5 ms·

If Saudi Arabia is linked to 9/11 we need to have a serious look at the past 15 years and reevaluate our entire foreign policy justification

drjesusphd 10y ago
You've been listening to the wrong people for the past 15 years if you think 9/11 had anything to do with US foreign policy.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  You have the logic of the parent's comment reversed. However, a case can be made that US support for the Taliban against the USSR contributed in some way.
  - jonnybgood 10y ago
    The US didn't support the Taliban against the USSR. The Taliban came in to existence after the Afghan-Soviet war. Matter of fact, many of the Mujahideen supported by the US during the war later fought against Taliban.
- armenarmen 10y ago
  eh?
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    If I've understood correctly, the point the GP was making was that 9/11 attacks were used as a cover for the foreign policy decisions rather than attempting to hold the perpetrators to account. For example, what did Iraq have to do with 9/11? Nothing. What did Libya have to do with 9/11? Nothing. What did Yemen have to do with 9/11? Nothing. Did Guantanamo help keep the US safer? By many accounts, it mainly acted as fuel for the fire. By declaring a 'war on terror' rather than targeting the specific groups involved in the 9/11 attacks, the US can now be engaged in perpetual war. How is that going to help make the US safer? The actions only really make sense when you take into account the military-industrial complex and the desire for imperialism. 9/11 was just a convenient excuse used to push forward on those fronts.
    - Shivetya 10y ago
      The US has been in perpetual war ever since WW2. They just rebrand it as the times move on. That said, if anyone wants to trace the strife in the Middle East to its rightful owners just go look at European Colonialism and their slicing, dicing,and merging, of different groups in the early 1900s.
      - CelestialTeapot 10y ago
        The US has been in perpetual war ever since its founding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
      - Turing_Machine 10y ago
        While colonialism certainly didn't help, the Middle East has been a sliced, diced, merged region of perpetual war since the beginning of recorded history, and undoubtedly before.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
saiya-jin 10y ago
i suspect this is not a shocking story to government, so I wouldn't expect much change here...
raverbashing 10y ago
If?
rado 10y ago
Justification?
woodpanel 10y ago
I hate to sound confronting, but anyone living in a western counrty which leadership sees these documents as the reason to reevaluate its relationship with Saudi Arabia should be scared by his leadership's incompetence: Those documents aren't needed to see that the whole Saudi Establishment is the no. 1 reason for jihadist terrorism. Just look at the massive investments the Saudis made since the 1950s to recruite, edjucate and influence muslim clerics basically everywhere in the world. And boy, need I say that civil rights wasn't on their curriculum?! The Saud Family wants the radicalization of Islam for power reasons that are comparable to the situation of the Papal States and catholic influence over christian countries hundreds of years ago. It's not Islam that is cancerous, it is the Saud Family.
- estefan 10y ago
  This doco (Bitter Lake) suggests they don't want radicalisation at all: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bi... It claims the Saud family needed to appease conservative clerics to maintain power, so that's why they sponsored all these fanatical clerics. They kicked the can down the road and now their chickens are coming home to roost.
  - DominikR 10y ago
    They are still part of the problem if they sponsor these fanatics.
    - estefan 10y ago
      Yeah absolutely, but the doco argues they aren't doing it to create some parallel of Catholicism, but rather as a way to appease the extremists who could have toppled them from power 50 years ago. The trouble is, those schools have now created a load of brainwashed idiots who are now causing trouble.
      - DominikR 10y ago
        It is one thing if you spread internally crazy ideologies or if you spend considerable resources to go out there and try to subvert every society you possibly can. Saudi education literally teaches children that they must wage jihad against the infidels (to spread their faith) and that's after 9/11 when they supposedly reviewed their textbooks for children to remove all texts that might spread hate. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05... I say if that's the only way the Saud family can hold onto power then it's not worth supporting them. These guys have done more to make Islam look bad than anyone else in the last decades combined.
cm2187 10y ago
I don't know is Saudi Arabia sponsored directly 9/11 but what is clear is that Saudi Arabia is the main sponsor across the world of wahabism/sunni extremism, of which Al Quaeda, ISIS, etc are the direct offsprings.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Some of the Saudi royal family ( /= Saudi Arabia) appear to have sponsored 9/11, at least indirectly. On the official level, they stopped giving the US intelligence on Bin Laden in the mid 90's, since they knew that if caught, he would spill the beans on a lot of Saudi dark deeds, past and present.
mtgx 10y ago
I'm not sure of Gary Johnson's position on this, but I know Jill Stein agrees that Saudi Arabia should not be US' partner anymore, and that US should stop arming Saudi Arabia. Even Bernie Sanders wanted US to remain a partner of Saudi Arabia to "get rid of ISIS", but I don't think he ever thought it through too much.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  There is one mainstream candidate who is against an alliance with Saudi Arabia, and his name is Donald Trump. (But but but he's a racist!!!!)
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    s/a racist/completely unfit for running even a small town, let alone a large country/
    - douche 10y ago
      Yet perfectly competent at running a multi-billion dollar corporation... The cognitive dissonance is strong.
      - busterarm 10y ago
        His mom was and his children are, that's for sure.
      - hx87 10y ago
        If I ran my company with the same "competence" Trump ran his, I would have gone out of business a long time ago.
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        Actually, evidence says he's not. He started in 1987 with $1 billion, and has tripled that in ~30 years. But simply putting the initial investment into index funds would have made a 13x ROI. So he's significantly underperformed the stock market. In fact, he's barely kept up with inflation. That's far from perfectly competent, any money manager with that record would be a laughing stock. http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/ http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/

drjesusphd 10y ago

You've been listening to the wrong people for the past 15 years if you think 9/11 had anything to do with US foreign policy.

