John Kerry offering a hand – Pandering or Policy?
by b. traven
Fifteen of the 9/11 jihadists who killed over 3000 innocent Americans were Saudi Arabian citizens. The still-secret section of the official 9/11 Commission Report, which the Obama administration has tried to suppress, has purportedly shows that representatives of the Saudi Royal government directly supported and financed these jihadists in their attack on the United States.
The families of those killed have tried for years to sue the Saudi monarchy, which passes itself off as a “government,” for supporting the killers. Up to now the families have been prevented by a 1976 law that gives immunity to foreign governments from lawsuits in American courts.
I hate to give any credit to the self-serving ‘majority’ members of our supposed “representatives” in the House and Senate, but they have tabled a law to allow the Saudi monarchy (government) to be sued. I have a hunch that the Republicans who control Congress see this as chance to embarrass Obama just before a scheduled kowtowing visit to the Saudi Kingdom. It might be for the wrong reasons, but it is the right thing to do.
The Saudi Kingdom has responded to this affront to their claims that they were not involved in sponsoring the attack. Their Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, has threatened that if this legislation is not shit canned, the Saudis will sell off $750 billion in US Treasury securities and other assets they own.
Now that’s chutzpah! The US is fighting wars all over the region for the Saudis with American taxpayer money… but they will pull their assets if they have to answer in US court for the murder of US citizens. And where does the Obama administration stand on this? The White House has been lobbying congress to block the bill’s passage.
Is this pandering?
The Contrary Perspective 
In a word, yes. The U.S. has been pandering since the Arab Oil Embargo in 1973. The Saudis have helped to keep oil relatively cheap, and they buy a lot of U.S. weapons. In return, the U.S. supports the House of Saud and looks the other way at their bad behavior, to include their role in 9/11.
The Saudis have gotten rich; U.S. weapons makers have profited greatly; U.S. multinationals and the fossil fuel industry have thrived; everyone else, including the planet, has suffered.
I think the Obama Administration’s behavior regarding this Saudi threat to wage economic warfare against the U.S. goes far beyond pandering. It’s nothing less than a total sell-out of America’s moral and ethical principles just to save a corrupt “ally” from some painful embarrassment. Apparently, no sacrifice is too great a cost to preserve the U.S. establishment’s decades-long geopolitical dirty-dealings in the Middle East and elsewhere. This isn’t smart practical leadership, it’s pragmatism gone wild. The next time a politician boasts of “American exceptionalism” or “American values,” we should all tell them in one loud voice to take that crap and shove it back up their own ass. We are nothing but insignificant pawns in the most disgusting game imaginable.
Litigation of 9/11 Saudi “involvement” would open up a pretty big can of worms. Obama, not unlike nearly all his contemporaries, is keen to not go there.
When the “sacrifice” of principles occurs once, one should have a hard road to reclaim those principles. When principles continue to be sacrificed, the road closes. There is no claim to moral and ethical principles that has any validity except reference to certain legal frameworks that have ethical foundation. But then, those frameworks are regularly subverted.
In a one word response to the rhetorical question posed in the article’s headline:
“Yes.”
This official U.S. pandering would include, of course, the equally nauseous groveling before the neo-Ottoman Turks and the racist, right-wing Apartheid Zionist Entity, currently squatting on occupied Palestine.
U..S presidents like to think of themselves as “the leader of the free world” and “the most powerful person on earth,” but it gets a little galling for them to have ostensible “allies” giving them their marching orders, and before a cheering, clapping U.S. Congress, too. As former U.S. President Bill Clinton once exclaimed after another encounter with the bullying Benjamin “Mr. Chutzpah” Netanyahu: “Who’s the fucking superpower here, anyway?” Good question.
Thank you for bringing it to our attention. I’ll look up the bill no. and call my Senators and Representatives to tell them to vote “yes.”
Talk about an unholy triumvirate!! The US-based giant energy corporations, the feudalist “Wahabist” Saudi monarchy and the “there is no Palestinian people” regime in Tel Aviv!! It has been claimed that the Saudis can still turn a profit, or at least break even, if crude oil falls to ten bucks a barrel from its current c. $40 level. They apparently still have enough of the thrice-accursed stuff in the ground that they can ride out this crisis unscathed and have visiting Westerners genuflect and kiss the rings of the Royal Family–which essentially turned its collective back on Michelle Obama when she and POTUS paid their call a few years back. Even I, as far from a “flag-waver” as you’ll find in the USA, was offended by what happened on that occasion. China and Japan have reduced their holdings of US Treasury paper in recent years (they were the two biggest holders). Three-quarters of a trillion dollars is a lot of paper to unload. It can’t be done all at once without freezing or “breaking” the market. I’d say this is largely a Saudi bluff. If the US colossus goes all weak in the knees at this threat, it will put the lie to the claim that this country was well on its way to energy independence these past few years. To the great regret of future generations (this I guarantee), the world is grossly addicted to fossil fuels. As long as the Saudis have “what we need,” the addicts will go to whatever humiliating lengths necessary to obtain it. How much lower can the US sink?
