Bush's Saudi Connections - a crucial issue in 2004

[Q]

Bush's Saudi Connections
And why this is a crucial issue in 2004
By Michael Steinberger
Issue Date: 10.1.03

Saudi Arabia is the wellspring of radical Islam, its primary source of sustenance and inspiration. Yet, since September 11, the Bush administration has consistently ducked the truth about Riyadh's role in nurturing terrorism -- and concealed the truth as well. Given the many business and personal ties binding the president, his family and his associates to the House of Saud, George W. Bush's see-no-evildoer attitude toward the Saudis is a vulnerability just begging to be exploited by the Democrats. And they need to do so if they hope to recapture the presidency next year.

Unfortunately, apart from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been blasting the administration for months over its pusillanimous Saudi policy, the Democrats appear largely oblivious to the opportunity staring them in the eye. True, several Democratic presidential hopefuls, notably Howard Dean, have recently begun to include Saudi Arabia in their bill of particulars against Bush, but the criticism has been episodic and rather tepid.

The Democrats are instead pinning their hopes on the economy. They really seem to think it's 1992 redux, and that now, as then, rising unemployment will prove to be the Bush-beater and their ticket back to the White House. However, with the amount of stimulus in the pipeline, the economy may not be all that weak a year down the road. And even if it is, the Democrats will not be able to send this Bush packing merely by howling about the number of jobs lost on his watch.

September 11 changed American politics. Voters care about foreign policy in a way that they haven't in a long while. The Democrats had little to say about terrorism and national security during last year's midterm elections, and they paid dearly at the polls as a result. Karl Rove plainly intends to wrap the president's re-election bid in the black crape of 9-11, and unless the Democrats can convince the public that they can be trusted with homeland defense, they are almost surely headed for defeat. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Saudi issue gives them a chance to demonstrate their mettle -- at Bush's expense. --- Continues: http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/9/steinberger-m.html

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- The Dems MUST push this issue...while demanding public hearings/investigations into the Bush/Saudi connections that directly influence his foreign policy. This in turn will lead to a renewed demand for a full investigation into the events surrounding 9-11.

[Girlfriday]

1. They can demand public hearings now until.....

.....doomsday, but the Repugs are in charge and won't let it happen.

[Q]

3. Not true. The minority can hold hearings on any matter...

...even if the GOPers don't show up. They can also hire investigators and push for public hearings...essentially what the 'minority' Repubicans did from the beginning of Clinton's first term in office.

- The Saudi Connection is already out there...all the Dems need to do is make it an 'issue'. This is something the opposition would do in a heartbeat if they had the opportunity. The Bushies are directly connected to the Saudi royal family...and flew family members out of the country before anyone noticed. The Bush family has business ties with the Saudis...and in the past have arranged financing for George's business ventures.

- This is a roundabout way of getting to the red meat of 9-11 and the PNAC agenda.

[Girlfriday]

5. Don't forget...

...they used the "special prosecutor statute" to go after Clinton; much different. Shrub made sure that staute was allowed to die. As for hearings, without media to cover them except C-Span who will know. Look, that asshole Klayman and his bunch have gone to court how many times to force Cheney to release his records and no go. What's worse no one gives a damn! I'ts maddening.

[AndyTiedye]

7. Invisible Hearings

> Not true. The minority can hold hearings on any matter...
> ...even if the GOPers don't show up

But the press won't show up either.

[Q]

8. Sure they will...they've done it in the past...

- Where the Democrats seem to 'fail' is in their followup. They can't just say we'd like hearings please and expect things to happen automatically. They must harp on this every day...begin hearings and feed press releases to the media.

- Such a defeatist attitude. We CAN do it...the people are ready for it.

[Octafish]

2. Bushes and bin Ladens in business since Nixon was a pup.

The Bush-Saudi Connection

By Michelle Mairesse

Ancestral Voices

EXCERPT...

Islamic fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden make their appeals to the nation or community of believers, not to any particular nation state, although the rich and powerful among the Muslims have founded Western-style businesses and formed corporations both inside and outside the boundaries of their native countries. Because Osama himself is a scion of a rich Saudi family with wide-ranging business interests throughout the world, the split Saudi personality is most evident in him and the bin Laden clan. Osama, who calls America "The Great Satan," has done business with the infidel Americans whenever it suited him.