nitrogen 10y ago
You have the logic of the parent's comment reversed. However, a case can be made that US support for the Taliban against the USSR contributed in some way.
- jonnybgood 10y ago
  The US didn't support the Taliban against the USSR. The Taliban came in to existence after the Afghan-Soviet war. Matter of fact, many of the Mujahideen supported by the US during the war later fought against Taliban.
armenarmen 10y ago
eh?
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  If I've understood correctly, the point the GP was making was that 9/11 attacks were used as a cover for the foreign policy decisions rather than attempting to hold the perpetrators to account. For example, what did Iraq have to do with 9/11? Nothing. What did Libya have to do with 9/11? Nothing. What did Yemen have to do with 9/11? Nothing. Did Guantanamo help keep the US safer? By many accounts, it mainly acted as fuel for the fire. By declaring a 'war on terror' rather than targeting the specific groups involved in the 9/11 attacks, the US can now be engaged in perpetual war. How is that going to help make the US safer? The actions only really make sense when you take into account the military-industrial complex and the desire for imperialism. 9/11 was just a convenient excuse used to push forward on those fronts.
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    The US has been in perpetual war ever since WW2. They just rebrand it as the times move on. That said, if anyone wants to trace the strife in the Middle East to its rightful owners just go look at European Colonialism and their slicing, dicing,and merging, of different groups in the early 1900s.
    - CelestialTeapot 10y ago
      The US has been in perpetual war ever since its founding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      While colonialism certainly didn't help, the Middle East has been a sliced, diced, merged region of perpetual war since the beginning of recorded history, and undoubtedly before.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

saiya-jin 10y ago

i suspect this is not a shocking story to government, so I wouldn't expect much change here...

raverbashing 10y ago

If?

rado 10y ago

Justification?

woodpanel 10y ago

I hate to sound confronting, but anyone living in a western counrty which leadership sees these documents as the reason to reevaluate its relationship with Saudi Arabia should be scared by his leadership's incompetence: Those documents aren't needed to see that the whole Saudi Establishment is the no. 1 reason for jihadist terrorism. Just look at the massive investments the Saudis made since the 1950s to recruite, edjucate and influence muslim clerics basically everywhere in the world. And boy, need I say that civil rights wasn't on their curriculum?! The Saud Family wants the radicalization of Islam for power reasons that are comparable to the situation of the Papal States and catholic influence over christian countries hundreds of years ago. It's not Islam that is cancerous, it is the Saud Family.

estefan 10y ago
This doco (Bitter Lake) suggests they don't want radicalisation at all: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bi... It claims the Saud family needed to appease conservative clerics to maintain power, so that's why they sponsored all these fanatical clerics. They kicked the can down the road and now their chickens are coming home to roost.
- DominikR 10y ago
  They are still part of the problem if they sponsor these fanatics.
  - estefan 10y ago
    Yeah absolutely, but the doco argues they aren't doing it to create some parallel of Catholicism, but rather as a way to appease the extremists who could have toppled them from power 50 years ago. The trouble is, those schools have now created a load of brainwashed idiots who are now causing trouble.
    - DominikR 10y ago
      It is one thing if you spread internally crazy ideologies or if you spend considerable resources to go out there and try to subvert every society you possibly can. Saudi education literally teaches children that they must wage jihad against the infidels (to spread their faith) and that's after 9/11 when they supposedly reviewed their textbooks for children to remove all texts that might spread hate. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05... I say if that's the only way the Saud family can hold onto power then it's not worth supporting them. These guys have done more to make Islam look bad than anyone else in the last decades combined.

cm2187 10y ago

I don't know is Saudi Arabia sponsored directly 9/11 but what is clear is that Saudi Arabia is the main sponsor across the world of wahabism/sunni extremism, of which Al Quaeda, ISIS, etc are the direct offsprings.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Some of the Saudi royal family ( /= Saudi Arabia) appear to have sponsored 9/11, at least indirectly. On the official level, they stopped giving the US intelligence on Bin Laden in the mid 90's, since they knew that if caught, he would spill the beans on a lot of Saudi dark deeds, past and present.

mtgx 10y ago

I'm not sure of Gary Johnson's position on this, but I know Jill Stein agrees that Saudi Arabia should not be US' partner anymore, and that US should stop arming Saudi Arabia. Even Bernie Sanders wanted US to remain a partner of Saudi Arabia to "get rid of ISIS", but I don't think he ever thought it through too much.

chatmasta 10y ago
There is one mainstream candidate who is against an alliance with Saudi Arabia, and his name is Donald Trump. (But but but he's a racist!!!!)
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  s/a racist/completely unfit for running even a small town, let alone a large country/
  - douche 10y ago
    Yet perfectly competent at running a multi-billion dollar corporation... The cognitive dissonance is strong.
    - busterarm 10y ago
      His mom was and his children are, that's for sure.
    - hx87 10y ago
      If I ran my company with the same "competence" Trump ran his, I would have gone out of business a long time ago.
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      Actually, evidence says he's not. He started in 1987 with $1 billion, and has tripled that in ~30 years. But simply putting the initial investment into index funds would have made a 13x ROI. So he's significantly underperformed the stock market. In fact, he's barely kept up with inflation. That's far from perfectly competent, any money manager with that record would be a laughing stock. http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/ http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/