Saudi Arabia Allied With Al-Qaeda, et al.

Despite the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian, the United States invaded Iraq. Instead of being the most open and transparent administration in history, the Obama administration has continued many of the controversial policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

28 pages continue to be fully classified in the 9/11 report, a Bush-era text that apparently illuminates some Saudi culpability in the 9/11 attacks. But the relevant pages proving this are redacted and have not been revealed to the public. Though, some in intelligence circles have gotten their eyes on it and have since come out and said the redacted portions need to be released. Instead of releasing the information to the public, our government continues to hide the truth from us, claiming national security takes priority over honesty.

Saudi ties to terrorism are no secret. What is not fully known is the full extent of the government, high officials in leadership, royal family’s involvement on the fateful morning of September 11th.

An author of the referenced report, former Sen. Bob Graham, told 60 Minutes the classified information outlines a network of people he believes supported the hijackers while they were in the US. Others who have read the pages agree.

Multiple readers of the redacted 28 pages stated “that the hijackers who settled in Southern California had official Saudi assistance.” This is not terribly surprising, though shocking to see written in print or heard out loud. What is incomprehensible is the United States’ decision to invade Iraq after 9/11 instead of the Saudi Kingdom.

Graham also said he believes the US classified the pages to protect its delicate relationship with its ally, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis were certainly linked to 9/11 somehow as over three-fourths of the terrorists involved were from the Kingdom. The pages apparently reveal that individual members of the Saudi government were directly supporting the terrorists embedded in the U.S. before the attacks over 15 years ago. Whether they were orchestrating the events themselves or just putting it in motion is unclear. And, it does not seem able to prove that anyone very high up in the Saudi hierarchy were involved, but there is certainly more going on than we can imagine, though one’s imagination can run wild.

The White House is considering declassifying the 28 crucial pages from the report. We’ll see if they follow through on that. They seem to be more concerned in protecting their “ally” in Saudi Arabia to support them as a counterweight to more explosive actors in the region such as ISIS and Iran.

Brian Becker, director of the ANSWER Coalition entered the controversy in an interview given to Iranian news outlet PressTV. Becker contends that “the United States has been obviously protecting Saudi Arabia.” He goes on to discuss how our alliance with the brutal desert nation kingdom has always been predicated on our insatiable desire for oil. Becker also believes it is “quite extraordinary that the 28-page document remains classified 15 years after the 9/11 attacks.

His analysis of the situation expands into the greater foreign policy implications. The Saudi government has certainly been pursuing “a more independent regional strategy,” as Becker notes. The Saudis have done next to nothing in alleviating the regional migrant crisis pouring out from Syria. The Kingdom has also been much more focused in Al-Qaeda and ISIS’ advance in Yemen in the south, rather than joining with the U.S. and its allies to resolve the Syrian civil war after excising ISIS from the Syrian-Iraq sphere.

Could Obama possibly be using these redacted pages to get the Saudis more to our side on some of these issues where our interests diverge? This is definitely possible. If the Saudis take a notable shift on any their strategies in the area over the next few months, it could be that we are withholding it on purpose to use it as leverage as long as we can.

We can speculate on what Obama is doing all we want, but at the end of the day we would be guessing. There is no telling where he lies on the foreign policy spectrum, based off of his actions taken as President alone. His rhetoric has been very noninterventionist and he has strived to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, events on the ground forced his hand as he had to change strategies. He is supposedly committed to destroying ISIS in Iraq and Syria. It looks like he wants other countries to care more of the load.

Both of these goals are fine to have, but you have to stick to your guns, so to speak. Obama’s ill-planned intervention in Libya has rocked the country that is now overrun by ISIS and other radical groups. His politically motivated pullout in Iraq likely lead to the rise and size of ISIS today. And his flailing focus in trying to shift to Asia, but being forced to retrench in the Middle East, has been a dance hard to watch.

Foreign policy is a difficult subject and it is not something that can be absorbed in a short amount of time. That is why as a country, we need to elect someone who is prepared to make such important decisions on a daily basis with such a powerful military at their disposal. Obama’s prior experience as a community organizer, then State turned U.S. Senator, was clearly not enough to adequately ready him for the turbulent waters that are the everyday threats America faces being the world’s only superpower, for now.

He will make a big decision in the next couple months, when he decides whether or not release the redacted 28 pages to the public.

Too bad regarding relevant experience over soaring rhetoric leads to Hillary Rodham Clinton being elected our next President.

Ready for more intervention? How about another quagmire?