Mark Mazzetti (with Jennifer Steinhauer contributing)
writing in the NYT
* * *
* FOLKS... THIS IS AN IMPORTANT TOPIC AND I BELIEVE ONE
WHICH IS NOT AS SIMPLE A BLACK AND WHITE ISSUE AS SOME WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE.
SO... READ... PONDER... AND COMMENT AS YOU SEE FIT.
Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and
members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’
worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that
would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for
any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
* FIRST COMMENT: WASN'T SEPTEMBER 11, 2001... SEPTEMBER
11, 2001? (MEANING... ALMOST 15 YEARS AGO.)
* NO. OBVIOUSLY I'M NEITHER MAKING LIGHT OF 9/11 NOR
TRYING TO BE A WISEASS; MY POINT IS SIMPLY THAT SHOULDN'T WE BE FAR MORE
CONCERNED WITH HOLDING OUR OWN OFFICIALS RESPONSIBLE IF THEY BLOCKED REAL-TIME
"JUSTICE" BACK IN 2001 AND 2002?
* IN OTHER WORDS... RATHER THAN REACTING "THOSE DAMN
SAUDIS," SHOULDN'T WE BE REACTING "THAT DAMN BUSH"?
The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block
the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional
aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense
discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State
Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic
and economic fallout from the legislation.
* WHY NOW...??? I MEAN... FOLKS... BUSH WAS PRESIDENT ON
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. CONGRESS - BOTH HOUSES - WERE CONTROLLED BY REPUBLICANS IN
2001... AND 2002... 2003... 2004... 2005... 2006...
(*SHRUG*)
* YOU'RE FOLLOWING ME HERE - RIGHT? WHAT I'M SAYING IS...
IF THE SAUDIS - SOME CABAL WITHIN THEIR GOVERNMENT OR "PRIVATE
CITIZENS" WITH GOVERNMENT CONNECTIONS (THROUGH THE ROYAL FAMILY) - WERE "INVOLVED"
IN THE 9/11 ATTACK IN A WAY THAT WOULD MAKE THEM LIABLE FOR CIVIL DAMAGES...
WHAT OF OUR OWN OFFICIALS WHO MUST HAVE KNOWN?
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the
kingdom’s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling
lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in
treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be
in danger of being frozen by American courts.
Several outside economists are skeptical that the Saudis
will follow through, saying that such a sell-off would be difficult to execute
and would end up crippling the kingdom’s economy. But the threat is another
sign of the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The administration, which argues that the legislation
would put Americans at legal risk overseas, has been lobbying so intently
against the bill that some lawmakers and families of Sept. 11 victims are
infuriated. In their view, the Obama administration has consistently sided with
the kingdom and has thwarted their efforts to learn what they believe to be the
truth about the role some Saudi officials played in the terrorist plot.
* AGAIN... I'M CERTAINLY NO FAN OF OBAMA... BUT... WASN'T
GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENT FROM 2001 THRU MID-JANUARY 2009? DIDN'T THE
REPUBLICANS CONTROL CONGRESS DURING 2001... 2002... 2003... 2004... 2005...
2006?
“It’s stunning to think that our government would back
the Saudis over its own citizens,” said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in
the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who is part of a group of victims’
family members pushing for the legislation.
* DOES MS. KLEINBERG HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR... GEORGE W.
BUSH?
(*SHRUG*)
President Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for
meetings with King Salman and other Saudi officials. It is unclear whether the
dispute over the Sept. 11 legislation will be on the agenda for the talks.
(A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy did not respond to a
message seeking comment.)
Saudi officials have long denied that the kingdom had any
role in the Sept. 11 plot, and the 9/11 Commission found “no evidence that the
Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually
funded the organization.”
* YEP. THAT'S WHAT I RECALL.
But critics have noted that the commission’s narrow
wording left open the possibility that less senior officials or parts of the Saudi
government could have played a role.
* AND IF THEY DID... SHOULDN'T GEORGE W. BUSH AND THE
REPUBLICAN CONGRESSES OF 2001 THRU 2006 HAVE KNOWN ABOUT IT?
Suspicions have lingered, partly because of the
conclusions of a 2002 congressional inquiry into the attacks that cited some
evidence that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a
hand in the plot.
Those conclusions, contained in 28 pages of the report,
still have not been released publicly.
* FOLKS... 2002.
(*SHRUG*)
The dispute comes as bipartisan criticism is growing in
Congress about Washington’s alliance with Saudi Arabia, for decades a crucial
American ally in the Middle East and half of a partnership that once received
little scrutiny from lawmakers. Last week, two senators introduced a resolution
that would put restrictions on American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which have
expanded during the Obama administration.
Families of the Sept. 11 victims have used the courts to
try to hold members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities liable
because of what the plaintiffs charged was Saudi financial support for
terrorism.
* OH, PLEASE! IF THE SAUDIS WERE "RESPONSIBLE"
SO AS TO BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES THEN THEY'RE "RESPONSIBLE" ENOUGH TO
TREATED AS ACTUAL FRIGGIN' TERRORISTS - RIGHT...?!?!
These efforts have largely been stymied, in part because
of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in
American courts.