Traven. Is pandering our official Saudi policy? – Yes! And Saudi’s official policy is Islam, otherwise called “kill the infidel.”
Walter–Sharing your Islamophobia is not exactly contributing to contrarian views on the world’s grave contemporary problems. I doubt you ever made an effort to read The Koran. I read it decades ago upon learning that Islam was the fastest-growing religion in the world. And yes, Islam frowns very severely on anyone who rejects it. And pray tell, how does this differ from Catholicism or the Protestant sects which assure anyone rejecting their specific demands of faith that a place in Hell awaits them, where they will suffer eternal torture/torment FOREVER AND A DAY?!? And speaking of torture, you would do well to study the historical record of the unfathomably fiendish physical cruelties inflicted on human flesh to demonstrate “the love of Christ”! Yes, Inquisitors actually informed their victims that they were pouring molten lead into their bodily orifices to demonstrate this. Do some reading, Walter. Seriously.
Walter. Thanks for your comment. There are many varieties of Islam, much like all religions in the world. Christianity has Catholicism, Episcopalians, Baptists, and many other strange sects. Judaism has Reform, Conservative, Hasidim, and other crazy sects, Hinduism and Muslim the same. In my opinion religion is a breeding ground of irrational thinking..
This is true of Islam also. Just look at the split between Sunnis ( Saudia, Turkey, et al) and Shia ( Iran, Iraq, et al) the Saudis have a particularly destructive sect in Islam of “Wahabism” not to be confused with Islam as a whole. The Saudis have the money combined with the worlds need for oil to use their power to spread this violent exclusionary religious philosophy throughout the world. Let’s quit pandering to the Saudis
Let’s do what Litsa above suggests:
“Thank you for bringing it to our attention. I’ll look up the bill number. and call my Senators and Representatives to tell them to vote “yes.”
Traven.
Having read the both the Koran and the New Testament, I conclude death for non-believers in the former and salvation for believers in the latter. Any reader of both must agree. Also, Inquisitors, such as they were, surely burn in hell.
Walter ..I think you were replying to Greg not me.
. I have never read the Koran and the only bible content I have survived is R.Crumb’s ( the graphic novelist ) book of “Genesis”. His illustrations made it come alive. When I tried reading the bible I found it incredibly boring and literarilly pathetic.
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On the whole I believe that most religions, because they rely on “belief and faith” rather than reality create extremist sects that are very uncivilized. I believe that common sense and human logic can create civilized behavior.Education and curiosity are the keys.
We see today in our own country the people who claim to be the most religtious being the most anti humanistic against, other religions, for war, and having little respect for the rule of law under our Constitution.
I have learned from the writings of Plato and Aristotle, Jean Paul Sartre, Diderot , and other great philosophers and other chroniclers of the human condition. I am 92 and beieve that I must leave this earthly experience a little better place for my having the gift of life which I can only thank my mother and father for, not any “god”. Good to have you on board TCP.
Walter–General, I have to disagree with your religious interpretations. Your studies should have started with the Old Testament, which lays the foundation (the “Abrahamic” or “Ibrahimic” tradition) on which Christianity and, later, Islam were established. There you will find “god” dictating death sentences against those who dare to defy “his” will, including for the most petty “offenses.” Along comes Christianity, which demands surrender to Jesus or…no salvation! Eternal Life if you believe, Eternity in Hell for the unbeliever. Like extinction, this means FOREVER. But you want to tar Islam alone with the brush of prescribing death for the unbeliever. This is clearly bias, distortion, convenient oversight and yes, it needs to be said: BIGOTRY. As for Inquisitors burning in Hell, let us remember that they acted on the very highest authority of Mother Church herself. And anytime The Church has gotten its hands on state power, society has been plunged into Dark Ages. There is no regime more hostile to freedom than a theocracy. US politicians love to point their fingers at the repression in Iran and label that nation an exporter of terrorism. At the same time, the US’s beloved “ally” Saudi Arabia, just like the Islamic Republic of Iran, has “Religious Police” patrolling the streets to enforce women being veiled, not driving cars, etc. If you are not aware that right here at home there are “Christian” elements whose fondest dream is to impose a theocracy in the US that would be just as repressive, or more so, than Iran or Saudi Arabia then I’m afraid you are out of touch with reality. And by the way, the Inquisition was never abolished. It was just given the seemingly innocuous title “Office for the Defense of the Faith”!
