Why now? (Saudis and 9/11)

[seemslikeadream]

Oil's Grand Bargain Falls Victim to Saudi Arabia's Iran Fixation

Saudi Arabia says it can flood the oil market with over 1 million extra barrels right away

Saudi Arabia Kills Doha Deal, Talks Fall Apart

[seemslikeadream]

How US covered up Saudi role in 9/11
By Paul Sperry April 17, 2016 | 6:00am
Modal Trigger How US covered up Saudi role in 9/11


History is repeating itself with Obama holding 9/11 report

Saudi Arabia threatens economic 'turmoil' over 9/11 bill

How Saudi Arabia dangerously undermines the United States

Frustrated Mike Piazza speaks out on Mets' 9/11 jersey shocker



In its report on the still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” last weekend said the Saudi role in the attacks has been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s delicate alliance with the oil-rich kingdom.

That’s quite an understatement.

Actually, the kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the coverup goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement. Investigations were throttled. Co-conspirators were let off the hook.

Case agents I’ve interviewed at the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in Washington and San Diego, the forward operating base for some of the Saudi hijackers, as well as detectives at the Fairfax County (Va.) Police Department who also investigated several 9/11 leads, say virtually every road led back to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, as well as the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles.

Yet time and time again, they were called off from pursuing leads. A common excuse was “diplomatic immunity.”

Those sources say the pages missing from the 9/11 congressional inquiry report — which comprise the entire final chapter dealing with “foreign support for the September 11 hijackers” — details “incontrovertible evidence” gathered from both CIA and FBI case files of official Saudi assistance for at least two of the Saudi hijackers who settled in San Diego.

Some information has leaked from the redacted section, including a flurry of pre-9/11 phone calls between one of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego and the Saudi Embassy, and the transfer of some $130,000 from then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar’s family checking account to yet another of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego.

Modal Trigger
Prince BandarPhoto: Reuters
An investigator who worked with the JTTF in Washington complained that instead of investigating Bandar, the US government protected him — literally. He said the State Department assigned a security detail to help guard Bandar not only at the embassy, but also at his McLean, Va., mansion.

The source added that the task force wanted to jail a number of embassy employees, “but the embassy complained to the US attorney” and their diplomatic visas were revoked as a compromise.

Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked 9/11 and related al Qaeda cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office, says Bandar should have been a key suspect in the 9/11 probe.

“The Saudi ambassador funded two of the 9/11 hijackers through a third party,” Guandolo said. “He should be treated as a terrorist suspect, as should other members of the Saudi elite class who the US government knows are currently funding the global jihad.”

But Bandar held sway over the FBI.

After he met on Sept. 13, 2001, with President Bush in the White House, where the two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony, the FBI evacuated dozens of Saudi officials from multiple cities, including at least one Osama bin Laden family member on the terror watch list. Instead of interrogating the Saudis, FBI agents acted as security escorts for them, even though it was known at the time that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

“The FBI was thwarted from interviewing the Saudis we wanted to interview by the White House,” said former FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was involved in the investigation of al Qaeda and the hijackers. The White House “let them off the hook.”

What’s more, Rossini said the bureau was told no subpoenas could be served to produce evidence tying departing Saudi suspects to 9/11. The FBI, in turn, iced local investigations that led back to the Saudis.

“The FBI covered their ears every time we mentioned the Saudis,” said former Fairfax County Police Lt. Roger Kelly. “It was too political to touch.”

Added Kelly, who headed the National Capital Regional Intelligence Center: “You could investigate the Saudis alone, but the Saudis were ‘hands-off.’ ”

Modal Trigger
Photo: AP
Even Anwar al-Awlaki, the hijackers’ spiritual adviser, escaped our grasp. In 2002, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was detained at JFK on passport fraud charges only to be released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.”

It wasn’t until 2011 that Awlaki was brought to justice — by way of a CIA drone strike.

