The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties

[scottxyz]

Looks like we're gonna have another blockbuster on our hands: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger hitting bookstores this Tuesday, March 16.

House of Bush, House of Saud:
The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties
by Craig Unger

Newsbreaking and controversial -- an award-winning investigative journalist uncovers the thirty-year relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud and explains its impact on American foreign policy, business, and national security.

House of Bush, House of Saud begins with a politically explosive question: How is it that two days after 9/11, when U.S. air traffic was tightly restricted, 140 Saudis, many immediate kin to Osama Bin Laden, were permitted to leave the country without being questioned by U.S. intelligence?

The answer lies in a hidden relationship that began in the 1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud began courting American politicians in a bid for military protection, influence, and investment opportunity. With the Bush family, the Saudis hit a gusher -- direct access to presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. To trace the amazing weave of Saud-Bush connections, Unger interviewed three former directors of the CIA, top Saudi and Israeli intelligence officials, and more than one hundred other sources.His access to major players is unparalleled and often exclusive -- including executives at the Carlyle Group, the giant investment firm where the House of Bush and the House of Saud each has a major stake.

Like Bob Woodward's The Veil, Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud features unprecedented reportage; like Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? Unger's book offers a political counter-narrative to official explanations; this deeply sourced account has already been cited by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, and sets 9/11, the two Gulf Wars, and the ongoing Middle East crisis in a new context: What really happened when America's most powerful political family became seduced by its Saudi counterparts?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074325337X/104-7316324-1040752?v=glance


"Secret airlift authorized by the Bush White House"
Immediately after 9/11, dozens of Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family fled the U.S. in a secret airlift authorized by the Bush White House. One passenger was an alleged al-Qaida go-between, who may have known about the terror attacks in advance.


"He was my brother."
According to the same source, a young female member of the bin Laden family was the sole passenger on the first leg of the flight, from Los Angeles to Orlando. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, boarding any airplane was cause for anxiety. But now that the name Osama bin Laden had become synonymous with mass murder, boarding a plane with his family members was another story entirely. To avoid unnecessary dramas, the flight's operators made certain that the cockpit crew was briefed about who the passengers were -- the bin Ladens -- and the highly sensitive nature of their mission. However, they neglected to brief the flight attendants.

On the flight from Los Angeles, the bin Laden girl began talking to an attendant about the horrid events of 9/11.

"I feel so bad about it," she said.

"Well, it's not your fault," replied the attendant, who had no idea who the passenger really was.

"Yeah," said the passenger. "But he was my brother."

"The flight attendant just lost it," the source said.


The buying of a US President - to the tune of $1.4 billion
How much money has flowed from the House of Saud to the Bush family and its friends and allies over the years? No one will ever know -- but the number is at least $1.477 billion.


Millions of dollars in "donations" just to Bush charities
In charitable contributions alone, the Saudis gave at least $3.5 million to Bush charities -- $1 million by Prince Bandar to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, $1 million by King Fahd to Barbara Bush's campaign against illiteracy, $500,000 by Prince Al Waleed to Philips Academy, Andover, to finance a newly created George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, and a $1 million painting from Prince Bandar to George W. Bush's White House.


Bush-Harken makes Martha look like small potatoes
In 1987, a Swiss bank linked to BCCI and a Saudi investor bailed out Harken Energy, where George W. Bush was a director, with $25 million in financing.


A loyal vassal to the Saudis
Never before in history had a presidential candidate -- much less a presidential candidate and his father, a former president -- been so closely tied financially and personally to the ruling family of another foreign power.

from http://www.salon.com


Coming Monday at http://www.salon.com
"The Arabian Candidate": How George W. Bush sought and won the support of Saudi-backed Muslim-American lobbying groups, who ultimately provided his Florida margin of victory.

[scottxyz]

1. More here:

Saudis still funding al-Qaida; not cooperating with FBI and CIA
Since 9-11, the Saudis have been an obstacle, not an ally, in the battle against Islamic terrorism. Sure, they've muzzled a few firebrand clerics and rounded up some lumpen Islamicists. But they've shown little inclination to stanch the flow of money from so-called charity organizations to al-Qaeda and other militant groups, and they've kept cooperation with the FBI and the CIA to a minimum.

...

Bush has protected the Saudis at every juncture
John O'Neill, the sadly prescient FBI counterterrorism expert who perished in the World Trade Center attack, understood long before 9-11 that the problem of "Islamofacism" was chiefly a Saudi one. "All the answers," he said, "everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia." But that's only if you're willing to look, which Bush clearly is not. Indeed, he has protected the Saudis at every juncture.

