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Weekly Digest
Worst Joke Ever? U.S. Spy Chief Gives Saudi Prince Highest Award
for “Fighting Terrorism”
IN FOCUS, 20 February 2017
Mike Whitney - CounterPunch
On Friday [10 Feb 2017], the Director of the
CIA, Mike Pompeo, used his first trip abroad to present Saudi
Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef with the CIA’s highest award for
fighting terrorism, the George Tenet Medal. Although
the ceremony wasn’t covered by any of the major
media, it was picked up on various blogsites
where the news was greeted with predictable howls
of outrage. Not surprisingly, most American’s still see
Saudi Arabia as the epicenter of global terrorism, a
point which was underlined in a recent
article at The Atlantic titled “Where America’s
Terrorists Actually Come From”.
Here’s an excerpt:
“…after sifting through databases, media
reports, court documents, and other sources, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration
expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, has arrived at a striking finding:
Nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people
in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015.
Zero…
Nowrasteh has listed foreign-born individuals
who committed or were convicted of attempting to commit a terrorist attack on
U.S. soil by their country of origin and the number of people they killed. …
the countries at the top of the list, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are not
included in Trump’s ban…
The 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 men—from
Saudi Arabia (15), the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt (1), and Lebanon (1).
The incident remains influential in how Americans think about the nature of
terrorism.” (“Where America’s Terrorists
Actually Come From“, The Atlantic)
While it’s true that 9-11 has shaped the way
that Americans think about terrorism, it’s also true that most people are
unaware of the deeper operational relationship between the CIA and the Saudis
that dates back to the funding of the Mujahidin in Afghanistan in the 1970’s.
This is where bin Laden and al Qaida first burst onto the
scene, which is to say, that the sketchy CIA-Saudi connection created the
seedbed for the War on Terror. Unfortunately, even now– 16
years after the attacks of 9-11– the relationship
between the notorious intel agency and its Middle East allies remains
as foggy as ever. As a result, the Saudis are typically fingered as
the main source of the problem while the CIA’s role is conveniently swept under
the rug. For example, take a look at this clip from an article in the Independent:
“Saudi Arabia is the single biggest contributor
to the funding of Islamic extremism and is unwilling to cut off the money
supply, according to a leaked note from Hillary Clinton.
The US Secretary of State says in a secret
memorandum that donors in the kingdom still “constitute the most significant
source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide” and that “it has been an
ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing
emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority”…
Saudi Arabia is accused, along with Qatar,
Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, of failing to prevent some of its richest
citizens financing the insurgency against Nato troops in Afghanistan.
Fund-raisers from the Taliban regularly travel to UAE to take advantage of its
weak borders and financial regulation to launder money.
However, it is Saudi Arabia that receives the
harshest assessment. The country from which Osama bin Laden and most of the
9/11 terrorists originated, according to Mrs Clinton, “a critical financial
support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist
groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from
Saudi sources, often during the Haj and Ramadan.” (“Saudi Arabia is ‘biggest funder
of terrorists“, Independent)
Then there’s this gem from ex-Vice President Joe
Biden:
“Biden said that “our biggest problem is our
allies” who are engaged in a proxy Sunni-Shiite war against Syrian President
Bashar Assad. He specifically named Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“What did they do? They poured hundreds of
millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would
fight against Assad – except that the people who were being supplied were
(Jabhat) Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming
from other parts of the world,” Mr Biden said.” (“Joe Biden forced to apologize to
UAE and Turkey over Syria remarks“, Telegraph)
The evidence against Saudi Arabia is
overwhelming and damning, and that’s what makes Pompeo’s performance in Riyadh
so confusing. Why is the head of the CIA bestowing an award on a
man who could undoubtedly identify some of the world’s biggest
terrorist donors, unless, of course, the CIA derives some benefit from the
arrangement?
Is that it? Is there is a quid pro
quo between Washington and the Saudis that no one knows about but from
which Washington reaps tangible geopolitical benefits?
It’s certainly within the realm of possibility.
Is it too far-fetched to think that the
Saudis are actually a franchise that acts as Langley’s primary
subcontractor carrying out operations deemed too sensitive for its own
agents while obscuring the Company’s role behind a cloak of plausible
deniability? Isn’t that what Friday’s freakishly Orwellian awards ceremony
really suggests, that the skullduggery is much darker, deeper and
more complicated than anyone would care to imagine?
Washington’s support for the
Mujahidin helped to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan which is why the
Brzezinski crowd thought it was a success story. If that’s the
case, then isn’t it logical to assume that subsequent
administrations might have used the same model
elsewhere, like Kosovo, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, and
Afghanistan?
Isn’t it at least worth investigating?
And, another thing: Is it possible to
uncover the root of terror by capturing and interrogating individual
terrorists to find out what they know?
No, it’s not possible, because the individual
cogs have never revealed the source of the funding-streams which
originate from within the deep state. Every effort has been made to distance
the authors from their illicit handiwork, to remove the tracks and
erase the fingerprints. Once again, it’s all about plausible deniability and preventing
the public from identifying the real perpetrators. Which means the only way to
end this madness is by shedding light on the shadowy goings on between the
Intel agencies and their Middle East proxies. There’s no other way.
One thing is certain, you’re not going
to win the war on terror by handing out medals to the prime
suspects.
Mike Whitney lives in
Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the
Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also
available in a Kindle edition. He
can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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