Huffington Post / A 9/11 Conspirator in King Bush's Court?

[shance]

While Cindy Sheehan was being dragged from the House gallery moments before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address for wearing a t-shirt honoring her son and the other 2,244 US soldiers killed in Iraq, Turki al-Faisal was settling into his seat inside the gallery. Faisal, a Saudi, is a man who has met Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants on at least five occasions, describing the al Qaeda leader as "quite a pleasant man." He met multiple times with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Yet, unlike Sheehan, al-Faisal was a welcomed guest of President Bush on Tuesday night. He is also a man that the families of more than 600 victims of the 9/11 attacks believe was connected to their loved ones' deaths.

Al-Faisal is actually Prince Turki al-Faisal, a leading member of the Saudi royal family and the kingdom's current ambassador to the US. But the bulk of his career was spent at the helm of the feared Saudi intelligence services from 1977 to 2001. Last year, The New York Times pointed out that "he personally managed Riyadh's relations with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar of the Taliban. Anyone else who had dealings with even a fraction of the notorious characters the prince has worked with over the years would never make it past a U.S. immigration counter, let alone to the most exclusive offices in Washington." Al-Faisal was also named in the $1 trillion lawsuit filed by hundreds of 9/11 victims' families, who accused him of funding bin Laden's network. Curiously, his tenure as head of Saudi intelligence came to an abrupt and unexpected end 10 days before the 9/11 attacks.

(snip)

The 9/11 families' lawsuit charged that al-Faisal secretly traveled to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar twice in 1998 where he met with bin Laden's representatives and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Based on sworn testimony from Taliban intelligence chief, Mullah Kakshar, the lawsuit claimed that al-Faisal allegedly received assurances that al Qaeda would not use "the infrastructure in Afghanistan to subvert the royal families' control of Saudi government."

(snip)

Ultimately, a judge dismissed the 9/11 families' lawsuit against al-Faisal and his cohorts, saying US courts lacked jurisdiction over the matter. But many of those families believe firmly that al-Faisal was connected to the attacks that killed their loved ones.

The obvious question is: how does the president justify the ejection of a Gold Star Mother from the State of the Union, while openly welcoming a man believed by hundreds of victims' families to be connected to the attack Bush uses to justify every shred of his violent policies?

During his speech, Bush said, "It is said that prior to the attacks of September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy." Perhaps he should have just looked over his wife's shoulder up there in the gallery during the State of the Union.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/a-911-conspirator-in-kin_b_15003.html

[renate]

1. I don't understand why the corporate media doesn't follow up on this stuff

I've read that people were absolutely glued to their TVs during Watergate. It's all about profits for the media companies, and it would seem that really investigating all these links would make for a reality show that would make "24" look like "Blue's Clues."

I realize that the population is a bit, well, slower than it was 30 years ago. So the comparison between Watergate and the potential for must-see scandal TV isn't perfect. But come on, who doesn't like seeing the mighty fall? If it were just a bunch of political geeks getting in trouble, sure, yawn city for most viewers. But everybody gets into seeing powerful people in ignominious defeat.

[debbierlus]

2. Because the media WANTS these people in power

The CORPORATE media. It ain't called that for nothing.

It is about money.

The Republicans keep it consolidated.

They get control over the media (and the MONEY generated from it)

Republicans get to stay in power and feed all the corporations.

Everyone wins.

Except the American people of course...but what do THEY matter?

[abbiehoff]

6. That's a great idea

If MSM could get the idea that there were big bucks to be made from exposing the crooks, maybe they could be get over the idea that their bread is buttered only by keeping up the volume on the Republican noise machine.

[movonne]

7. People here must realize the the media is our enemy!!!

[ladjf]

14. Because their goal is to perpetuate the gigantic scam for their

own benefit.

[natrat]

20. and you got to hand it to them -they're doing a good job nt

[ladjf]

23. It's easy to win a hand when you have all of the strong cards.

[Roland99]

27. Because the owners of the corporate media have their hands in the pie

[in_cog_ni_to]

28. Watch this movie: "Orwell Rolls in His Grave"

Then you'll understand. The corporations own the media, they lobby the politicians with HUGE amounts of money, the government, in turn, makes policy that favors the media, the media makes MORE HUGE dollars to pay the politicians when they lobby again. IT'S a vicious circle. The corporations and the Government own the media.

http://www.orwellrollsinhisgrave.com/

[KoKo]

3. And not one newsperson has commented on this? No WaPo or NYT's

no network anchor...no one except here on the "internets."

