Deadly Bedfellows

• Is the Administration’s foreign policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?

The US has been pumping a great deal of money, and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia (who is himself a Wahhabi muslim) is putting up some of this money, without congressional authority or any congressional oversight for covert operations in many areas of the Middle East where the US wants to stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence. Somewhere along the line, somebody decided that Iran and Hezbollah are more dangerous than Sunni jihadist groups connected to “al Qaeda”. All this at Saudi Arabia’s behest and in the name of fighting Iranian influence in the Middle East. The civil war in Iraq will end when the Sunnis and the Shi’ites realize that they are being played against each other by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

• Has the invasion of Iraq resulted in more or less terrorist attacks?

Our study yields one resounding finding: The rate of terrorist attacks around the world by jihadist groups and the rate of fatalities in those attacks increased dramatically after the invasion of Iraq. Globally there was a 607 percent rise in the average yearly incidence of attacks (28.3 attacks per year before and 199.8 after) and a 237 percent rise in the average fatality rate (from 501 to 1,689 deaths per year). A large part of this rise occurred in Iraq, which accounts for fully half of the global total of jihadist terrorist attacks in the post-Iraq War period. But even excluding Iraq, the average yearly number of jihadist terrorist attacks and resulting fatalities still rose sharply around the world by 265 percent and 58 percent respectively.

And even when attacks in both Afghanistan and Iraq (the two countries that together account for 80 percent of attacks and 67 percent of deaths since the invasion of Iraq) are excluded, there has still been a significant rise in jihadist terrorism elsewhere–a 35 percent increase in the number of jihadist terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan and Iraq, from 27.6 to 37 a year, with a 12 percent rise in fatalities from 496 to 554 per year.

This “blowback” trend will greatly increase when the war eventually winds down in Iraq, and shows just how counterproductive the $1.9B/week being spent on the Iraq War has been to the war on terrorism. The most extensive suicide bombing campaign in history is being conducted in Iraq largely by foreigners animated by the belief that they must liberate a Muslim land from the “infidel” occupiers.

Reuven Paz, an Israeli expert on terrorism, concluded that of the 154 foreign fighters killed in Iraq over a six-month period, 61% were Saudis, with Syrians and Kuwaitis together accounting for another 25%. But the jihadist websites claim that 70% of the suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals.

Among those who blew themselves up were engineering students and English majors, the son of a Moroccan restaurateur and a handful of Europeanized Arabs. Many of the bombers were married, well-educated and in their late 20s, traits they shared with the Sept. 11 hijackers. [Source]

In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, and none of them were from either Afghanistan or Iraq.

• Did Prince Bandar or members of the Saudi Royal family provide financial support to the 9/11 hijackers or planners?

There are tenuous links between Prince Bandar’s wife, Haifa bint Faisal, and those who helped some of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as links between various Islamic banking connections which are compounded by long-standing questions about the function of some Saudi charities.

The administration treads gingerly in targeting institutions that could lead to the Saudi royals and influentials. In December (2004), Sens. Bob Graham (D-Florida) and Richard C. Shelby (R-Alabama) accused the Bush administration of refusing to declassify information that showed possible Saudi Arabian financial links to terrorists because it didn’t want to embarrass the Saudis and endanger its political ties. Shelby, sworn not to reveal classified material, said the information could involve “a lot of their leaders and probably even the royal family.”

More worried about embarrassing the Saudis than fighting terrorism? And we’re spending $1.9B/week on war, and thousands are being killed in the Middle East for… what, exactly?

I bet Sibel Edmonds could tell us… if only she wasn’t under gag order.

Now, it should be pointed out that under anti-terrorism legislation submitted by the administration and passed into law by the Congress, providing aid to Al-Qaeda or to organizations in any way linked to terrorism is a federal crime and classifies the perpetrator as an abettor of terrorism and even as an “unlawful combatant,” subject to loss of citizenship rights, and suitable for rendition to Guantanamo or some other secret torture hell-hole.

I suppose the proper thing at this point would be for some patriotic prosecutor or some general to march into the White House and haul the president off to be waterboarded until he lays out all the details of his treasonous actions. (Sure he is the president and is immune from prosecution, but if he’s an “unlawful combatant,” none of that applies. The president has declared this to be so.)

For make no mistake: secretly providing money to terrorist organizations that are daily attacking Americans in Iraq, in order to ignite a new war against Iran, especially at a time that the US military is stretched beyond the limit in Iraq, is nothing short of treason. Even viewed in a more minimalist way, absconding with public funds and diverting them to illegal purposes is criminal fraud.