Bush's Saudi Connections, a CRUCIAL issue in 2004

[EastofEdon]

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

Volume 14, Issue 9.   October 1, 2003.

Bush's Saudi Connections
And why this is a crucial issue in 2004

Michael Steinberger

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.
<snip>

[EastofEdon]

1. don't die yet little thread!

worth a read

[calimary]

5. well, then, let's kick it a little...

[FauxNewsBlues]

13. Kick it

Dano. I have always wanted to say that.

[lcordero]

2. Saudi Arabia is a pretty convenient scapegoat

There is not so much of a stitch of proof that they did anything in the first place.

Anybody that tries to push this bullshit is showing their true hawkish colors.

As for Schumer, I will be voting against him in hopes that I can see a REAL Democrat in his seat in 2010.

[EastofEdon]

14. strange

take, bringing attention to the Bush/Saudi connections is hawkish? Somehow,I don't get it.

[EastofEdon]

15. not a big Shumer fan

but I'm glad he has spoken out about this. Why should the Bush/Saudi connections be exempt from examination?

[bpilgrim]

16. i'd say iraq is a better example...

since there are MANY KNOW saudi connections to 911 and many well known connections to this admin.

peace

[G_j]

3. Secret Saudi Flight on 9-13 Could be the Key

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/The_secret_saudi_052703.htm

The Secret Saudi Flight on 9-13 Could be the Key to the Bush-Saudi-Al Qaeda Connection
By Catherine Arnie

About a month after the September 11th attacks, I read an article in the Tampa Tribune by Kathy Steele entitled "Phantom Flight From Florida." The intriguing report told the tale of a flight out of Florida that allegedly took place on September 13 - a day when ALL civilian air traffic in the United States was grounded.

"This was out of a Tom Clancy movie," according to a retired homicide detective who was hired for the flight. Its mission was to spirit the son of a Saudi prince, the son of a Saudi army commander, and another unidentified Saudi from Florida to Kentucky, because "there was a perceived threat, and the family of the person wanted him home right away."

The "person" in danger was the son of Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, who is no minor figure in the Saudi Royal family. Rather, Prince Sultan is the kingdom's minister of defense, the third-ranking position in the Saudi Government, whose powers exceed those of even America's super-powerful Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
...more..

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. This is important and is a key to what is happening

I know that one reason, maybe the only reason, Saudi Arabia has been treated so gently: OIL.

[calimary]

6. I just printed out a copy of this.

From the money trail to the coverup for letting all those Saudis flee the country when our airspace was closed - hey, MY MOTHER was stranded in Kansas City for an extra week before she could get a flight home. Her original return flight was on September 11th.

[Kamika]

7. freepers doesnt care about this

I tried bring it up abit in debates, they either shrug it off or they just say its good we "use" the saudis to get cheap oil aslong as we can.. or they say the saudis would never dare do anything since they rely on us for money

[G_j]

8. and they know

the 9-11 hijackers were all from Iraq. :shrug:

[MasonJar]

9. Michael Moore

Isn't Michael Moore doing a movie on this subject, which is due for release before the election?

[Octafish]

11. Fahrenheit 911

The temperature at which Democracy burns.

[TomNickell]

10. Dems, or somebody,

Should have raised holy hell about this issue on 9/14.

Part of the general code of silence that prevailed after 9/11.

[oasis]

12. Saudi/Bush connection should be front and center in the 2004 campaign.

[BeFree]

17. Front and Center

This question should be asked of the Dems running now: " What financial/business dealings have you or your family had with Saudi Arabia".

As each candidate details their dealings with SA, it will bring to light the immensity of the Bush family's financial/business ties to Saudi Arabia.

Note: Maybe the recent moves by SA to distance itself from the US is nothing more than giving Bush some cover? IMO SA is a large part of the BFEE. (Bush Family Evil Empire). And would never do anything to hurt it's puppets.

[EastofEdon]

18. this article may be of interest

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/nj/powers2003-09-16.htm

Bubble, Bubble

The Saudi tale—and lots of other emerging stories—could give the Bushies real trouble.

by William Powers

<snip>
The most intriguing items are a couple of nebulous 9/11 tales clearly timed to coincide with this week's anniversary. (This itself is evidence of the media sea change that's happened since a year ago, when the terrorist attacks were still a recent memory and it was culturally incorrect to be gunning for the commander-in-chief.) One, a Vanity Fair piece by Craig Unger, breathes new life into an old story about how, in the days immediately after 9/11, more than 100 elite Saudis, including members of the bin Laden clan, were, as the magazine puts it, "whisked out of the U.S. on private jets. No one will admit to clearing the flights, and the passengers weren't questioned. Did the Bush family's long relationship with the Saudis help make it happen?"

The story doesn't definitively answer that question. What it does do is dramatically raise the temperature around this touchy issue, with enough suggestive material to make any reasonably curious soul want to know more. There are no fewer than four photos of the president or his father spending time with members of the Saudi royal family, and the text is studded with emphatic reminders of their cozy relationship, such as: "The Bush family and the House of Saud, the two most powerful dynasties in the world, have had close personal, business, and political ties for more than 20 years."

The piece has piquant quotes on the mysterious flights by former National Security Council official Richard Clarke, and it also gives the story an indignant populist spin. "Only a few days earlier," Unger writes, "some planes, such as the one carrying a heart to be transplanted to a deathly ill cardiac patient in Olympia, Washington, had been forced down in midflight."

In picking up the VF story, some other news outlets echoed this theme. Here, for example, is the New York Daily News: "If his name was Mike bin Laden, he could have been among the 140 prominent Saudis the White House allowed to fly home from cities across America immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center. But he was just Mike Brown, a former New York City firefighter turned Las Vegas emergency room doctor whose brother had last been seen leading Ladder 3 into the north tower."

<snip>

[EastofEdon]

19. kick

:kick: