Finally – Worthy Candidates of “Enhanced Interrogation”

Those readers familiar with me and my work know that I have staunchly been against the use of torture, or anything that smacks of it – Joseph Farah, head of the Christian-oriented media site World Net Daily virtually hung up on my Future Quake radio co-host and myself because I raised issues about Guantanamo Bay and the callous views he and other Christians have about the innocence of many of the detainees, much less their treatment.  The first volume of my soon-to-be-released book series, The Holy War Chronicles – A Spiritual View of the War on Terror, focuses in its first volume on the documented nature and ramifications of the torture protocols of the War on Terror on both the torturer and the tortured.  I have reiterated my opposition to torture on a number of radio interviews as well.

However, I think I have found a situation now and an associated group of people for whom I can make an exception.

A movement is now underway within Congress, supported by members of both parties, to finally insist on the declassification of the 28 missing pages from the 2002 9/11 Commission report.  Although Congressmen “in the know” have been forbidden to exactly reveal its contents until now, it has been a worst kept secret that it reveals evidence of Saudi Arabian direction behind the 9/11 attacks.

It has just been now revealed in an April 15, 2016 New York Times report that

“Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”  It continues by saying that “The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage…Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.  Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.  ‘It’s stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens,’ said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who is part of a group of victims’ family members pushing for the legislation…President Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for meetings with King Salman and other Saudi officials…Suspicions have lingered, partly because of the conclusions of a 2002 congressional inquiry into the attacks that cited some evidence that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a hand in the plot.  Those conclusions, contained in 28 pages of the report, still have not been released publicly.”

“Families of the Sept. 11 victims have used the courts to try to hold members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities liable because of what the plaintiffs charged was Saudi financial support for terrorism. These efforts have largely been stymied, in part because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.”

“The Senate bill is intended to make clear that the immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where nations are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill Americans on United States soil. If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 lawsuits.”

“Obama administration officials counter that weakening the sovereign immunity provisions would put the American government, along with its citizens and corporations, in legal risk abroad because other nations might retaliate with their own legislation. Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate panel in February that the bill, in its current form, would “expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent.”

“In a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on March 4, Anne W. Patterson, an assistant secretary of state, and Andrew Exum, a top Pentagon official on Middle East policy, told staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that American troops and civilians could be in legal jeopardy if other nations decide to retaliate and strip Americans of immunity abroad.”

“…the administration has supported Saudi Arabia on other fronts, including providing the country with targeting intelligence and logistical support for its war in Yemen. The Saudi military is flying jets and dropping bombs it bought from the United States — part of the billions of dollars in arms deals that have been negotiated with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations during the Obama administration.  The war has been a humanitarian disaster and fueled a resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen, leading to the resolution in Congress to put new restrictions on arms deals to the kingdom.”

Today’s (April 17, 2016) New York Post had further details to add:

“In its report on the still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” last weekend said the Saudi role in the attacks has been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s delicate alliance with the oil-rich kingdom… the kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the coverup goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement. Investigations were throttled. Co-conspirators were let off the hook.”

“Case agents I’ve interviewed at the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in Washington and San Diego, the forward operating base for some of the Saudi hijackers, as well as detectives at the Fairfax County (Va.) Police Department who also investigated several 9/11 leads, say virtually every road led back to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, as well as the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles.  Yet time and time again, they were called off from pursuing leads. A common excuse was ‘diplomatic immunity.’  Those sources say the pages missing from the 9/11 congressional inquiry report — which comprise the entire final chapter dealing with “foreign support for the September 11 hijackers” — details “incontrovertible evidence” gathered from both CIA and FBI case files of official Saudi assistance for at least two of the Saudi hijackers who settled in San Diego.”

“Some information has leaked from the redacted section, including a flurry of pre-9/11 phone calls between one of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego and the Saudi Embassy, and the transfer of some $130,000 from then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar’s family checking account to yet another of the hijackers’ Saudi handlers in San Diego.  An investigator who worked with the JTTF in Washington complained that instead of investigating Bandar, the US government protected him — literally. He said the State Department assigned a security detail to help guard Bandar not only at the embassy, but also at his McLean, Va., mansion.  The source added that the task force wanted to jail a number of embassy employees, ‘but the embassy complained to the US attorney’ and their diplomatic visas were revoked as a compromise.”

