Fareed Zakaria's Breakthrough: Saudi Sponsorship of Terrorism

Fareed Zakaria has published at the Washington Post and declared on CNN that:

"Almost every terrorist attack in the West has had some connection to Saudi Arabia. Virtually none has been linked to Iran."

His column of May 25 is a significant breakthrough. He is a mainstream media spokesperson. He's speaking the truth. And he's still alive.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/saudi-arabia-jus...

How Saudi Arabia played Donald Trump
By Fareed Zakaria
May 25, 2017

This week’s bombing in Manchester, England, was another gruesome reminder that the threat from radical Islamist terrorism is ongoing. And President Trump’s journey to the Middle East illustrated yet again how the country central to the spread of this terrorism, Saudi Arabia, has managed to evade and deflect any responsibility for it. In fact, Trump has given Saudi Arabia a free pass and a free hand in the region.

The facts are well-known. For five decades, Saudi Arabia has spread its narrow, puritanical and intolerant version of Islam — originally practiced almost nowhere else — across the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden was Saudi, as were 15 of the 19 9/11 terrorists.

And we know, via a leaked email from former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in recent years the Saudi government, along with Qatar, has been “providing clandestine financial and logistic support to [the Islamic State] and other radical Sunni groups in the region.” Saudi nationals make up the second-largest group of foreign fighters in the Islamic State and, by some accounts, the largest in the terrorist group’s Iraqi operations. The kingdom is in a tacit alliance with al-Qaeda in Yemen.

The Islamic State draws its beliefs from Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi version of Islam...

Saudi money is now transforming European Islam. Leaked German intelligence reports show that charities “closely connected with government offices” of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait are funding mosques, schools and imams to disseminate a fundamentalist, intolerant version of Islam throughout Germany.

In Kosovo, the New York Times’ Carlotta Gall describes the process by which a 500-year-old tradition of moderate Islam is being destroyed. “From their bases, the Saudi-trained imams propagated Wahhabism’s tenets: the supremacy of Shariah law as well as ideas of violent jihad and takfirism, which authorizes the killing of Muslims considered heretics for not following its interpretation of Islam.”...

Trump’s speech on Islam was nuanced and showed empathy for the Muslim victims of jihadist terrorism (who make up as much as 95 percent of the total, by one estimate). He seemed to zero in on the problem when he said, “No discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists . . . safe harbor, financial backing and the social standing needed for recruitment.”

But Trump was talking not of his host, Saudi Arabia, but rather of Iran. Now, to be clear, Iran is a destabilizing force in the Middle East and supports some very bad actors. But it is wildly inaccurate to describe it as the source of jihadist terror. According to an analysis of the Global Terrorism Database by Leif Wenar of King’s College London, more than 94 percent of deaths caused by Islamic terrorism since 2001 were perpetrated by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other Sunni jihadists. Iran is fighting those groups, not fueling them. Almost every terrorist attack in the West has had some connection to Saudi Arabia. Virtually none has been linked to Iran.

Trump has adopted the Saudi line on terrorism, which deflects any blame from the kingdom and redirects it toward Iran. The Saudis showered Trump’s inexperienced negotiators with attention, arms deals and donations to a World Bank fund that Ivanka Trump is championing. (Candidate Trump wrote in a Facebook post in 2016, “Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money from such countries!”) In short, the Saudis played Trump...

The United States has now signed up for Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy — a relentless series of battles against Shiites and their allies throughout the Middle East. That will enmesh Washington in a never-ending sectarian struggle, fuel regional instability and complicate its ties with countries such as Iraq that want good relations with both sides. But most important, it will do nothing to address the direct and ongoing threat to Americans — jihadist terrorism. I thought that Trump’s foreign policy was going to put America first, not Saudi Arabia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CayJkedqxoY

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@CB @CB

“The sun rises and people clear their throats.” The whole world clears its throat, for the sun has risen over all the world.

full respect to Mr. Nasrallah, for saying it out loud.

shows just how gutless, clueless & complicit our "progressive leadership" really is.

"ISIS must be destroyed" - Bernie (the Hope) Sanders

more simple-minded sloganeering from Mr Helper. Russia!

gee whiz.

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CB's picture

@irishking
from the countries we are attacking, the more I have come to the realization that it is the American public who, for the most part, don't have a fucking clue about what is going on the world. This also includes many who believe they are well informed by the MSM.

The ubiquitous of the internet allows people, on who's heads we have been dropping bombs for decades, to know why it's being done to them. There's more truth on the streets of Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran and Sana'a than in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Seattle or Miami and all the towns and cities between.

It's only on rare moments when we get unadulterated truth such this report from Zak. Unfortunately, it is not enough to make up for all the other crap he has been feeding the American public from CNN's slop trough.

