Posner: Why protect the Saudi royal family and Pakistani military?

[seafan]

This was in last week's Miami Herald. Have these details been reported previously? If not, it is devastating.

All I can think of reading this is what Senator Bob Graham tried so diligently to tell everyone who would listen to him, standing on the Senate floor with a copy of the blacked-out portions of the 28-page Senate Intelligence Committee Report. Evidence of foreign government involvement in the 9-11 attacks... he spoke of this. The information below stands an excellent chance of being beneath the black ink of that report in Senator Graham's hand.


http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15466236.htm">Why protect the Saudi royal family and Pakistani military?

BY GERALD POSNER
Fri, Sep. 08, 2006

On Wednesday, President Bush admitted officially for the first time that the CIA held some foreign terror suspects abroad. In his remarks, he spoke about Abu Zubaydah, whom I discussed at length in Chapter 19, ''The Interrogation,'' of my 2003 book, Why America Slept.
Bush acknowledged some of the information I disclosed, that Zubaydah was wounded when captured, that he did not initially cooperate with his interrogators and that eventually when he did talk, his information was, according to Bush, ``quite important.''

snip

But Bush did not mention what I had disclosed -- that Zubaydah had also named three Saudi princes -- one of whom was the king's nephew -- and the chief of Pakistan's air force, as his chief contacts in those two countries. Moreover, Zubaydah told American investigators that two of those he named -- and for which he provided their private telephone numbers -- had advance knowledge about the 9/11 attacks.

It would be nice to pursue the investigation of these men, but all four named by Zubaydah are now dead. As for the three Saudi princes:

• The king's 43-year-old nephew, Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, died of either a heart attack or blood clot, depending on which report you believe.
• The second, 41-year-old Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, died the following day in a one-car accident.
• And the third Saudi prince named by Zubaydah, 25-year-old Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, died, according to the Saudi Royal Court, ``of thirst.''

The head of Pakistan's Air Force, Mushaf Ali Mir, died together with his wife and fifteen of his top aides when his plane blew up -- suspected as sabotage -- in February 2003.

Bush did not refer to any of this in his comments. Not surprising, since the 9/11 Commission did not mention the dead men named by Zubaydah.

snip

Why does Bush, and the CIA, continue to protect the Saudi royal family and the Pakistani military, from the implications of Zubaydah's confessions? It is, or course, because the Bush administration desperately needs Pakistani and Saudi help, not only to keep Afghanistan from spinning completely out of control, but also as counterweights to the growing power of Iran.

snip

[welshTerrier2]

1. from Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine":

i'm currently reading "The One Percent Doctrine" ... this is from Page 105:

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the fitful love-hate relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia remained, arguably, the planet's key diplomatic dialogue. The United States depends on Saudi Arabia for 15 percent of its oil imports and, since a meeting between King Ibn Saud and Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, has been locked in a bargain that would make Faust wince: We'll protect you, Saudi royal family, as long as the oil flows ... and do whatever the hell you want with the billions.

It is an arrangement that has unfolded into a sort of global stage play, with dizzying plot twists. The Saudi family managed its way to entrenched power by combining limitless riches with an embrace of Islamic fundamentalism, a devil's pact of their own. Over the past forty years, they have channeled an increasing share of their oil proceeds to radical clerics in Saudi Arabia (along with imams in other Arab countries and a few in Southeast Asia) to build and lead vast religious fiefs of soaring, ornate mosques and schools and child armies trained for a life of fierce faith. Those Saudi clerics, in a mendacious bargain - the third of this triptych - have supported the Saudis as guardians of the Holy Sites, Mecca and Medina, and looked the other way as the royal family - now about 25,000 strong - repressed opponents and explored new heights of modern-age consumption, with Gulfstreams, golden palaces, and graduate school degrees.

This strange round rosy of Western oil gluttons, Saudi princes, and angry imams was managed, with utmost attentiveness, by a succession of modern American presidents.

[AntiFascist]

4. There is another element to all this....

and it has been bugging me for quite a while. It has to do with our old conflict against the Soviets, and the anti-Communist efforts of which, at one time, we were allied with Osama bin Ladin.