“Former FBI agent John Guandolo, who worked 9/11 and related al Qaeda cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office, says Bandar should have been a key suspect in the 9/11 probe.  ‘The Saudi ambassador funded two of the 9/11 hijackers through a third party,’ Guandolo said. ‘He should be treated as a terrorist suspect, as should other members of the Saudi elite class who the US government knows are currently funding the global jihad.’ But Bandar held sway over the FBI.”

“After he met on Sept. 13, 2001, with President Bush in the White House, where the two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony, the FBI evacuated dozens of Saudi officials from multiple cities, including at least one Osama bin Laden family member on the terror watch list. Instead of interrogating the Saudis, FBI agents acted as security escorts for them, even though it was known at the time that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.”

‘The FBI was thwarted from interviewing the Saudis we wanted to interview by the White House,’ said former FBI agent Mark Rossini, who was involved in the investigation of al Qaeda and the hijackers. The White House ‘let them off the hook.’  What’s more, Rossini said the bureau was told no subpoenas could be served to produce evidence tying departing Saudi suspects to 9/11. The FBI, in turn, iced local investigations that led back to the Saudis.  ‘The FBI covered their ears every time we mentioned the Saudis,’ said former Fairfax County Police Lt. Roger Kelly. ‘“It was too political to touch.'”

“Even Anwar al-Awlaki, the hijackers’ spiritual adviser, escaped our grasp. In 2002, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was detained at JFK on passport fraud charges only to be released into the custody of a ‘Saudi representative.’  It wasn’t until 2011 that Awlaki was brought to justice — by way of a CIA drone strike.  Strangely, “The 9/11 Commission Report,” which followed the congressional inquiry, never cites the catch-and-release of Awlaki, and it mentions Bandar only in passing, his named buried in footnotes.”

“Two commission lawyers investigating the Saudi support network for the hijackers complained their boss, executive director Philip Zelikow, blocked them from issuing subpoenas and conducting interviews of Saudi suspects.  9/11 Commission member John Lehman was interested in the hijackers’ connections to Bandar, his wife and the Islamic affairs office at the embassy. But every time he tried to get information on that front, he was stonewalled by the White House.’They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,’ Lehman was quoted as saying.”

 

 

 

What are some of the conclusions can we draw from this?

1.  Beyond the contents of the classified pages and other investigative work by the FBI and others, the simple fact that Saudi Arabia is now threatening economic terrorism by destabilizing world markets if this investigation is released, is in fact a tacit admission of guilt by them in my view, and not there being investigative findings they feel they could dispute or disprove if released.
2. The connections between the Bushes and Prince Bandar and the Saudi royal family, including cozy meetings mere hours after thousands of Americans had died, is fodder for detailed hearings and subpoenas to determine how this has influenced world events, and how this has been kept from the public (this does not even mention Bush Sr.’s meeting with the entire Bin Laden faily, his business partners through the Carlyle Group, of whom he was meeting with on the day of 9/11, and leading to their discreet flights home as the only planes in the skies in the hours after the attacks).
3. Although the “buck stops” at the President’s desk, the tentacles of collaboration to provide protection for the Saudis goes through the Justice Dept., Defense Dept., FBI, CIA and other groups.
4. President Obama, like Bush, is protecting the Saudis to protect lucractive miltiary contracts with them, and to protect Blackwater, the intelligence and military members from reciprocal challenges to diplomatic immunity due to their torture tactics and other atrocities overseas, as well as other key big business figures whose actions cause harm to those in other countries (like Union Carbide, etc.)
5. It is likely we have attacked innocent parties in countries like Afghanistan, while the masterminds go free.  This is why we have world courts (as the Taliban agreed to turn Al Qaeda over to originally), to settle out the true culprits, unless our government did not want the true culrpits exposed.
6. I guess government officials are supposed to have “diplomatic immunity” from actions of our government to otherwise hold them accountable, even if they are suspected in terror acts, but that did not stop Bush & Co. from denying the same to Saddam Hussein and his boys.
7.  In effect, our senior government officials are “accessories to the crime”, and may well have been part of masterminding it.  As Bush himself said in defining the “Bush Doctrine” in a Joint Session of Congress on Sept. 20, 2001, ” we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism…From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”  Saudi Arabia has provided safe haven to those who assisted the terrorists if not from the very top, and the U.S. Government officials have given safe haven to them, so all are considered “enemies” of the interests of the American people.
8. Those nutty “conspiracy theorists” who have pointed out these things for years, even about our “messianic” George W. Bush, aren’t wrong all the time.

