This is called extortion, in the criminal world. Naturally, the Obama administration is lobbying congress to stop a bill that would implicate the Saudi government in being complicit in the 9/11 attacks. It would pave the way to allow the families of the victims to sue the Sauds. This is an inconvenience the Kingdom would like to avoid.
As such, reported by the NY times, they sent a hatchet man to Washington to inform them that if this were to occur, they’d scorch the fucking earth we walk upon, sell off American assets ad hoc, and release a firestorm of financial pain upon us never scene before in the history of man.
If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on TwitterAdel 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.
“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.
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.” 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.
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.
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. These efforts have largely been stymied, in part because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.
Seems like a thread best left untugged.
How many citizens of how many countries would luv to sue the US for sponsoring directly or indirectly fvckery in their homelands.
#DroningForDollars
Fuck them all crush them like the vermin they are
The new king and his son are very belligerent. The old king was much better.
Everytime I see that photo of Barack Obama bowing subserviently to the Saudis, I’m filled with disgust.
But you love the photo of W holding hands with the Saudi prince, right?
No. I actually don’t. You’re ignorant. Shut up and go back to your status quo liberal think tank.
tell me one time you saw a US Prez who did not kiss the ring. Hell, Dubya kissed the goddamned “King” and flew them all out of the country on the evening of 9/11 before they were lynched.
Lol, those Treasuries are gonna be soaked up by the rest of the world no problem. Time to abondon SA completely and let Israel take over the Middle East.
You misspelled “Iran”.
LOL, I see what you mean. SA is a counterbalancing force against Iran in the M.E.
The M.E. situation is so complicated that very few people have any idea what they are talking about when they talk about it.
Yes, SA is bad. But trying destroying them economically or militarily, and you will find out how much worse the situation can get. Just like Saddam. He seemed bad. But now that we got rid of him, there’s ISIS in Iraq. Not an improvement.
Obama built that….
Obama may have done the best possible things in the M.E. History will tell. Personally, I think history will treat Obama well.
I know a lot of folks here watch/read/listen to Right Wing media which bashes Obama 24/7/365. But talk is cheap. And criticizing someone for everything they do– when you have no better ideas yourself– is the easiest thing in the world.
If Obama negotiated world peace and cured cancer, Right Wing media would find something wrong with that and rave about how awful it is all the time.
The Iran nuclear deal may keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Would you rather they developed them and started blowing up everyone? It’s amazing that Right Wingers never consider this. But then they only consider how to bash, never how to solve problems– as you can see from our Right Wing dominated do-nothing Congress.
The way I see it, Saudi Arabia needs the US much more than the other way around. Where else would they go? Russia? China? Good luck with that.
rahager, you deal with loose threads by tying them off and cutting off the excess. As for gettign sued by other countries, maybe if that happenned then we’d stay out of more wars: that seems to be what the general public wants anyway. The US military has been a force for good in the world, but I’m sure they screwed up (unintentionally or otherwise) occasionally. I don’t see a promlem with rectifying past mistakes.
People suing another country seems ridiculous, on its base. That it might mean a country not getting into a war, is retarded.
1. I wonder what the Saudis would accept for payment in exchange for treasury bills?
2. Regarding transfer of dollars from west to east, in my novice thinking this is not a problem.
I prefer the USA send depreciating dollars to the middle east for oil, instead of encouraging disruption of USA environment by the oil industry.
Let the Saudis deplete their natural resource in exchange for melting dollars. The jokes on them.
Congress will run a deficit and the Fed will “print” anyway. Dollars? We’ll make more!
How many Treasuries does the house of saud hold in their hand, I wonder?
Also, I wonder what they are saying about how much black gold they have under all of those miles and miles of desert sand still?
$281B for all “Oil Exporters” as of Feb 2016
Oil exporters include Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.
Thanks btn. They are pumping like mad.
House of saud has been doing their thing for how many decades? The USA just took their game down in a handful of months, closed up shop and on the ready, in the long term thought of things. House of saud be squirming yo.
Without Wahhabism there may have been no 9/11. Wahhabism is an ultra-conservative branch of Islam and it’s not just a problem for western civilization but many other branches of Islam as well. It’s basically a cult you hope never gets the upper hand. The Saudis fund it so anything we can do to take money away and ruin them all the better.
Fund it? They *are* it. Saudi Arabia is a Wahhabist kingdom.
Actually, the Saudi government is less extreme that the Saudi clerics, who are actually more powerful.
This is like Iraq in many ways. You think Saddam was bad in Iraq? Look at the supposedly more religious faction that is there now– which is ISIS. Is that better?
You think the Saudi government is bad? Well, just bring it down and see how you like the country being controlled directly and entirely by Wahhabist clerics.