Bush overruled FBI and let the Bin Ladens flee the country on 9/12 and 9/13 - while our airspace was still closed to the rest of us
The pattern was established within hours of the atrocities in New York and Washington, when Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador (long known as Bandar Bush because of his coziness with the first family), was permitted to spirit members of the bin Laden clan out of the United States before the FBI could properly interview them. Since then, the Department of Justice has impeded the lawsuit filed against the Saudi regime by the September 11 families; the White House blacked out the portions of a congressional report that detailed the Saudi role in 9-11, and everyone from the president on down has steadfastly insisted that the Saudis are paid-up members of the anti-terrorism posse.

Bush's actions speak louder than his words
Bush can spew all the frontier rhetoric he wishes, but in the case of the Saudis, his inaction speaks louder. Why he would rather undermine the war on terrorism than confront Riyadh is an interesting question...

http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/9/steinberger-m.html

[scottxyz]

2. Bush under attack by a barrage of books

"In the first half of 2004, major commercial publishers will publish at least 25 books critical of Bush."

Lots to choose from.

Click here for a list:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2004-02-16-bush-books_x.htm

[scottxyz]

3. House of Bush and House of Saud - both on the verge of collapse?

Face it - when they have to start resorting to censorship (Clear Channel, the new $500,000 fines on anti-Bush "shock jocks"), illegal surveillance and lockups (Patriot Act, Guantanamo), rigged voting macines (Diebold "vapor" ballots), and fag-baiting - they're losing their touch.

The best way to keep a population under control is SUBTLY, with a velvet glove. And BushCo has been anything but subtle lately as their dynasty slowly spins out of control. These guys don't play DE-fense very well - and that's the game we're starting to force them to play now. They'll try to deny it - but the House of Bush is on the run now.

Here's Middle East expert and 21-year CIA veteran Robert Baer speculating that the House of Saud AND the House of Bush area BOTH in danger of collapsing:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=house+saud+bush&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&edition=us&selm=l.1054606052.1244476318%40adsl-068-017-103-248.sip.gsp.bellsouth.net&rnum=2

"Saudi oil is controlled by an increasingly bankrupt, criminal, dysfunctional, and out-of-touch royal family that is hated by the people it rules and by the nations that surround its kingdom."

"Signs of impending disaster are everywhere, but the House of Saud has chosen to pray that the moment of reckoning will not come soon -- and the United States has chosen to look away. So nothing changes: the royal family continues to exhaust the Saudi treasury, buying more and more arms and funneling more and more 'charity' money to the jihadists, all in a desperate and self-destructive effort to protect itself."

Hmm... sound familiar?

[RedEagle]

4. Connect the Dots

Kick!

[nolabels]

5. The people on the other side of the globe are watching the spin

This is quite Humorous just on the face of it. (I wonder if anybody at STARS and STRIPES is feeling jilted :D)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FC13Ak02.html
Iraq: Washington spinning out of control
By Ritt Goldstein
(snip) (near the bottom)
After the Zarqawi/al-Qaeda bombshell, the conference moved on quickly until a journalist noted: "That's the first time I've heard characterized as top al-Qaeda leadership. He's always been characterized to me as a freelancer, as tied to al-Qaeda, as a part of Ansar al Islam, but never directly in the top 10-15 of al-Qaeda." Trapped, Rodriguez replied: "Well, the - that's - you're probably right. When I said that I probably didn't say that exactly correctly, okay?"

The Pentagon has explained the need for a news service of its own as emanating from "increasingly combative" media that fail to "get out the message".

Both the general and DiRita subsequently pursued obscuring the revealed misinformation under a broader, al-Qaeda-related smokescreen.?But the episode does serve extremely well again to illustrate the tactics being employed at the highest US levels. And it also shows why the Pentagon's DVIDS news service is attempting to distribute news stories directly to the media, bypassing potentially embarrassing journalistic queries.

DVIDS stands for Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System, and it was created to target smaller and mid-size media outlets that can't afford their own correspondent in Iraq or Afghanistan, the two areas coverage is planned to focus upon. DVIDS was acknowledged as created to place "positive" stories, and minimize the impact of "catastrophic events" - in effect, to propagandize.

While the future of DVIDS isn't yet completely clear, Mac McKerral, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, has been quoted as observing: "This is the kind of news that people get in countries where the government controls the media."
(snip)

[UTUSN]

6. Kick n/t

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Excellent info...needs to stay near the top of the board.