Strangely, “The 9/11 Commission Report,” which followed the congressional inquiry, never cites the catch-and-release of Awlaki, and it mentions Bandar only in passing, his named buried in footnotes.

Two commission lawyers investigating the Saudi support network for the hijackers complained their boss, executive director Philip Zelikow, blocked them from issuing subpoenas and conducting interviews of Saudi suspects.

9/11 Commission member John Lehman was interested in the hijackers’ connections to Bandar, his wife and the Islamic affairs office at the embassy. But every time he tried to get information on that front, he was stonewalled by the White House.

“They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,” Lehman was quoted as saying in the book, “The Commission.”

Did the US scuttle the investigation into foreign sponsorship of 9/11 to protect Bandar and other Saudi elite?

“Things that should have been done at the time were not done,” said Rep. Walter Jones, the North Carolina Republican who’s introduced a bill demanding Obama release the 28 pages. “I’m trying to give you an answer without being too explicit.”

A Saudi reformer with direct knowledge of embassy involvement is more forthcoming.

“We made an ally of a regime that helped sponsor the attacks,” said Ali al-Ahmed of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs. “I mean, let’s face it.”

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4NY-mnkXM


Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan


Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move

Going down... going down now... going down....

[JackRiddler]

Even Anwar al-Awlaki, the hijackers’ spiritual adviser,

Fucking New York Post.

[seemslikeadream]

Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked 9/11 and related al Qaeda cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office, says Bandar should have been a key suspect in the 9/11 probe.

“The Saudi ambassador funded two of the 9/11 hijackers through a third party,” Guandolo said. “He should be treated as a terrorist suspect, as should other members of the Saudi elite class who the US government knows are currently funding the global jihad.”

But Bandar held sway over the FBI.

After he met on Sept. 13, 2001, with President Bush in the White House, where the two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony, the FBI evacuated dozens of Saudi officials from multiple cities, including at least one Osama bin Laden family member on the terror watch list. Instead of interrogating the Saudis, FBI agents acted as security escorts for them, even though it was known at the time that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

Two commission lawyers investigating the Saudi support network for the hijackers complained their boss, executive director Philip Zelikow, blocked them from issuing subpoenas and conducting interviews of Saudi suspects

Around February 2003: 9/11 Commission Executive Director Zelikow Assumes Responsibility for Hiring Commission’s Staff

[seemslikeadream]

Posted by seemslikeadream on Sun Mar-21-04 01:04 AM at DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1260486

Philip D Zelikow - Executive Director 9/11 Commission AND
Posted by seemslikeadream on Sun Mar-21-04 01:04 AM
Consider this passage from a piece in today's Times ...

They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice's deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a member of the Bush transition team, among others.
One official scheduled to testify, Richard A. Clarke, who was President Bill Clinton's counterterrorism coordinator, said in an interview that the warning about the Qaeda threat could not have been made more bluntly to the incoming Bush officials in intelligence briefings that he led.

At the time of the briefings, there was extensive evidence tying Al Qaeda to the bombing in Yemen two months earlier of an American warship, the Cole, in which 17 sailors were killed.

"It was very explicit," Mr. Clarke said of the warning given to the Bush administration officials. "Rice was briefed, and Hadley was briefed, and Zelikow sat in." Mr. Clarke served as Mr. Bush's counterterrorism chief in the early months of the administration, but after Sept. 11 was given a more limited portfolio as the president's cyberterrorism adviser.



Now we know about Rice and Hadley, her deputy. But how about Zelikow? He's a former NSC official from the first Bush administration and a close associate of Rice's. The two of them even wrote a book together.

He was in the key meetings where the warnings -- seemingly ignored -- about al Qaida came up. He seems like someone you'd want to talk to to find out what they were warned about and why they didn't take the warnings more seriously.

Well, you don't have to look far to find him. He runs the 9/11 Commission. Zelikow is the Executive Director of the Commission, which means he has operational control of the investigation under the overall management of the two co-chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com /

Is this not unbelievable?

