It was reported: “Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have each announced their support for a bill that would allow victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia – . . . Both candidates spoke about the controversial legislation on Monday, the eve of the New York primary, saying the Senate should pass the bill no matter the consequences. “Wherever the trail may lead, it should be followed,” Clinton said on WABC radio. “We need justice.”” T
A week or two ago the Senate passed the bill by a unanimous vote. It is now in a conference between the House and the Senate ironing out their differences. President Obama will veto it.
The families of the victims of the attack carried out on September 11 have been stopped over and over again in their attempt to sue Saudi Arabia for their involvement in that great tragedy to America. U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said Saudi Arabia had sovereign immunity from damage claims by families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks. . . . “The allegations in the complaint alone do not provide this court with a basis to assert jurisdiction over defendants,” Daniels wrote. He continued saying adding new claims would be: “futile, however, because the additional allegations do not strip defendants of sovereign immunity.”
I assume everyone knew that 15 of the 19 men who attacked us were Saudi Arabian. There were no Iraqis even though 2 years after the attack 70% of Americans believed Iraq was behind the attack. I assume you also know that 28 pages describing Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the attack are being held secret by our government.
Not that this has anything to do with it but did you know of “a hidden relationship that began in the 1970s, when the oil-rich House of Saud began courting American politicians in a bid for military protection, influence, and investment opportunity. With the Bush family, the Saudis hit a gusher – direct access to presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. ”
You don’t suppose that was the reason behind Bush I attacking Iraq to protect Saudi Arabia; or Bush II doing the same thing. I suppose it would be wrong to suggest that our presidents were sacrificing American lives to protect a country that bars Christians from parts of it because they are unclean..
The issue of sovereign immunity arises under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) which is pretty complicated. There’s also the caveat that “litigation under the state-sponsored terrorism exception to the FSIA must be distinguished from suits against individuals and nonstate entities under the separate Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), enacted in 1992.”
The FSIA provides that any country that is a state-sponsor of terrorism can be sued. That is why Iran could be sued. Saudi Arabia has not been designated so it can not be.
The simple way to make Saudi Arabia liable for the 9/11 attacks is to label it a state sponsor of terrorism which in a sense it is since it sponsors the spreading of the Wahhabism branch of Islam. Or, Congress can just say it can be sued as it is planning to do. But like all things that has its real problems seen and unseen.
Saudis threaten to sell off all its U.S. assets. It is difficult to tell what the consequence of that will be — it might roil the markets for a few days or weeks but in the end things would go back to where they were. There is also the problem that if we strip Saudi Arabia of its sovereign immunity so will the United States lose its and be sued by citizens of other countries. Senator Schuman brushed off that argument saying the United States does not engage in terror but he should be reminded that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The United States has aided groups and countries who have been alleged by other countries to have committed terror against them.
Something no one is talking about is the damage turning on Saudi Arabia it will have on the view of the United States in the world. Despite all the things that I find abhorrent about that country it has been our ally for several decades and still is. Allies cannot be treated like the flavor of the month. Nothing new has been disclosed about it that we have not known about for decades.
What kind of ally are we if we so suddenly and easily turn against a friend of long duration? Fortunately Obama will veto the bill and his veto will be upheld in the House of Representatives under Speaker Ryan who recognizes the danger to our nation in turning on old friends.
The unanimity of the Senate on this issue sends a chilling message from our nation’s capital that all is not well.
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There are powerful non-royals in Saudi society that hew to the spirit and letter of Islam as espoused by Faisal ad-Darwish and Sultan Bin Bajjad. They were leaders of the Ikhwan, a pan-tribal religious brotherhood that superseded and dominated the tribal politics of peninsular Arabia in the teens and twenties of the early twentieth century. The Saudi tribe had used the Ikhwan to overcome all the rival tribes of the peninsula, particularly the Hashemites. Once the Saudis had gained control of what is today the area of Saudi Arabia they ceased any military actions against the surrounding colonial states. The Ikhwan did not agree with ending the Jihad. They continued to raid into Iraq and Jordan. The Saudi tribe, with the military aid of the British, put down the Ikhwan.
The Ikhwan did not die. They exist today in the form of the DAESH. The Saudi tribe greatly fears them. Many of the present day Ikhwanis come from the Ateiba tribe. Faisal ad-Darwish was Ateiba, as was Juhyman al-Ateiba, who took over the Kaaba. The Saudi tribe and its’ allies have no reason to support DAESH. Wealthy Ateiba, and, others, plot a more radical course than the Saudi Royals and their government. Saudi society is not a monolithic autocracy, but, rather, a cleverly constructed, and delicately balanced, alliance of tribes. Some of those tribal factions support DAESH and JAN. There’s really not much the Saudi government can do. It’s counter-productive to push them
Khalid:
An informative comment giving a deeper look inside the Saudi country. I have wondered about the Taliban as well as Al Qaeda and ISIS (DAESH) each which seemed to have spouted up in the latter part of the 20th Century and each more brutal that the earlier one. I did not know where groups such as this had been during the other part of the 20th Century and how all of a sudden the Muslims were able to have come from within its religion such groups that seemed to be frank quite barbaric yet proclaimed to be operating under religious auspices. If I read you correct these groups were always around but had not power which they gained in the last couple of decades of the 20th Century and up to our present time. My question is: How did it happen that such a murderous group as ISIS came into being and where were groups similar to it during other times>
Marshall G. S. Hogdson believed that these revivifying Jihadist movements are cyclical and occur at 150-200 yr. intervals. The late 19th century Mahdist movement in Sudan was one such Islamic religious uprising, as was Usman Don Fodio’s Jihad in the Fulani-Hausa Sahel of present day Nigeria at the beginning of the century. The original Muwahidun movement, inspired by the dawa of Ibn al-Wahab, convulsed the Mideast in the late seventeen hundreds, until put down by Ottoman forces under Pasha Ibrahim, son of Muhammad Ali, Kedive of Egypt, in the early 1800’s. All of these movements claimed to bring back the true religion. All practiced conversion by the sword. As can be seen in the historical record, these movements gradually become corrupted by their success and run out of steam after a couple generations.