[shance]

4. No, and what should that tell Americans?

n/t

[SillyGoose]

5. Isn't this a real kick in the ass.

And of course our 'liberal' media won't say a word about this.

[movonne]

8. Thank God for Huffington.. she has a very popular site..

[faithnotgreed]

16. i will kick for that - arianna has gotten a good thing rolling

i love the diversity of sane & intelligent voices
you surely dont find that within the corporate press

[blogslut]

9. kicked

nominated

[peacetalksforall]

10. Found this while checking info on Turki al-Faisal -

interesting tidbit about going around Congress -

"More than two roads converge at that intersection, and the other roads take us into even more surprising territory. The same off-the-books network maintains strong links to Islamic nations. Saudi intelligence head Prince Turki made some particularly revelatory admissions when he spoke at Georgetown University in February of 2002:

In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything... In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Iran.

I doubt that the term "Safari Club" is still used, but the ties forged at that time still bind."

http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/2005/10/13/

[phoebe]

12. remember it was his sister who gave money to the 9/11 terrorists

Anyone remember she is also wife to Bandar "Bush"???

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/11/26/saudi.money.trail/

snip

Investigators are looking into whether money from the princess reached suicide hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi via two Saudi students in San Diego, California. But U.S. and Saudi officials insisted the princess did not intentionally provide money to al Qaeda members.

An inquiry by the joint House-Senate Intelligence Committee has suggested there is evidence that money from the Saudi government made its way to Almihdhar and Alhazmi via Omar Al Bayoumi and Osama Basnan.

Basnan's wife had asked the princess for financial help, signing checks she received over to her husband and Bayoumi.

Haifa's brother, Prince Turki al-Faisal, told CNN that his sister would have never knowingly given money to terrorists.

[AntiFascist]

26. I wonder if they ever meet up in Costa Rica n/t

[peacetalksforall]

30. Wow - there are a lot of references to the Safari Club, Pinay Cirlce, and

guess what - a link to Abramoff!!!!! And then there is a reference to Diana.

Here is a tidbit from one the of the sites -

"The Safari Club was a CIA cut-out: This clutch of intelligence agents, politicians and businessmen from three countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran) was founded with the express purpose of engaging in covert operations in Africa and the Middle East without leaving a CIA footprint.
Political researcher Lois Battuello: "The Safari Club was a grouping that followed the pattern of EuropeÕs Pinay Circle - intelligence agents, politicians, businessmen from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran."
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/04-10-05/discussion.cgi.26.html

And here is a tidbit from something showing up under Pinay Circle, It appears to be a reference and blurb about a book by Herman and O'Sullivan (?) with an index of links labeled as the terrorism industry and the first link is - tadom - Abramoff:

"Name index for Herman,E. O'Sullivan,G. The Terrorism Industry. 1989

ABRAMOFF JACK (103) "

http://www.namebase.org/sources/OC.html

I don't quite get the relationship of the stuff on the site page just above, but there is a diagram to Abramoff - A D. Evans is on the chart - the face you saw on tv today covering up the Bush gaff from the SOTU - the guy at the right hand of George until he got an Energy job. Yeah, yeah, George doesn't know Jack, just Don. Here's the diagram for Jack:

http://www.namebase.org/sources/OC.html

If you really want to learn who's who - read some of the paragraphs describing various magazines and books - wow!:

http://www.namebase.org/xaaa/Jack-Abramoff.html

Then, look at the condensed background in this one:

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=437

And this one:

http://www.bilderberg.org/bap.htm

In describing what the Pinay Circle (LeCercle) is - here is just one paragraph:

"Conversely it helped to raise up and support the governments of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and continues to actively support a wide range of interlocking right-wing outfits including the World Anti-Communist League, the Heritage Foundation, Western Goals, the Freedom Association, the Bilderbergers, Propaganda Due (P2), Opus Dei, the Moonies and the Jonathan Institute. "
http://www.wethepeople.la/circle.htm

Then, there is another reference to the Pinay Circle referencing Princess Diana -

http://www.wethepeople.la/circle.htm

I've missed out on a lot of insight - brought to me with your reference to the Safari Club - so it looks like the Safari CLub for the ME and the Pinay Cirlce for Europe and the U.S. Since it is behind Echelon also (?), it includes Canada, Australia, NZ as well?

