I’m surprised that this story isn’t receiving more attention. Am I missing something? At Yahoo Michael Isikoff reports:
On the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a federal judge directed the Saudi Arabian government to make as many as 24 current and former officials available for depositions about their possible knowledge of events leading up to the airplane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which killed almost 3,000 Americans. Those officials include Prince Bandar, the former ambassador to the United States, and his longtime chief of staff.
The order was immediately hailed by families of the 9/11 victims as a milestone in their years-long effort to prove that some Saudi officials were either complicit in the attacks or aware of the kingdom’s support for some of the hijackers in the months before they hijacked four American airliners and crashed three of them into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.
He continues:
On the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a federal judge directed the Saudi Arabian government to make as many as 24 current and former officials available for depositions about their possible knowledge of events leading up to the airplane attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which killed almost 3,000 Americans. Those officials include Prince Bandar, the former ambassador to the United States, and his longtime chief of staff.
The order was immediately hailed by families of the 9/11 victims as a milestone in their years-long effort to prove that some Saudi officials were either complicit in the attacks or aware of the kingdom’s support for some of the hijackers in the months before they hijacked four American airliners and crashed three of them into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.
Maybe the Saudi government will refuse to cooperate. Maybe the federal government will intervene somehow to prevent it. But this sounds to me like a development that is a long time coming and could have very serious repercussions. I’m kind of interested in how the Saudis rationalize providing diplomatic cover to people engaged in terrorist activities or support of terrorist activities in the United States.
But which Saudis? bin Laden had some sort of connection to the royal family, but he’s dead. Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was King in 2001, but he’s dead. Did he even know bin Laden? Just about everyone who might have been involved is dead.
In fact, the royal family is huge, and each member has a different foreign and domestic policy. Most are drunks and perverts. Some want to attack Aqaba for the gold that is there.
Mohammed bin Salman is current top dog, and he is in a mud wrestling contest with his cousins.
So, who do we blame? The dancing Israelis?
We must accept other societies on their own terms. Saudi Arabia is an aristocracy. That means the aristocrats are the country’s government. When those aristocrats engage in acts of war against another country, it’s an act of war as certainly as when the German army invaded Poland in 1939.
‘the aristocrats are the country’s government. When those aristocrats engage in acts of war against another country, it’s an act of war’
I rather doubt that the aristocrats in actual charge of Saudi Arabia at the time of 9/11 were involved in the attack in any way. Far too much risk, personal and political. I would suspect any of the Saudi family who were actually involved were out of power and wanted to overthrow the existing regime, perhaps using a reaction to 9/11 as a pretext. If so, blood is thicker than water, and being an extended family within a tribe a threat to any members of the family, no matter how despicable, might be seen as a threat to all. I doubt anything will come of it, I believe there have been a number of past attempts to gain accountability from SA, all meeting failure for various reasons.
It being a piece by Isikoff, who pushed the Pee Dossier because everybody else wouldn’t because it was so ridiculous, I suspect it is being published right now is a attempt at disrupting ongoing ME peace efforts by OMB and thus OMB himself.
Wish the plaintiffs a lot of luck, if everyone is in Arabia, could be years before they get the depositions and then there is whole getting everybody in court…
By the logic you’re using, Tars Tarkas, our war in 1941-1945 was not with Japan but with the Shimazu clan. After all, the Japanese navy, which had been dominated by that clan since the formation of the Japanese navy, was what attacked us.
@Dave Schuler
Totally off-topic. Just checking up.
Is everything alright – you, wife, dogs, nieces, nephews, long lost uncle? Being bitter is my job, and I think I am doing it quite well. Hopefully, you are loading the U-Haul, but I doubt it.
If you ever decide to mod your games, I can put together a list. If you are still on Skyrim LE, Enderal is a mod on Steam, and basically, it is a new game built on the game engine. If you are still on LE, you need to switch to SE.
In any case, I hope you, your wife, and the dogs are well.
We’re all fine. I’m old but otherwise beyond fine. I’m probably healthier now that at any time since I was in grad school. How healthy was I in grad school? I used to run 3 miles to judo class three times a week, practice judo for a couple of hours, and then run 3 miles back. I’m not in that good a shape now but that was a half century ago. I’m at just about my perfect weight with more strength and endurance than men twenty years younger than I. I’ve been shocked to run men 40 years younger than I into the ground. My heart rate is about 56 beats per minute.
My wife is a little nervous about resuming her part-time teaching schedule (she’s technically retired). She’s doing a great job remotely—having a lot of fun with green screens.
The dogs have just about their normal schedules. I walk Kara about 5 miles a day. Ziva doesn’t take walks. Mamie and Ghillie get walks and lots of training. Four is about our limit for dogs, at least dogs as active as ours.
‘By the logic you’re using, Tars Tarkas, our war in 1941-1945 was not with Japan but with the Shimazu clan. After all, the Japanese navy, which had been dominated by that clan since the formation of the Japanese navy, was what attacked us.’
Ah, but the Shimazu clan WERE running Japan, by your own statement (at least they were effectively running their foreign policy). I doubt that the Saudi family faction that might have helped with 9/11 was. It would have been nuts for the King and the ruling princes to have helped Bin Laden, who they despised as being of Yemeni descent and whose help they rejected after Saddam conquered Kuwait. However, if in fact the decision was made in the upper management of that time, I would be very happy to help paint houses with the blood of those responsible, or if the culprits were unavailable insist on mucho punitive reparations (like maybe their entire oil industry).
I’ll have to look up the Shimazu clan and their ties to the Imperial Navy. I know a little about Japanese history (I was actually born at Zama army base, am a former air force brat, but know no Japanese, left when I was three), but was unaware of how the ruling clans shared out and fought over the components of their country. I do recall that the army operated rather independently of the central government. Their ambitions sucked Japan into war on the mainland via the Mukden Incident which eventually led to Japan’s participation in the Second World War (due to their refusal to abandon their later conquests).