Throughout the eighties, when the United States assisted the Saudis in a giant military buildup of airfields, ports, and bases throughout the kingdom, many of the contracts were awarded to the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Binladen Group, founded by Osama bin Laden’s father.

SNIP...

Jihad

The Wahhabi Taliban in Afghanistan had the blessings of the Saudi royal family and of The Big Three--the bin Laden family, the al Ahmoudi family, and the Mahfouz family--the richest clans in that medieval kingdom. (A C.I.A. official testified to Congress that Khalid bin Mahfouz is bin Laden’s brother-in-law). The desert oligarchs profited from world-wide investments as well as sleazy banking schemes such as the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

Salem bin Laden, Osama’s brother, has conducted all his American affairs through James Bath, a Houston crony of the Bush family. Bath’s former business partner Bill White testified in court that Bath had been a liaison for the C.I.A. In 1979 Bath invested $50,000 in Arbusto, George W. Bush’s first business venture. Rumor had it that Bath was acting as Salem bin Laden’s representative. "In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests." (4)

In addition to doing aviation business with Saudi sheiks, Bath was part owner of a Houston bank whose chief stockholder was Ghaith Pharaon, who represented the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a criminal global bank with branches in 73 countries. BCCI proceeded to defraud depositors of $10 billion during the ‘80s, while providing a money laundry conduit for the Medellin drug cartel, Asia’s major heroin cartel, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and Islamist terrorist organizations worldwide. (5)

CONTINUED...

http://www.hermes-press.com/BushSaud.htm

[Q]

4. Thanks for posting that...

...and let's not forget that Reagan/Bush/Bush* have sold billions of dollars of high tech military equipment to the Saudis. They're one of our best customers.

- There are obvious connections between the Bush family and their cronies, Enron, Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle, hidden presidential papers and Cheney's national energy policies...and the PNAC. And no one on the Right seems to want to talk about why the friend of the family Baker is representing the Saudis against the families of the victims of 9-11.

[pansypoo53219]

6. i believe that was what started

my intense interest in C-span and politics. flippin channels and hitting a debate on sending F-15 or what-nots to saudi Arabia and it was like watching football to me. although socialism was in my blood from the beginning.

[Q]

9. CSPAN is at its best when they follow the debates...

- I remember watching and listening to the great orator Sen. Byrd right before and after the 'decision' to destroy Iraq and their people. He gave every reason in the world NOT to do it...but the false patriots outnumbered him at the time.

- Democrats NEED an issue to rally around. What better issue than that of the Bushies making secret deals under the table with the Saudis and protecting them against prosecution?

[Octafish]

11. It's like "Why rob banks?" Answer: "It's where the money is."

The Bush Organized Crime Family goes after the loot. They've been picking the pockets of their rich (and tyrannical) Middle East friends for decades — seemingly since the late 1940s. Using oil money, they have benefited the wealthiest of the wealthy to the detriment of the general population in those countries, creating the breeding grounds for global terror. At home, Red Ink Reagan and both Budget Busting Bushes managed to change the tax code and fiscal policy to engineer the greatest transfers of wealth in the world's history from the middle class to the elite for which they stooge. Plain and simple: They ARE crooks.

[Octafish]

16. It's like Willie Sutton said about robbing banks:

"That's where the money is."

Remember after VP Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace for taking kickbacks? The guy got a job in Saudi Arabia. Doing what? I don't know, but it sure must've beat taking kickbacks and being Nixon's attack dog.

There was a LOT of money to be made in Iraq, too:

EXCERPT…

ARMING SADDAM

… Still, when Saddam went to war against Iran, becoming the world's chief practitioner of chemical warfare, U.S. realpolitikers dubbed him the lesser of two evils, and the one less likely to disrupt the oil flow. The essence of Iraqgate is that secret efforts to support him became the order of the day, both during his long war with Iran and afterward.