[peacetalksforall]

31. Does this mean that when we dump prisoners in prisons in Egypt (if

true), we are dropping them off with our own (I mean the right wings' own?).

Then, if Europe is on on all of this (I knew it), they why do they protest the landings? (If true). ??????????????/


Why all the rest of the stuff as well.

They suceeded in getting right wing lemmings by having O'Reilly, Hannity, Rush etc humping up hate for France, when we were just a half century old partner with France in the terrorism business?

[AntiFascist]

33. It's mostly just the elite or wealthy individuals....

as Rummy once said, all these countries are knitted together at the top.

[AntiFascist]

32. wow, thanks for pointing out the links, this just gets more and more....

fascinating. I've been looking into the WACL and wondered what happened after the end of the Cold War. Pinay Circle may explain a lot of it.

The link about the death of Princess Diana probably touches on a lot of masonic conspiracy theory, but the history of these groups is interesting:

http://www.copi.com/articles/guyatt/circle_of_power.html

Le Cercle has a different flavour to Bilderberg, however. The latter is an important link to the overt "influence" organisations cited above and almost certainly focuses its efforts on the broader political issues, being careful to keep well-away from "direct actions". Le Cercle has a much more "hands on" role. Interestingly, its membership is more heavily composed of serving or former members of various Intelligence Services, senior military officers as well as politicians, bankers and VIP’s with right wing connections.

Also, I can never repeat this enough, the banker Howard Ahmanson, Jr, a Christian Reconstructionist, is linked to the Heritage Foundation and also funded Diebold and ESS electronic voting system manufacturers.

Also, I believe groups related in their "anti-communist" values may be developing a means for conducting transactions anonymously outside of the usual banking system. You might search "sovereign individual" and this might link Costa Rica and New Zealand (Atlantys?) Also, there are sites where Australia is referenced as "Liberteria."

Regarding the Safari Club, this looks like a must read:

http://www.minaret.org/cooley.htm

Cooley tracks the history of the Afghan intervention beginning with the Safari Club, “an informal but for a time highly effective covert operation” exposed when the Ayatollah Khomeini allowed an Egyptian reporter to poke into the archives of former Club member, the deposed Shah of Iran . Another Club member, Anwar Sadat, flirting with Islamists for his own domestic political reasons, then offered to assist the American plans by helping to “train, equip and supply volunteers for the Afghan jihad” with the aid of “selected groups of US military trainers” . Even Israel made a “substantial contribution to the secret anti-Soviet Muslim army in Afghanistan” ironically subsiding “Palestinians who ... became founders and movers of the Islamist HAMAS resistance movement...” .

<snip>

Cooley also describes the role of a wide variety of countries in the Afghan jihad, including China

<snip>

Despite the secrecy surrounding the Pentagon’s “Black Budget” for such operations, Cooley discusses the problems of financing the Afghan jihad, largely by the CIA and Saudis (increasingly private funds) in some detail. The lid is clamped even more tightly on the CIA involvement in drug trafficking, yet Cooley documents a host of fascinating and suggestive facts, including the fact that the CIA sought and obtained an “exemption ... from a legal requirement to report on drug smuggling by CIA officers, agents or other ‘assets’” .

[AntiFascist]

34. More from the Guyatt link....

During the "Cercle’s" meeting held on 28-29th June 1980 in Zurich, Switzerland, discussions were focused around "a series of appropriate measures to promote the electoral campaign of presidential candidate Reagan against Carter." Elliott reported that in this context positive contact had been made with George Bush as well. 11

<snip>

We have seen that one aim of the Cercle was to aid in the election of President Reagan. Presumably they can also cite this aim as being "accomplished"? Their close connection to George Bush may have extended to helping in his drive to election victory also.

We may never know the true extent to which the Cercle, and its black psyops "fronts" the ISC, WISC, CCS and others had in "affecting" a wholesale change in government in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Clearly the decade of the eighties witnessed a marked shift to the political right in the western democratic arena. It would be stretching credulity to suggest that this rapid swing in political ideology took place accidentally. It is also abundantly obvious that the Cercle’s primary influence resided in its top level connections to the shadowy intelligence apparatus of the west.