They aren’t our ‘allies’. They are our overlords. If you step back from the American POV, it becomes obvious that the US is a client state of Saudi Arabia – not the other way round. We need their oil so desperately that we send tribute and children to fight their wars for them. They own us.
Our Presidents Bush fawned on them like minor satraps bowing and scraping to the Rajah. We use our wealth to ensure the existence of a religious ‘arch enemy’ – Israel – and have kept Iran from modernizing and reverting to their secular temperament. Which would be an even greater threat to the House of Saud by enraging the Wahhabi clergy that hold the nation at sword point. The clergy fear that any challenge to their absolute authority will shatter it. Their reign of terror, similar to Spain’s horrific Inquisition and France’s Cathar suppression, are strategies of using monotheism as a tool of conquest and war.
Social media has negated their control of information and social gatekeeping. They no longer control the message.
We send our children to die in a religious war. Because we need oil. So they tell us. Israel is in no danger. But we’re the patsy being cut down to size. Our Empire, like the Soviets and Great Britain, hurled its might against Afghanistan. And the Graveyard of Empires received a new victim.
Not pandering, more like world-scale obstruction of justice to protect mass murderers. Consider why the George W. Bush administration first classified the “28 Pages”, why Bush and Cheney stonewalled and stalled for over 400 days before going along with a 9/11 commission, why they testified together – without taking an oath to tell the truth, and on and on and on… Declassify the 28 Pages and blow the cover (up) off the 9/11 false flag. Dishonor and criminality with impunity at the highest levels of politics, wealth and power doesn’t cut it anymore.
To those who raise Old Testament punishments to rationalize Islamic head chopping, I say, figuratively speaking, you have also lost yours. And let us not forget that ancient Judaism had a Jewish-led reformation that is now called Christianity. “Let he among you who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Are there Inquisitors in the New Testament? You bet, beginning with Caiaphas.
Traven, no doubt you’ve seen much in your 92 years. However, were you to live 92 more, you will not see a church in Mecca. As my wife likes to say to me, “If the truth hurts, it should.”
Walter–Your anti-Islam bigotry is plain as day. Like any “good soldier,” you unquestioningly swallow the program laid out for you. Today’s program is “Islam is the enemy of our vaunted American Way.” Thus, Perpetual War against “Islamists” continues to devour our national resources and we have a hate-spewing real estate developer turned politician strutting upon the national stage with a very real chance of winning the Presidency. There must be a hell of a lot of “Christians” in this country who are, indeed, “without sin,” for they are all too eager to throw very large stones (i.e. bombs) at Muslim nations.
Like “b. traven,” I am an atheist. I am also a Buddhist by the way, and that’s no contradiction of the previous statement. I consider what are deemed “the 3 major ‘Western’ religions”–given how few Jews there are, this very categorization is blatantly biased, of course–as a plague upon humanity. And the root of the problem lies precisely in the notion of MONOTHEISM: you’d better OBEY Big Daddy in the Sky or suffer the most dire consequences. What a weight would be lifted from the human psyche if this rubbish was dumped in a trash can, as it so richly deserves to be in my opinion! This is what’s known as a contrary opinion, General. Reiterating your belief that “Muslims want to do us harm!”, I’m afraid, does not qualify as such an opinion.
The “cover” story, ludicrous and impossible, shouldn’t need to be blown off. But then, people like their fairy tales.
I’ll prove the point that fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Religion brings out the best in some people (e.g. saints). In others, it brings out the worst. And perhaps in most people, religion is more or less benign, a soothing presence, a source of comfort, or perhaps discomfort (not always a bad thing).
In the west, Christianity used to be like Islam — more than a religion, it was a way of life, almost all-consuming. The west has mostly moved away from religion as an all-encompassing way of life. But in Islam, the faith is supposed to be more than the faith. It is supposed to order politics, to order discourse, to order behavior. So you get “puritanical” sects within Islam, just as we had puritanical sects within Christianity in the 17th century.
And (of course) there remain Christians in America today who’d like to see a return to theocracy, as long as it’s on their terms.
The bill is S.2040. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2040
The bi-partisian bill currently has 22 Senate co-sponsors. If your senator is one of the co-sponsors, call and thank him/her. If your senators are not cosponsors, call and ask them to support the bill. You know the White House, Saudi funded lobbyists, and wealthy contributors, both individuals and corporations, with ties to Saudi Arabia (see the billions of dollars in weapons sales for example to KSA) are leaning heavily on them right now.
Mathew. Thank you. It’s disappointing that none of the Senate ‘progressives’ appeared as co-signers. Even though it i’s initiatiated by a real troglodyte, Coryn, it hits at Obama’s hypocrisy and the Saudi’s arrogance.
Mathew.
Thank you.