The SA government is not secular, but it is almost that, by comparison to the Wahhabist clerics. The Saudi government has been going in a more moderate direction e.g. women have the right to vote now. Let the Wahhabist clerics take charge– in the vacuum that would occur if the SA government were destroyed– and all the moderate things will disappear. The place would probably become the ISIS headquarters.
Le Fly, check out the KOL chart and it’s holdings, lol.
The House of Saud couldn’t do anything in the US without the assistance and blessing of the House of Bush, therefore this whole charade goes precisely nowhere
http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/04/10/911-saudis-28-pages-whowhatwhy-backgrounder/
And the House of Bush, and to what degree they may have been responsible, either actively, or else passively from ignoring warning signs, is a whole ‘nuther can of worms here. It makes just as much sense that there should be a bill allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue the Bush family, as to sue the Saudis. But I am sure there won’t be. Blame seems to always be assigned to “those other people”, never to politicians of the party that holds the majority in both Houses of Congress.
Yeah, blame is assigned to people WHO ACTUALLY COMMIT HEINOUS CRIMES. You could blame people for negligence, but was it criminal? I think you can make a case against H Clinton that she may have been negligent or contributed indirectly to the deaths of the four Americans. Her email fiasco shows she has a history of negligence.
comparing benghazi to 9/11 = FAIL
LOL, I don’t imagine it seems like a FAIL to bushwacker2. People who frequent Right Wing Internet/radio/TV “news sources” that are fact free, are not in touch with reality enough to be aware of such things.
There are differences between what individual Saudi citizens do, what the Saudi government does, and what the Saudi religious Powers That Be do. The government is less extreme than the powerful clerics are. In fact, a lot of the extreme policies of the government are done to please the extreme clerics.
So if the government were ruined, the clerics, who are perhaps more powerful than the government to begin with, would likely take over the country. And this would be a worse situation than what is happening now.
And then there are the private Saudi citizens, a whole other concern. E.g. there are individual Saudi citizens that think the Saudi government is not religious enough, so they support an organization that they believe is religious enough. That organization is called ISIS.
Perhaps the Obama administration SHOULD be lobbying congress to stop a bill that would implicate the Saudi government in being complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Unless there is proof that the Saudi government is responsible, then no such bill should be passed. If the proposed bill accuses the Saudi government of having done something they didn’t do, of course they are pissed, and they should be.
This alleged evidence that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a hand in the 9/11 plot has never been released. So we have no idea what the facts are.
And the facts matter here. A lot.
Frog, have you listened to the Bowe Berghael podcast by serial? Shit is dope
No, I haven’t. I will look them up. I want to look at all possible sources of info– and perhaps propaganda– and then do my best to attempt to separate fact from fiction.
Sometimes one has to look at a number of contradictory sources to try to find a more realistic picture of what happened.
Frog, the facts certainly do matter. Not only were the Saudi “citizens” (and most likely plenty of those same citizens who are nominally “government officials” aka Saud family members) to blame for 9/11, they are to blame for everything wrong with the world. And until the US cuts the cord with these swine, expect more Saudi petrodollars funding everything from school bombings in Africa to death by fire in Syria.
@Ben. you are absolutely right. All this “nuclear option” shit talk in the treasuries is just that shit talk. If any of these nations dump they will just hurt their own fills, and if the price does dump .. well it will be soaked up in due order. This is simply fear mongering.
Plus what are the Chinese going to do with all their USD from their exports? … too much horseshit flying around regarding this topic.
Ted Cruz is intimately connected to the Bush crime family
1. You base this on what, please?
2. More importantly, and no one mentions this….Obama, let Iran, A KNOWN HAVEN for terrorists a sweetheart deal letting them off the hook for monies owned to Americans,and now this?
…don’t be surprised.
See below. Iran and SA are stable governments, within the context of the M.E. Or at least they are less unstable than Iraq is now, after we invaded it. We don’t need to repeat Iraq.
We need to take nations that are somewhat stable and help them to become more stable and hopefully less extreme and more moderate. And that is what Obama is trying to do.
History will tell, but he may have some success there.
Wasn’t he a campaign official for GHW Bush?
Its not called extortion. Its called having you by the balls.
Iran and SA are about the only places left there with stable governments. You already fucked up all the other countries, so now you are going after SA? Just another piece of stupidity to add to the list.
SA is stable through the use of the death sentence for insubordination. Stable my ass. Iran is, in essence, run by two governments, the one elected and the uneelcted one (Revolutionary Guards) which is nothing more than the Supreme Leader’s personal militia.
Iran and SA might not be considered stable governments in some other parts of the world. But for the M.E., this is stable, unfortunately.
If we got into a war with Iran or SA, it would be at least as bad as our going to war against Saddam because we thought he was such a horrible leader that things couldn’t get any worse. Well, they did, and it is our fault.