Clinton Aides Plan to Tell Panel of Warning Bush Team on Qaeda
Posted by seemslikeadream on Sun Mar-21-04 01:14 AM
Mr. Zelikow, the director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and a co-author of a 1995 book with Ms. Rice, has been the target of repeated criticism from some relatives of Sept. 11 victims. They have said his membership on the Bush transition team and his ties to Ms. Rice pose a serious conflict of interest for the commission, which is investigating intelligence and law-enforcement actions before the attacks.

Mr. Clarke said if Mr. Zelikow left any of the White House intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 without understanding the imminent threat posed by Al Qaeda, "he was deaf."

Mr. Zelikow said in an interview that he has recused himself from any part of the investigation that involves the transition, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. He said his participation in the Qaeda intelligence briefings was already well known. "The fact of what occurred in these briefings is not really disputed," he said.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0320-07.htm

Posted by seemslikeadream on Sun Jun-24-07 09:46 PM at DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1176677

Philip Zelikow IMAGINING THE TRANSFORMING EVENT December 1998
Posted by seemslikeadream on Sun Jun-24-07 09:46 PM
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19981101faessay1434/ashton-b-carter-john-deutch-philip-zelikow/catastrophic-terrorism-tackling-the-new-danger.html



Summary: The specter of weapons of mass destruction being used against America looms larger today than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. The World Trade Center bombing scarcely hints at the enormity of the danger. America is prepared only for conventional terrorism, not a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons catastrophe. With the right approach and organization, however, the United States can be ready. Herewith a plan to reorganize the U.S. government to ensure that it can handle the threats of the next century.

Ashton Carter is Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a former Assistant Secretary of Defense. John Deutch is Institute Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former Director of Central Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of Defense. Philip Zelikow, a former member of the National Security Council staff, is White Burkett Miller Professor of History and Director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.



IMAGINING THE TRANSFORMING EVENT
Terrorism is not a new phenomenon. But today's terrorists, be they international cults like Aum Shinrikyo or individual nihilists like the Unabomber, act on a greater variety of motives than ever before. More ominously, terrorists may gain access to weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices, germ dispensers, poison gas weapons, and even computer viruses. Also new is the world's dependence on a nearly invisible and fragile network for distributing energy and information. Long part of the Hollywood and Tom Clancy repertory of nightmarish scenarios, catastrophic terrorism has moved from far-fetched horror to a contingency that could happen next month. Although the United States still takes conventional terrorism seriously, as demonstrated by the response to the attacks on its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August, it is not yet prepared for the new threat of catastrophic terrorism.

American military superiority on the conventional battlefield pushes its adversaries toward unconventional alternatives. The United States has already destroyed one facility in Sudan in its attempt to target chemical weapons. Russia, storehouse of tens of thousands of weapons and material to make tens of thousands more, may be descending into turmoil. Meanwhile, the combination of new technology and lethal force has made biological weapons at least as deadly as chemical and nuclear alternatives. Technology is more accessible, and society is more vulnerable. Elaborate international networks have developed among organized criminals, drug traffickers, arms dealers, and money launderers, creating an infrastructure for catastrophic terrorism around the world.

The bombings in East Africa killed hundreds. A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently.




http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=20287

Zelikow is an expert on "the creation and maintenance of 'public myths’ or 'public presumptions’. His theory analyzes how consciousness is shaped by "searing events" which take on "transcendent importance" and, therefore, move the public in the direction chosen by the policymakers.


Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. 'It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet bomb test in 1949. The US might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either future terrorist attacks or US counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently". ()
Zelikow’s article presumes that if one creates their own "searing event" (such as 9-11 or the bombing of the Golden Dome Mosque) they can steer the public in whatever direction they choose. His theory depends entirely on a "state-media nexus" which can be depended on to disseminate propaganda uniformly. There is no more reliable propaganda-system in the world today than the western media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxnvX6iBjeo






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuoQZkBFj9A

Uploaded on Jul 19, 2007
Philip Zelikow, 9/11 insider, is Mr. Official Story. He was the main speaker at the famed Chautauqua Institution on August 9, 2007. This video was made months in advance of the event to alert Chautauqua-goers (et al) just who their high-level George W. Bush operative guest speaker was, a war criminal of a high order. But on Aug 9, the amphitheater crowd applauded Zelikow's lies, as can be expected, as the Institution has long since become a neo-con play ground/testing ground.

