gunman tweeted out shortly before the shooting that the US was a nation of evil over its support of Israel. There were three messages on the account shortly before the shooting, including one that quoted Osama bin Laden. So the gunman has clear signs of jihadist radicalization and at least three other Saudi students training at the base also appear to have been aware of the plot and even filmed it. And we’re also told that some of the Saudi students are missing and unaccounted for. That sounds like an ongoing terrorist threat.
Ok, first, here’s an article describing how the gunman and three others had a dinner party where they watched videos of mass shootings earlier last week and one of the three students who attended that dinner later filmed the building when the shootings took place while two others watched from a car. The article also notes that while 10 Saudi students at the base are cooperating with the investigation, several others are unaccounted for:
“The Saudi student who fatally shot three sailors at a U.S. naval base in Florida hosted a dinner party earlier in the week where he and three others watched videos of mass shootings, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Saturday.”
Mass shooter video dinner parties. That’s definitely a ‘if you see something, say something’ kind of situation. But it sounds like the guests of that party took the opposite approach and actually watched and filmed the attack. More ominously, we’re told that several of the Saudi students at the base were unaccounted for as of Saturday, a day after the attack:
Now here’s an article that describes the content found on Mohammed Alshamrani Twitter account shortly before the shooting, calling the US a “nation of evil” for supporting Israel. One of the other three tweets sent out from the account shortly before the attack quoted Osama bin Laden:
“Six other Saudi nationals were detained for questioning near the scene of the shooting, including three who were seen filming the entire incident, according to a person briefed on the initial stages of the investigation. A group that monitors online jihadist activity said that shortly before the shooting, a Twitter account with a name matching the gunman’s posted a “will” calling the United States a “nation of evil” and criticizing its support for Israel.”
Jihadist twitter postings. That’s not a good sign for someone receiving US military training. Especially the posting quoting Osama bin Laden:
So based on everything we know about this story, it’s looking like a terror cell formed within this group of Saudi students. Will those missing students be found before or after they create some new terror videos? We’ll find out.
Also, regarding this part of the article that mentions how many Americans remember the presence of several Saudi nationals among those who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, keep in mind that it was a lot more than just several Saudi nationals. It was 15 of the 19 hijackers who happened to be Saudi nationals:
And then there’s the growing pile of evidence indicating Saudi government and officials and members of the royal family were involved in supporting the hijackers and have subsequently had their involvement effectively covered up. In other words, one of the biggest reason this kind of event can strain the US/Saudi relationship has to do with the memories of how the US government has been aggressively covering up for the Saudi government involvement in the deadliest terror attack in US history and that coverup is still effectively ongoing despite the slow declassification of materials implicating the Saudi government in the attacks. Of course, that same ongoing 9/11 coverup also happens to be an example of why this attack probably won’t really strain the US/Saudi relationship at all.
In light of all of the controversy and deflection over the the recent piece by Bob Woodward in The Atlantic about President Trump’s disparaging remarks towards members of the military — calling them ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’ and question ‘what’s in it for them’ — and since we’re on the eve of the 19 anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it’s probably a good time to recall a little-noticed story from back in May about the 9/11 investigation that members of US military should be keenly interested in. Along with the survivors and family members of the victims of the September 11 attacks:
It turns out the FBI accidentally revealed the identity of one of the Saudi government officials long-suspected coordinating Saudi government assistance for the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the US. The identified person was Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, a mid-level Saudi Foreign Ministry official who was assigned to the Saudi Embassy in DC in 1999–2000. According to Catherine Hunt, a former FBI agent now working for the 9/11 victim families, Jarrah “was responsible for the placement of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees known as guides and propagators posted to the United States, including Fahad Al Thumairy.” Recall how Thumairy — also then an employe of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs — allegedly worked with Omar al-Bayoumi — a Saudi living in San Diego — with assisting two of the 9/11 hijackers in San Diego.
So how was Jarrah’s name released? A redacted copy of a three-and-a-half page October 2012 FBI “update” about its 9/11 investigation stated that FBI agents had uncovered “evidence” that Thumairy and Bayoumi had been “tasked” to assist the hijackers by a third individual whose name was blacked out. The lawyers for the 9/11 victims’ families refer to this person as “the third man” in what they argue is a Saudi-orchestrated conspiracy. Jarrah was accidentally revealed to be “the third man” by an FBI filing this year. His name was blacked out in all instances but one in the FBI filing.
Ironically, the FBI document identifying Jarrah was intended to support recent filings by Attorney General William Barr and then-acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell barring the public release of the Saudi official’s name and all related documents, concluding they are “state secrets” that, if disclosed, could cause “significant harm to the national security.” Yep, the accidental release of Jarrah’s name was in filing intended to defend the Trump administration not releasing his name.
Interestingly, the events that led to this accidental release were started when Trump met with representatives of the 9/11 families last September 11. During that meeting the families expressed their frustration in getting the government to release the name of “the third man” that families have long suspected of being a crucial missing link in establishing Saudi government involvement in orchestrating the attacks. Trump apparently became very receptive to their appeals when they pointed out that former FBI directors Robert Mueller and James Comey had both opposed releasing this information. Trump pledged to help the families get that information and, sure enough, the next day the families were given Jarrah’s name. But they were given the name on one condition: it can never be publicly revealed. On that same day, Bill Barr filed his first motion with the court declaring all the material being sought by the families as “state secrets” that could not be shared. As the spokesperson for the 9/11 victims families put it, “We felt we had been stabbed in the back”:
“Ironically, the declaration identifying the Saudi official in question was intended to support recent filings by Attorney General William Barr and acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell barring the public release of the Saudi official’s name and all related documents, concluding they are “state secrets” that, if disclosed, could cause “significant harm to the national security.””
If the US government reveals the identities of the people who played a role in orchestrating the 9/11 attacks it could cause “significant harm to the national security.” That’s long been the US government position on these matters and it hasn’t changed at all under the Trump administration:
And yet despite years of obstruction the evidence of a Saudi government role in orchestrating the attacks just keeps growing, thanks in part to mistakes like the FBI just made:
And this story is from back in May. Has anything been done in this matter in the four months since this report? Of course not. The only response by the FBI was to refile the document with the missing redaction added back in. And all indications are that this is going to continue to be the US government stance going forward, where any disclosure of this substantial case of Saudi government in 9/11 is treated as a national security threat. It’s getting so absurd it raises the question of whether or not the leverage the Saudi government has in this situation includes information about the US government’s own awareness/involvement in the attacks that the Saudis are threatening to release if their own role is ever revealed. Or rather, officially revealed. Do the Saudis possess the kind of information that could destroy the public’s trust in the US government? If so, that would explain how releasing any information about Saudi involvement could be a national security threat.
So that’s all something to keep in mind as the story of Trump call soldiers “suckers” and “losers” continues to make headlines. Oh, and remember that still unresolved story of the Saudi/UAE offers to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election? And remember how there was almost real interest in investigation these allegations, as if there was a strong desire to never learn or acknowledge Saudi/UAE interference in the US elections? Maybe now would be a good time to revisit that story too.