Actually we didn’t go to war because we thought Saddam was such a horrible leader. That was just the cover story. But matters would not likely be helped, either for us or for the M.E., if we were to repeat that with SA or Iran, regardless of the cover story the neocons would come up with next.
We tried to warn americans they were electing a man with Islamic allegiances and worldview, and they just wouldn’t listen. And after making that mistake with Bush, they did it again twice with Obama.
You don’t think RoMoney has ties with the Arabians? Haha. McCain? LOL. But go ahead, blame the black guy…surprised you didn’t use his middle name.
@ el ray
Blame him? Why wouldn’t you? He did sign the deal? No?
Stop being a racist , down be a clown.
Regards
Chuck Bennett
Chuck, you are hard to figure out, as your comments are very brief sometimes. I guess you are a busy guy. I thought you were a non-interventionist Libertarian type, from what you have said before. Would you have preferred a war with Iran to the Iran deal– based on “nuclear weapons of mass destruction” in Iran– a repeat of the Iraq invasion? Are you a neocon? Did I just misunderstand you before?
Mad scientist, I see no reason to believe that Obama has Islamic allegiances or an Islamic worldview. He is just not very neocon and does not want unnecessary wars. And that is to his credit. I think he did the Iran deal, trying to get us the least unstable situation in the M.E. that he could.
History will tell if he was able to do that.
Oh, I think I get it now. It’s not that Chuck wants a war with Iran, like a neocon would, rather than an Iran nuclear deal. He is just defending the tried and true Right Wing practice of 24/7/365 Obama bashing, and saying that it is not necessarily racist.
And I agree. Obama bashing isn’t always racist. Hillary is bashed 24/7/365 and she is white.
Make America Great Again.
Vote third party
All you experts on the M.E. situation, look at this map of what is going on in Syria, and then tell us how the situation is simple, how it has a simple answer, and how you understand exactly what’s going on from having read/viewed/listened to your favorite Right Wing “news source” propaganda channel or Internet site..
This “simple” chart of the war in Syria shows it’s actually mind-bogglingly complicated
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/11024056/syria-war-chart
Let’s see those 28 pages, and the evidence for any claims there. We need to know the facts.
The Saudi government is less extreme that the Saudi clerics, who are in some ways more powerful.
This is like Iraq in many ways. You think Saddam was bad in Iraq? Look at the supposedly more religious faction that is there now– which is ISIS. Is that better?
You think the Saudi government is bad? Well, just bring it down economically or militarily and see how you like the country being controlled directly and entirely by Wahhabist clerics.
The SA government is not secular, but it almost looks so, in comparison to the Wahhabist clerics. The Saudi government has been going in a more moderate direction e.g. women have the right to vote now. Let the Wahhabist clerics take charge– in the vacuum that would occur if the SA government were destroyed– and all the moderate things will disappear. The place would probably become the ISIS headquarters.
Except for purchase of crude oil, is it possible or advisable for the US to avoid involvement in affairs of middle east nations? I realize we don’t want to have our eyes closed, to be opened by a nuclear bomb in Manhattan, but is there a wise compromise?
I think staying out of the M.E. as much as possible would be a good idea– at least militarily. The last thing we need to do is to militarily or economically destabilize one of the 2 main counterbalancing forces of the Muslim M.E.– Iran or SA.
We might possibly do some things to support education or economic development in the poorer areas. That might help the poorer people in the M.E. to have hopes of getting some kind of job other than an entry level ISIS suicide bomber. That would certainly be to our benefit and that of the whole world. And education often leads to more moderate views of religion and of the world.
Age old conflicts between religions, nations, and the role of a religion in a nation have a new kid on the block.
Mark Zuckerberg’s vision “of a connected world and a global community”.
His vision is described by some as “a plan to bring people together through an ambitious strategy of unfurling technology that jumps borders and crosses cultures”.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/04/12/zuckerbergs-10-year-plan-expand-facebook-empire/82936814/
Naturally, Mr. Zuckerberg’s world society will happen on Facebook
Wouldn’t it be interesting if eventually religions and governments view Facebook as infidel or treason, and something that must be destroyed?
I think that Zuckerberg may be partly right eventually, except that it won’t happen on Facebook, or at least not exclusively there.
And it won’t be technology per se but education in numerous areas that will connect people in ways that we can all benefit from, in order to make progress and perhaps peace.
As just one example, this guy here, Wes Cecil, a college professor and Renaissance man, gives YouTube lectures that have influenced people all over the world, including the Islamic world. But technology is not at all what this prof is about. In fact, his YouTube lectures are audio only.
Port Townsend professor Wes Cecil helped change mind of radical Islamist with online lectures
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/10/port_townsend_professor_helps.html
“Rollover”? Kris Kristofferson two days in a row; is freedom really just another word for “nothin’ left to loose”?