In this video, drawn from interviews conducted in Vancouver BC with 9/11 skeptics Peter Dale Scott, Webster Tarpley, Ken Jenkins and Graeme MacQueen, the analysts call attention to Zelikow's 1998 article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, entitled "CATASTROPHIC TERRORISM: Imagining the Transformative Event." Nearly two years later, the neo-con Project for a New American Century (PNAC) picked up the CFR-Zelikow language, saying that the desired transformation "is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor..." Note also, the current head of the Dept of Defense, Ashton Carter, was co-author with Zelikow of the 1998 "Catastrophic Terrorism" article.

Zelikow, hired as a Bush II transition team member for his purported expertise on al-Qaeda (according to Karen Hughes), didn't want to hear anything about al-Qaeda from Richard Clarke, chief counter-terrorism expert on George W. Bush's national security council. Similarly, John Ashcroft at the Dept. of Justice didn't want to hear anything about al-Qaeda before 9/11 from Thomas Picard, acting director of the FBI. In these and other instances, Zelikow as executive director of the 9/11 Commission, suborned perjury, Webster Tarpley charges.

Tarpley reveals Zelikow's cover-up role in the Able Danger FBI effort to expose "al-Qaeda" cells.

Canadian Prof. Graeme MacQueen calls attention to Zelikow's unique role in predicting then explicating the consequences of "the transformative event" as head of the commission charged with investigating the catastrophic terrorism of 9/11.

Filmmaker Ken Jenkins and esteemed writer Peter Dale Scott call attention to Zelikow's expertise is in creating and exploiting public myths, and that Zelikow's links to the neo-cons date to the early 1980s. The 9/11 investigation was itself an inside job.

True to form, Zelikow was a key proselytizer for the US/NATO 2011 obliteration of Libya.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XQWBQKsqBU

Uploaded on Aug 17, 2007
Zelikow, author of the 9/11 Commission Report, responds to a couple of uncensored questions August 9, 2007 at Chautauqua Institution. Question 1 comes from Paul Zarembka, editor of The Hidden History of 9-11-2001. Professor Zarembka, State University of New York at Buffalo (Economics Dept), asks Zelikow why he failed to investigate reports of several of the so-called hijackers alive and protesting their non-involvement. Then yor yevrah of snowshoefilms asks Zelikow about Building 7. Zelikow says he doesn't accept the hypothesis that any buildings were brought down by controlled demolition.

[Nordic]

I so want to see Zelikow in prison.

Then the rest of him. But Zelikow should have to do that "walk of shame" from GOT right through lower Manhattan.

On edit: I can't think about this stuff too much or I get really bloody angry.

[zangtang]

just list up the 1st half dozen or so.....and their lawyers......
& then you can have some very productive sessions to establish exactly what does......and does not constitute
- torture, using what used to be called 'implemented interrogation'.*
I believe you will find there is considerable disagreement.





* that's an interrogation using er..................
implements

[8bitagent]

It took 15 years, but there are a lot of signs the White House is going to finally release the 28 pages that strongly implicate Saudi Arabia was behind 9/11. Way too many Republican and Democrat beltway insiders indicating this, and putting the pressure on the White House.

I've been saying it for years, but the US has to cut all ties with Saudi Arabia. For a "wealthy kingdom", to both be funding the world's Sunni terrorism, causing wars in the Middle East and
having extreme anti woman/gay/ect death penalty laws is absolutely disgusting.