The Ihkwan of the early 20th century Arabian Peninsula are the closest in spirit to the modern JAN and DAESH. Saudi Arabia, due to weak oil prices and expensive social programs, is suffering through a period of political instability. That’s why executions are up in the Kingdom. The threat of Jihadist revolution is felt most acutely in Riyad. The Saudis are frightened that the Ikhwan have reappeared and are spoiling for git-back.
Marshall G. S. Hogdson believed that these revivifying Jihadist movements are cyclical and occur at 150-200 yr. intervals. The late 19th century Mahdist movement in Sudan was one such Islamic religious uprising, as was Usman Don Fodio’s Jihad in the Fulani-Hausa Sahel of present day Nigeria at the beginning of that century. The original Muwahidun movement, inspired by the dawa of Ibn al-Wahab, convulsed the Mideast in the late seventeen hundreds, until put down by Ottoman forces under Pasha Ibrahim, son of Muhammad Ali, Kedive of Egypt, in the early 1800’s. All of these movements claimed to bring back the true religion. All practiced conversion by the sword. As can be seen in the historical record, these movements gradually become corrupted by their success and run out of steam after a couple generations.
The Ihkwan of the early 20th century Arabian Peninsula are the closest in spirit to the modern JAN and DAESH. Saudi Arabia, due to weak oil prices and expensive social programs, is suffering through a period of political instability. That’s why executions are up in the Kingdom. The threat of Jihadist revolution is felt most acutely in Riyad. The Saudis are frightened that the Ikhwan have reappeared and are spoiling for git-back.
Khalid:
Thanks
I forgot to mention the twentieth century Islamic Republic of the Rif (Google Abd-Krim al Khatabi). A Berber Riffi militia established an Islamic Republic in northern Morocco after kicking the Spanish out. Abd-Krim, its’ commander, planned and carried out the rout and massacre of Spain’s colonial army in Morocco. The Spanish lost 26000 KIA in a couple weeks. The Riffis took no prisoners.
Descendants of the Riffis run the hashisha trade Belgium and the Netherlands They call the shots in Molenbeek. The mujahideen can’t operate without Riffi acquiescence.
Khalid:
The Rif, meaning the “edge of cultivated land,” is a region that extends across northern Morocco. I ahve read a little about the Rifs and suggest they are nothing like the ISIS or other murderous groups. They fought for their homeland and not to gain other lands. They were defeated by the French and Spanish forces who used German made chemical weapons in 1926 to suppress their uprising. I guess even though such use was outlawed in 1925 it could still be used by the “good guys” on those causing trouble. Since that time they have been brutally suppressed by their own government. Some of them may have joined ISIS but I suggest including them among the most radical groups probably is not right.
The Islamic Republic of the Rif is important, because, it presents a clear example of the tension in Muslim societies between tribal politics and national identity. It is similar to the DAESH, or, JAN, in only one respect, Islamic identity. The Rifi state was based on Islam, because, historically, the only loyalty higher than tribe for Riffis was religion. Islamic identity, itself, was used to bind the northern Berber mountain tribes to the modern state. Abd-al Krim, walking in the footsteps of the Prophet, knew that only by reviving the concept of the Islamic meta-tribe could the new state rise above petty tribal rivalries, and, develop the cohesion necessary to defeat colonialism. JAN and DAESH are modern expressions of the meta-tribe concept in the Muslim world. Terrorism is not the issue. Structure is the point.
The Islamic Republic of the Rif eventually foundered on the reef of tribalism. Abd-al Krim, himself a member of the Ait Weryghal, was forced by expediency to select members of his tribe familiar to him for positions of responsibility in the army and government. This created dissension, which, led to the other allied tribes gradually deserting the state.
Groups like DAESH and JAN, being attempts to realize the Islamic meta-tribe, are contractualist in nature, rather than, corporatist, like Western organisations and societies. The West invests the office with authority. In Islam, temporal authority stems from the personal relations of the person who wields it (Hodgson).
Khalid:
Thanks. You always provide good insight into the Muslim world that helps us keep things in perspective.
Very Shady. Where is the individual from San Diego who got some of the terrorists housing and settled them here? I think he was a Saudi Agent.
Blogging is not truth ,
behaviour is truth.
As I have said before on
Matt’s longest running verbal rorschach test…..
In June of 2002. I helped shoot the 911 documentary
911 Press For Truth
see
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHPfXemf10
In 2004 I helped investigative journalist
Barry Zwicker shoot a weeklong conference
on 911 held in Toronto
and the Matt Connolly irregulars have
their eyes glued to MSM
their primary source of truth
ugh
Ty