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Originally Posted by Millie  That's highly debatable. At the very least, we know they were aware that financing and recruiting for Bin Laden's various operations was passing through their country, and they did nothing to stop it. That doesn't necessarily make them responsible for 9/11, but it certainly makes them complicit to some degree.
If Saudi Arabia didn't have a giant supply of oil it was willing to sell us, do you think we'd be as friendly with them as we are now? The entire relationship is dysfunctional. Saudi Arabia hates our guts but knows we're addicted to their smack, so they sell us the smack and know we're not going to say a damned thing about it. And we fulfill our end of the bargain because we're too scared to break off the relationship. They know it, we know it, and pretty much everyone else in the world knows it. |
No that isn't highly debatable in the least.
The core objection Al Qaeda has against the United States was the presence of American Troops on "sacred" Saudi soil following Saddam's attempted invasion in 1991. THAT was reasoning behind the bombing of the USS Cole; THAT was the reasoning behind Al Qaeda's attack on on the Khobar Towers; THAT was the reasoning behind the attacks on 9/11.
Except the presence of American troops on Saudi Sovereign territory was, is and always will be under the invitation of the Saudi Government. It's under the WELCOME invitation of the Kuwaiti Royal Family that we have permanent bases in Kuwait, and it's under similar agreements that we have a permanent base in Qatar. We were invited there as far back as during the Iran-Iraq war and we've never expanded our presence except when regional allies asked for our assistance. The only reason American troops were in the Khobar Towers at all (including the hot army chicks sashaying in their daisy dukes) was because the Saudi Royal family ASKED them to be there.
And now we're expected to believe that the Saudi Royal family (who had members visitting the Bushes during 9/11) was in cahoots with Al Qaeda? Even when
one of the foremost Saudi scholars on Islamic Jurisprudence have condemned Bin Laden and Al Qaeda from Mecca's minarets. Note that Sheikh Salman al Oudoh isn't just one of the foremost Saudi scholars of Islamic law, but he was also Osama Bin Laden's mentor. But that's nothing next to when the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia (and thus Sunni Islam) the Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al Sheikh,
has issued a fatwa against unauthorized foreign Jihads including but not limited to Al Qaeda after lecturing the Saudi elites for "supporting causes that have cause catastrophic harm" to muslim youths.