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@irishking
our supposed King:

http://sept11terrorlitigation.com/pdf/Cantor_Fitzgerald_Complaint.pdf

… 41. The charity and relief defendants named herein were not independent of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Rather, they were funded, authorized, supervised, directed, and/or controlled by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Sultan, Prince Naif, Prince Salman, and the Saudi High Commission for Relief. Each charity and relief organization defendant: (A) raised funds only with the permission of the Kingdom; (B) was funded by the Kingdom directly and through donations made by Prince Sultan, Prince Salman, and other members of the royal family; (C) operated under the auspices of the Supreme Council, the Ministry of Interior, and the Saudi High Commission for Relief; and (D) otherwise functioned as a sponsor of Al Qaeda openly, with full knowledge, endorsement, and/or approval of the Foreign Governmental Defendants named herein…

Prince Salman associated himself with Al Qaeda by: (1) authorizing, ratifying, supervising, controlling, overseeing and/or directing the Saudi High Commission for Relief and by personally funding it with the knowledge that it was the official Saudi governmental organization charged with collecting and dispersing humanitarian aid and that such financial and material support was being diverted to Al Qaeda; (2) publicly supporting and authorizing state-sponsorship of IIRO and Al-Haramain; and (3) personally funding IIRO and Al-Haramain with the knowledge that such financial and material support was being diverted to Al Qaeda.

… 194. Prince Sultan's, Prince Naif's, and Prince Salman's conduct or participation, directly or indirectly, in the affairs of the Al Qaeda Defendants' enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity renders them jointly and severally responsible for the damage caused to Plaintiffs' property and business. The uninterrupted flow of financial and material support and substantial assistance enabled the Al Qaeda Defendants to plan, orchestrate and carry out the September 11 attacks. Therefore, the conduct of Prince Sultan, Prince Naif, and Prince Salman proximately resulted in the September 11 attacks...

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@CB
of 2012:

https://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-doc...

… Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for “THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…”.

The DIA report, formerly classified “SECRET//NOFORN” and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.

The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.

This is what Michael Flynn, who became Director of Defense Intelligence that summer, objected to.

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bookmarked

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Shockwave's picture

1992 attack on Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires

My sister ended up in the hospital (she lived across the street) and she was extremely lucky.

The other act happened 2 years later at the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association

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The political revolution continues

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Shockwave The attack on the American embassy in the 70s gets dumped into the general category of "terrorism" these days, though it wasn't called that at the time.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Shockwave's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal That was not "terrorism". One of my friends (eventually he became a general) was one of the hostages and he was not terrorized. An act of war perhaps.

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The political revolution continues

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Shockwave @Shockwave I don't consider it terrorism. But we're living in an age where words like "terrorism" cover an awful lot of ground. And I'm pretty sure the marketing of Iran as a Big Danger is relying on the cultural memory of that incident.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lotlizard's picture

@Shockwave  
Would our embassy in 1979 be the operations center of a last-ditch effort to sabotage the revolution and somehow save the Shah?

The students’ point of view was, “Oh, no, they don’t. This time let’s play it safe.”

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@lotlizard I don't disagree. Even though I admit it was distressing to watch, as a child, I don't actually disagree.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Alligator Ed's picture

@Shockwave Innocent people killed, starved, displaced. "Enemies" killed first and then interrogated later. Oh, say, doesn't this sound like the Exceptional Amerikkkan state? Nah, couldn't be.

Crazy

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dervish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal probably because that was the first time I'd seen them used. Probably 1 American in a thousand knew the back story of why the embassy was taken over.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

CB's picture

@Shockwave
in this attack. The underground urban guerrilla organization, Islamic Jihad Organization, did a lot of independent terrorist operations on their own initiative. Remember some of the US financed mujaheddin groups in Afghanistan eventually went on to kill Americans.

The stated reason for the Buenos Aires attack was as a response to the assassination of al Moussawi by the Israelis. Keep in mind that Mossad's motto at that time was "By way of deception thou shalt make war." False flags, black flags, murder, deceit, subterfuge were all par for the course in those days (and still continue to a certain extent).

Assassination

On 16 February 1992, Israeli Apache helicopters fired missiles at the motorcade of al Moussawi in southern Lebanon, killing al Moussawi, his wife, his five-year-old son, and four others.[13] Israel said the attack had been planned as an assassination attempt in retaliation for the kidnapping and death of missing Israeli servicemen in 1986 and abduction of US Marine and UN peace-keeping officer William R. Higgins in 1988.[14]

In retaliation, the Islamic Jihad Organization carried out the Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires.[15] After the attack, the Islamic Jihad Organization declared that it was carried out for the revenge of the martyr infant Hussein, al Musawi's five-year-old son, who had been killed with his father.[16] Later it was revealed by Dieter Bednarz and Ronen Bergman that the original plan of Israel had been just to abduct al Musawi to realize the release of Israeli prisoners.[15] However, Ehud Barak, then Israeli chief of staff, convinced then Israeli Prime Minister Shamir to order his assassination.[15]

Al Musawi was succeeded as Secretary General of Hezbollah by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.[11]

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

he inserted all that info in the frame of "Isn't Donald Trump a Stupid, Venal Asshole" which is a big establishment favorite right now, and explains how he got it published in the Washington Post, the CIA's very own paper.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I think Trump knew he was politically outgunned (and he damned well was), so he went around and made an independent deal with the Saudis which trumped (heh) the one they had with the Clintons (and, I guess, the Bushes? since the Bushes and Clintons are basically moving together these days...).

Politically, it's actually a smart (if morally horrific and hypocritical) move. Probably one he wouldn't have made if he'd been able to make a deal with Russia instead.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

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