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Saudi Arabia has murdered more Americans than Iran; Any American supporting this "special relationship" is a TRAITOR
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Original Message
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"The main rationale for maintaining a "special relationship” with such an unsavoury regime has long been that the Saudis have assured “access” to oil at affordable prices. Many in the US political and national security elites have continued to embrace that argument, but fundamental changes in the global economics of oil – and especially the rise of the shale oil industry in the United States - have ended that former Saudi role in regulating the global oil market.
The world's demand for oil has receded dramatically since 2014, creating a severe budget deficit problem for Saudi Arabia. As a result, the Saudis are afraid that any cut in production would cause the kingdom to lose market share and benefit their competitors.
The new case for the US-Saudi alliance is that Saudi Arabia is the regional counterweight to Iranian expansion. But the recklessly aggressive Saudi behaviour in Syria and Yemen has done far more to benefit al-Qaeda, destabilise the region and harm US interests than to counter Iranian influence – real or imagined.
The glaring contradiction between the supposed benefits of an alliance with the House of Saud and the actual heavy costs associated with it goes back to the US-Saudi collaboration between 1979 and 1988, supporting Afghan fighters against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. In 1979, a Saudi national, Osama bin Laden, moved to Afghanistan to join the fighters and support them logistically and financially. In 1988, he founded al-Qaeda.
The Saudi regime’s fear of bin Laden's popularity among its citizenry prompted it to cover up the reality of al-Qaeda terrorism, even after it struck inside Saudi Arabia itself. But more importantly, the US government tolerated that Saudi cover-up of terrorism.
In November 1995, four veterans of the Saudi jihadist force in Afghanistan with ties to bin Laden bombed the office of the programme manager of the Saudi National Guard, which the US military was training, killing six American servicemen and wounding 42. That should have signalled a crisis in the alliance, but nothing happened.
Then came the bombing of Khobar Towers in June 1996, which killed 19 Americans and wounded 372. FBI Director Louis Freeh, the man in charge of the US investigation of the bombing, quickly accepted then Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar’s position that Iran was behind the bombing and ruled out any investigation of the bin Laden organisation. CIA Director George Tenet supported that decision.
A former FBI official involved in the investigation revealed to this writer that when the FBI arrived at the scene to investigate the bombing in Saudi Arabia, they found the Saudi government was bulldozing the crime scene. And US intelligence intercepted secret orders from the Saudi interior ministry to provincial officials to obstruct the investigation.
Bin Laden actually confirmed his network’s responsibility for the bombing in two interviews he gave to the London-based newspaper Al Quds al Arabi in October and November 1996. The leadership of the FBI and CIA nevertheless supported the Saudi regime’s claim that it was an Iranian operation, thus effectively protecting the al-Qaeda network in the kingdom. Two terror bombings that should have ended the “special relationship” thus gave al-Qaeda the opportunity to strike successfully on 9/11. ..." [less than 50%] [link to www.middleeasteye.net (secure)]
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