The President of Iran has been meeting with Hugo Chavez, leftist president of Venezuela, and Iran is often accused of being allied with communist North Korea, in the "axis of evil." Around 9-11-01 I had been involved with a forum very similar to DU, but with a much more capitalistic bias. I recall one poster, who was very much up to speed on current world events, pointing out that the greatest threat in the Middle East was that of creeping socialism. I wonder if the greatest threat to Bushco would be if the Royals were to lose control, major oil fields became nationalized (as threatened to happen in Iran in the 1940s) and major oil monopolies and other global corporate entities lost control and became marginalized? Would the War on Terror be as defensible if this were really the case?

[welshTerrier2]

5. the debate we never seem to have ...

if you're interested, check out these two posts from my journal ... not exactly a popular topic on DU ... don't ask me why ...

here are the links:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/welshTerrier2/92
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/welshTerrier2/96

the basic idea of both threads and the articles they link to is that for a very long time, the US, in support of Big Oil, has been ruthless in controlling the oil markets ... we do this through numerous mechanisms including protection rackets (e.g. Saudi Arabia), assassination (Mossadeq in Iran and many others), toppling sovereign, democratically elected governments (Chavez in 2002) etc ... what these posts try to demonstrate is that emerging economies, like China, have chosen a much more "cooperative" path and are likely to be far more effective than the US ... it could make it close to impossible for the US to meet its oil needs without a blatant invasion of oil producing countries ...

what's also not clear to me is whether the American people, and the Democratic Party, would support such actions ... we like to believe we have the "right values" and would do the right thing; it's not clear at all, at least to me, what we, as a nation, would condone if the situation becomes more critical ...

we have become a nation of junkies hooked on cheap oil ... we will not let go of our cars until they are pried from our cold, dead fingers ... we think, for some reason, that we are "entitled" to a greater share of the planet's resources ... truly, we are a screwed up people and we will pay dearly for our greed and stupidity ... what is today cannot, and will not, continue ...

the national discussion we need to have is about how to make the transition from uncontested empire to good global citizen ... but that means sacrifice ... it means loss ... it means change ...

cowardly politicians, who are badly failing to lead this country away from the precipice, refuse to even discuss this issue ... at a time when real leadership is so desperately needed, we get delicate nudges about alternative energy and "getting off of foreign oil" in 10 and 20 and 50 years ... all good ideas to be sure ... we cannot wait to make RADICAL CHANGES ... our situation is far more desperate than we are being told ...

we are bankrupting our treasury; we are in a perpetual war to sustain our addiction; we are putting our future and the future of coming generations in the deepest peril ... and even drop-in-the-bucket ideas like CAFE standards receive no support ... and Americans, in their blindness, go out and celebrate our "bigger and better than thou" American spirit by clogging our highways with SUV's ... can we not see that we are digging our own graves ???

[AntiFascist]

7. Thanks for the links, I'll check them out....

this also brings to mind much of the work of Greg Palast:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&geopolitics_and_9/11=saudis

Isn't Exxon currently trying to get him put behind bars?

[scarletwoman]

2. I remember when those Saudi princes seemed to dropping like flies...

It seemed obvious to me that they were being purposely eliminated, but I couldn't figure out why.

I don't particularily remember the news about the blown up plane of Pakistan's Air Force head & family, but there's rarely a fatal airplane incident involving political figures that doesn't arouse my suspicions.

I'm glad to see these particular dots connected, it makes lots of sense. Thanks for posting this.

k & r
sw

[Old and In the Way]

3. Isn't Posner the Kennedy Conspiracy debunker?

Another important puzzle part of 9/11 that the Commission didn't want to pursue.

[pretzel4gore]

8. yep, he's the guy...

recently reading retired fbi rat james hosty's doorstopper (assignment: Oswald) {blame oswald, more like it!} and he mentioned the regional commander(?) of the secret service was a member of the john birch society(!) and 'loathed' president kennedy! i nearly fell off my chair reading that! hosty, who said he always voted democrat and said he was a 'kennedy voter' was an fbi agent, and ....well the guy's a bald faced liar - and i only skimmed the first couple chapters to deduce that! gerald posner was part of the jfk late stage psyche ops (peter jenning also helped) a few years ago which stated that oswald was the only shooter: the scam seems to be that, regardless of any obnoxious facts, the pig could say 'case closed' regards the murder and that was that! you don't like it, then you can go ..blah blah....i imagine the same trick will be used to close off any talk about 911, and posner will be available to sell that snake oil (jennings won't, lucifer reeled him in hehehe:))

[teryang]

6. because bushco and the CIA is involved

it's what they do.

[AZBlue]

9. If they don't protect them, they'll spill the truth about the Bushes.

Can't have that!