 

In light of point #6, I think it is apparent that senior officials in the Bush administration, other agencies, and even President Obama know much more than they are telling us, and it appears they may have complicity (or centrality) in these crimes.  One other point to note:  My research for years concerning events in the Middle East in the last 50 years has shown consistently that if either Saudi Arabia, Israel or the United States are involved in some initiative, the other two are usually involved as well, or at least well aware of it.  For one example, published reports from major newspapers  I cite from the early days of the Arab Spring reveal American, Israeli and Saudi coordinated training and arming of ISIS and others in Jordan and Turkey, to assist in the overthrow of Syrian President Assad – in the days before all the press turned on ISIS and they became the new “boogeyman”.

To get to the bottom of what they know about the plans and culprits of these terror attacks, I think we only have at our disposal the very tool they each claimed was “not torture”, and very effective in getting “actionable intelligence” that “saves lifes”.  Although many (including me) have disputed these assertions, one way to prove their point would be to submit them to waterboarding and other forms of torture (er, “enhanced interrogation”) to find out truly what they know.

Here’s a list of people I would have our authorities start to detain and interrogate in “enhanced fashion”:

1.  George W. Bush
2. Dick Cheney (a must; they better hurry)
3. Donald Rumsfeld
4. Atty. General John Ashcroft
5. George H.W. Bush (as a bonus, he might also reveal under torture why he was sent to Dallas as a CIA agent right before JFK was shot, but says he can’t remember why)
6. CIA chief (all of them)
7. John Yoo (Justice Dept. official behind the “Torture Memo” authorizing waterboarding and other torture, as well as approving warrantless wiretaps and denial of Geneva Convention protection to detainees; wanted for war crimes in Spain; might know something)
8. Atty. General Alberto Gonzales (also authorized torture, NSA eavesdropping, punished govt. attorneys who would not do political dirty work, forced from office, also wanted for war crimes in Spain, hired by Nashville Baptist Belmont University as their Dean of their College of Law, and instructor on “Constitution Law” and “Separation of Powers”, as a representative of the school)

I would assign them under the care of former military member Lynndie England, who can stack them naked in pyramids and take pictures of them, until we have the information we need.  After the dogs are through with them (to loosen them up), I suggest they spend some time alone in a room with family members of those who lost loved ones in the 9/11 terror attacks, or in military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; I am sure in no time they would be pleading to be taken to the interrogation rooms.  If we need to get rougher, we can always hand them over to our allies in the Middle East and Eastern Europe to finish the deal (this may be needed for post-office President Obama, since to be fair he did not approve of American personnel torturing detainees).  If we expect resistance from them or their supporters, we may need to do “old school”, War on Terror-style rendition, by sweeping them off the street, giving them an enema, slapping a diaper on them and sending them blindfolded by unmarked private plane to parts unknown.  This would probably be necessary to pick up Bandar and the rest of the Saudi family; its no more illegal to do than the others we have done the same to, and it will give our CIA guys and SEALs something to do.

Of course this is only a dream, and not an intention; but it if did happen, it would give us all, including the whole world, better odds of preventing future terror attacks, rather than doing it to turbaned villagers in the Third World.

ADDENDUM:  As a further example of US/Saudi complicity (in particular regarding the 9/11 Terror attacks), I quote an excerpt from Volume 1 of my book series, The Holy War Chronicles – A Spiritual View of the War on Terror:

“Before that, in October 2001 French intelligence told the French newspaper Le Figaro that CIA agents went to see bin Laden in Dubai at the American-run hospital there in July 2001, while he was being treated for 10 days by the urology department, as well as Prince Turki al Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence (the news wire United Press International further added [Bryant, Elizabeth, “Radio reports new CIA-Bin Laden details”, United Press International, Nov. 1, 2001, http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2001/11/01/Radio-reports-new-CIA-Bin-Laden-details/UPI-49911004627280/ (retrieved June 12, 2013).] that Radio France International identified one of the CIA agents as Larry Mitchell, an Arab specialist and “consular agent” from Dubai’s expatriate community, who met with bin Laden on July 12, two days before he checked out of the hospital).  The London Guardian newspaper also reported on this meeting of CIA and Saudi intelligence officials with bin Laden just before 9/11 [Sampson, Anthony, “CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July”, Oct. 31, 2001, London Guardian (UK), http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/01/afghanistan.terrorism (retrieved March 15, 2013).], and noted that “Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health.  Some accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitus C, and can expect to live for only two more years”, having had delivered a mobile dialysis machine to Kandahar in Afghanistan.”