The 9/11 truthers have been waiting and praying for 15 years for "9/11 truth" to come out in the open, well this is as close as you'll get. And I do not feel exposing Saudis as 9/11 masterminds is a "limited hangout" since
it goes without saying how CLOSE the Bush family/US government, UK government, Pakistan and (yes) Israel are to the Saudi Kingdom. And we know what that means re: 9/11.

But Im predicting IF the 28 pages are redacted, and Saudi is exposed, it will hit with a "meh" on social media and the popular consciousness who have long moved on from even caring.

[zangtang]

is this good or bad for the Israelis?

[8bitagent]

Huge changes: http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... ealth-fund

Saudi Arabia is planning to establish a $2tn (£1.4tn) sovereign wealth fund by selling off its state petroleum assets in preparation for a world beyond oil.

Greenpeace said it was a pivotal moment akin to Switzerland abandoning banking, but others claimed Riyadh had long wanted to diversify its economy and spread its wealth though it had failed to do so.

If the fund was built up to $2tn, it would be more than double Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, regarded as the largest in the world by assets.

The move was revealed by the country’s powerful deputy crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, and would mean the desert kingdom using its public investment fund (PIF) to buy up strategic financial and industrial assets abroad.

Some will see the move as a highly symbolic shift away from fossil fuels for a country most associated in the public eye with oil, but critics question whether it is more about style than substance.

I don't think anything the Saudis do for the next decade will be from a position of strength, they're on the defensive.

Wow. Maybe it's as simple as they're running out of oil. They will no longer be needed.

I wonder if this ties into the fact that Turkey seems to be the new entity that will do the dirty work for the empire.

I figured that was due to their convenient proximity to Syria. But maybe there's more to it than that.

Something else to think about: Yemen. We're helping the Saudis slaughter civilians there in what is quickly turning into a quagmire.

Yeah what the Saudis are doing in Yemen is horrendous. And the CIA is openly providing logistics for Saudi aerial bombers. There is no question Turkey, who kills and imprisons people for free speech,
is behind ISIS. Or at least, is a major (globalist puppet) organ of ISIS. I was against the Arab spring personally, as it just led to the genocidal chaos in Syria(300,000 dead since 2011? Thanks Obama)
and everything else in conjunction with the Obama regime's destabilization in Libya.

I would love nothing more to see the Saudi Kingdom completely collapse. Yeah it may lead to ISIS or something taking over, but I dream that liberal/moderate youth can someday take over the Middle East
as they wanted to in Iran in 1979

[Grizzly]

I so want to see Zelikow in prison.

He'll never ever see a day in prison, he is the key to unlocking the whole farce. They will shield him at ALL costs. This criminal gang has gone on, and will continue to go on, sabotaging any and all attempts to be held accountable. Face it. We lost. They won. And it will never ever ever be uncovered. Or examined and made right.They are mafia and the own this country. No one is going to save us, End of story.

[8bitagent]

Even Anwar al-Awlaki, the hijackers’ spiritual adviser,

Fucking New York Post.

Obama may have murdered Awlaki's innocent Colorado born son, but as I wrote on this forum in 2007, Anwar Awlaki was deeply involved in 9/11. Funny how he was invited to a power luncheon to the Pentagon a few months after the event

[8bitagent]

is this good or bad for the Israelis?

Bad. Saudi Arabia since at least the creation of the Mujahadeen in 1979 have been strange bedfellows with Israel. When you have the most popular populist presidential candidate(Bernie Sanders)
(thankfully) talking shit about Israel in front of millions of people, it's bad news. When the entire left is now against Israel, it's bad. But when their buddies get exposed for 9/11, it's very bad. Given Israel's
(at the very least) periphery role(or connection) to 9/11. Now if Israel's favorite sock puppet ISIS turns on Israel, it will really be bad news

[zangtang]

Good.

We will not have ever seen a power vacuum like it.

[JackRiddler]

Can't find it but there was a story a week ago about Saudi Arabia sending an ambassador (called something else) to Israel for the first time. Of course they converge.

Analysis: Israel and the Saudis covert ties
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Analys ... ies-451024