The Senate bill is intended to make clear that the
immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where
nations are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill Americans on United
States soil.
* Er... SHOULDN'T NATIONS FOUND CULPABLE FOR TERRORIST ATTACKS
THAT KILL AMERICANS ON UNITED STATES SOIL BE... DESTROYED...?
(*MASSIVE MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)
If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be
signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi
government to be examined in the Sept. 11 lawsuits.
* BUT IF THE 9/11 COMMISSION CLEARED THE SAUDIS...
(*SIGH*)
Obama administration officials counter that weakening the
sovereign immunity provisions would put the American government, along with its
citizens and corporations, in legal risk abroad because other nations might
retaliate with their own legislation. Secretary of State John Kerry told a
Senate panel in February that the bill, in its current form, would “expose the
United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and
create a terrible precedent.”
The bill’s sponsors have said that the legislation is
purposely drawn very narrowly — involving only attacks on American soil — to
reduce the prospect that other nations might try to fight back.
* SO... ATTACK US AND WE'LL LET SURVIVORS... SUE. (IS IT
ME, FOLKS?!) AGAIN... SHOULDN'T ATTACKS UPON AMERICAN SOIL BE MET WITH A
MILITARY RESPONSE... NOT MET INSTEAD WITH AMBULANCE CHASING LAWYERS?
In a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on March 4,
Anne W. Patterson, an assistant secretary of state, and Andrew Exum, a top
Pentagon official on Middle East policy, told staff members of the Senate Armed
Services Committee that American troops and civilians could be in legal
jeopardy if other nations decide to retaliate and strip Americans of immunity
abroad. They also discussed the Saudi threats specifically, laying out the
impacts if Saudi Arabia made good on its economic threats.
John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said in a
statement that the administration stands by the victims of terrorism,
“especially those who suffered and sacrificed so much on 9/11.”
Edwin M. Truman, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for
International Economics, said he thought the Saudis were most likely making an
“empty threat.” Selling hundreds of billions of dollars in American assets
would not only be technically difficult to pull off, he said, but would also
very likely cause global market turmoil for which the Saudis would be blamed. Moreover,
he said, it could destabilize the American dollar — the currency to which the
Saudi riyal is pegged.
“The only way they could punish us is by punishing
themselves,” Mr. Truman said.
The bill is an anomaly in a Congress fractured by bitter
partisanship, especially during an election year. It is sponsored by Senator
John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New
York. It has the support of an unlikely coalition of liberal and conservative
senators, including Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, and Ted Cruz, Republican
of Texas. It passed through the Judiciary Committee in January without dissent.
* FOLKS... I'M LESS THAN THRILLED THAT CRUZ IS INVOLVED
IN THIS. AGAIN... NONE OF THIS IS MAKING A LOT OF SENSE TO ME. THIS SEEMS LIKE ANY
"NORMAL" LITIGIOUS ACTION SEEKING A PAYDAY FROM A DEFENDANT WITH DEEP
POCKETS. AGAIN... IF SAUDI OFFICIALS WERE INVOLVED IN 9/11 I'M FAR MORE
INTERESTED IN BRINGING THEM TO JUSTICE - HANGING THEM BY THE NECK UNTIL DEAD -
AS OPPOSED TO PICKING THEIR POCKETS.
“As our nation confronts new and expanding terror
networks that are targeting our citizens, stopping the funding source for
terrorists becomes even more important,” Mr. Cornyn said last month.
* WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?
(*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)
The alliance with Saudi Arabia has frayed in recent years
as the White House has tried to thaw ties with Iran — Saudi Arabia’s bitter
enemy — in the midst of recriminations between American and Saudi officials
about the role that both countries should play in the stability of the Middle
East.
* Er... FOLKS... IRAN IS OUR BITTER ENEMY.
(*SIGH*)
But the administration has supported Saudi Arabia on
other fronts, including providing the country with targeting intelligence and
logistical support for its war in Yemen.
* I BELIEVE THE NYT MEANS OUR WAR IN YEMEN.
The Saudi military is flying jets and dropping bombs it
bought from the United States — part of the billions of dollars in arms deals
that have been negotiated with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations
during the Obama administration.
* AGAIN... I HAVEN'T SUDDENLY BECOME
"PRO-OBAMA"... BUT WE'VE BEEN SELLING THE SAUDIS WEAPONS... FOREVER!
The war has been a humanitarian disaster and fueled a
resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen, leading to the resolution in Congress to put
new restrictions on arms deals to the kingdom.
* AGAIN... FOLKS... OBAMA MADE YEMEN OUR WAR. (HELL... WE
GOT INVOLVED UNDER BUSH I BELIEVE!)
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut,
one of the resolution’s sponsors and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, said that Congress has been “feckless” in conducting oversight of
arms sales, especially those destined for Saudi Arabia.
* AGAIN... SHOULDN'T WE BE MORE CONCERNED WITH THE
POSSIBILITY (THE CHARGE BEING MADE REGARDING SAUDI INVOLVEMENT WITH 9/11) THAT
CONGRESS HAS BEEN "FECKLESS" ALL ALONG AND HAS BEEN ACTIVELY INVOLVED
IN A COVER-UP SINCE 9/11/2001?
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