Much of what Saddam received from the West was not arms per se, but so-called dual-use technology -- ultra sophisticated computers, armored ambulances, helicopters, chemicals, and the like, with potential civilian uses as well as military applications. We've learned by now that a vast network of companies, based in the U.S. and abroad, eagerly fed the Iraqi war machine right up until August 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

And we've learned that the obscure Atlanta branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, relying partially on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $ 5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. Some government-backed loans were supposed to be for agricultural purposes, but were used to facilitate the purchase of stronger stuff than wheat. Federal Reserve and Agriculture department memos warned of suspected abuses by Iraq, which apparently took advantage of the loans to free up funds for munitions. U.S. taxpayers have been left holding the bag for what looks like $ 2 billion in defaulted loans to Iraq.

All of this was not yet clear in August 1989, when FBI agents raided U.S. branches of BNL, hitting the jackpot in Atlanta. The branch manager in that city, Christopher Drogoul, was charged with making unauthorized, clandestine, and illegal loans to Iraq -- some of which, according to the indictment, were used to purchase arms and weapons technology. Yet three months after the raid, White House officials went right on backing Saddam, approving $ 1 billion more in U.S. government loan guarantees for farm exports to Iraq, even though it was becoming clear that the country was beating plowshares into swords.

MORE…

http://www.cjr.org/year/93/2/iraqgate.asp

[eridani]

17. Nice reference

Here is my collection

http://www.upsizethis.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=41037

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

10. Bush's Binladen business partners suckered him

911 was the result, the Binladens and Saudis knew that Bush was too compromised to do anything - has Saudi Arabia had the Bush's in their pockets since the beginning? Why did Bush allow the Binladen brother who were financing terrorism out of the country the day after 911 anyway?

Now we have Russia working with Iran and probably Saudi Arabia soon on nuclear weapons, and we've been kicked out of Saudi Arabia just like Binladen wanted. Bush *really* screwed us, and I don't just mean a bad economy either - he has seriously compromised our national security.

[Nottingham]

12. I do feel this is Bush's achilles heel

:bounce:

[Q]

13. A side note:

- I find it interesting...and more than a bit disturbing...that DUers are discussing 'which candidate can win' and ignoring how they stand on the issues.

- This could be a result of the ABB (anyone but Bush*) syndrome where many don't give a shit where the candidate stands on the issues as long as they have a 'chance' of winning.

- The Dems have issues right at their fingertips that could weaken Bush* to the point of unelectability. (is that a word?) But time and again they pass these issues by as if they're unimportant or too bothersome to even discuss.

[Octafish]

14. ONE candidate understands this stuff backwards and forwards.

In fact, John Kerry is the one who's helped us uncover much of this treason and all manner of criminality associated with the Bush Organized Crime Family. That's also why I defend Kerry so vocally whenever I see him get negatively labeled by his political enemies. It seems lots of DUers have no idea Kerry will clobber the BFEE. Here's background why and how:


Posted on The Catbird's Seat web site section on BCCI:

From The Outlaw Bank: BCCI, by Jonathan Beaty & S.C. Gwynne:

THE BIG SLEEP

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the BCCI affair in the United States was the failure of U.S. government and federal law enforcement to move against the outlaw bank. Instead of swift retribution, what took place over more than a decade was a cover-up of major, alarming proportions, often orchestrated from the very highest levels of government. When the Justice Department finally moved decisively against BCCI in late 1991, it did so reluctantly, with both Robert Morgenthau and the national press corps breathing down its neck.

The government knew a great deal about BCCI's criminality and knew it from a wide variety of sources. Though the public did not hear about its transgressions until later, BCCI had long been graven into the annals of U.S. law enforcement, intelligence, national security, and diplomacy. Authentic, unambiguous information about the bank's money laundering, weapons dealing, nuclear proliferation, terrorist accounts, and other crimes had reached the State Department, the Justice Department, the Treasury, the CIA, and even the White House's National Security Council years before. The detail of information was exceptional, the failure to follow up on it baffling.

U.S. officialdom had known for years just exactly how bad the bank was, and even that it secretly owned First American Bank...

What finally busted the logjam was not the government but the prodigious buildup of information on BCCI from sources outside federal law enforcement: from Morgentahau, from Blum, from Kerry's maverick subcommittee, from current and former BCCI employees around the world, from sources in the intelligence and weapons communities....

CONTINUED...

http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/BCCI.htm

[Q]

15. Good information...

...which brings up a point. We should be LISTENING to the candidates and trying to understand where they stand...not prematurely 'choosing' them in the dark.