<snip>

That a small handful of influential men across the planet may be able to manipulate "free" elections to suit their personal and ideological advantage, is not a new concept. Generally, utterances of this sort are met by the blanket rejection: "conspiracist theory" and discarded out of hand. Such rebuffs rarely take into account the underlying evidence, fragmentary as it is. Perhaps they are not meant to?

and to lend more support to the Libertarian aspect of the whole thing:

With its apparent "raison d’être" (anti communist psyops) clearly in tatters, one can only suppose that there is, or, perhaps, always was an additional hidden agenda lurking behind Cercle activities. To understand what this may be one must look further ahead. An increasing international focus are the calls for "minimalist" government. This has always been a central plank of laissez faire economics. Deregulation and the freeing of government imposed constraints on international business to engage in activities as it sees fit, is a long-term and obvious objective. If history is any judge, the attainment of this singular goal may usher in a new dark age of unrestrained capitalism, co-ordinated by the gargantuan trans national corporations - all of whom are heavily represented on the membership rolls of the CRF, the Trilats, RIIA, Bilderbergers etc.

[sabra]

11. I remember the TV panning on him, and saying WTF

but then they showed *, and it all made sense.

[Jujiman]

13. It's ALL W.T.F.

GGGGrrrrrr..:mad: GGGGGGGGGGrrrrrrrrr :mad:

:wtf: :nuke: :shrug:

WHaaaaaaaaa:cry: aaaaaaa :banghead: Ouch!

[leveymg]

15. He's been identified as UBL's control officer for Saudi intelligence.

He has a lot of Chutzpah, as does Bush for inviting him. What a huge middle-finger pointed right at the American people.

They're like medieval barons.

Time for another Enlightenment, Renaissance, and Era of Democratic Revolution.

[Catrina]

18. Exactly, what a total insult to the American people to have him sitting

there unassaulted, while the mother of a dead soldier in their war for profit gets dragged out of the People's Capital.

If the American people ever become fully aware of how they have been controlled and duped by this crime filled administration, I think I don't want to be here.

I do remember the Saudi princess accused of funding terrorists, and then the story died. Now we know why.

Is the NSA monitoring this guy's phone calls? I wonder how often he chit-chats with Osama ~ I'll bet his calls are off limits to the NSA.

[Junkdrawer]

19. I'm re-reading 1984. What if al Qaeda were the Saudi "Brotherhood"?

IOW: What if the Saudis created al Qaeda as a way to attract and then trap dissidents? And if some Americans and non-royal Saudis are killed to keep up the organization's creds, well, all the better for BushCo.

It would explain the need to keep "terror" suspects away from lawyers - once trapped, the dissidents would probably know the truth. And, after 9-11, that information would be deadly for BushCo.

[AntiFascist]

29. There is intelligence that indicates the Saudis kept paying...

Osama, even after he turned to terrorism against the U.S., as a way of keeping them from attacking the Royals.

Also, read this about the right-wing origins of the Muslim Brotherhood/al Qaeda and Wahhabism:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15344

[samhsarah]

17. K&R!

[tlsmith1963]

21. Why Don't Republicans See...

...that GWB hangs out with known terrorist supporters? They continue to think that he will protect them from terrorism. The Wahabi faith that the terrorists adhere to comes from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis fund terrorists. I seem to remember that they once had a telethon on Saudi TV to raise money for terrorists. Are conservatives really *that* stupid? Bush won't protect them from terrorists--he just may be *in* with them!

Tammy

[earth mom]

22. K & R!

[leftofthedial]

24. WE THE PEOPLE are the enemies whom the bush gang despise most

and they are the enemies I despise.

[cantstandbush]

25. Hats off to Arrianna! I love that woman! n/t

[PA Democrat]

35. In his book "State of War", James Risen talks about the relationship

between Turki al-Faisal and bin Laden.

According to Risen, Turki al-Faisal served as the Chief of Saudi intelligence for about 20 years. (He was dismissed from the position shortly after 9/11 because his close relationship with bin Laden was a source of embarrassment for the Saudi royal family.) During the Soviet Afghanistan war, al-Faisal had a "substantial relationship" with bin Laden and there is some speculation that bin Laden was actually an agent of al-Faisal's Saudi intelligence organization.

Whatever the exact relationship, bin Laden had many supporters within Saudi intelligence even after he began his attacks on the US. The Saudis refused to help the CIA when they made requests for information on bin Laden in 1996. The Saudis never turned over the records the CIA requested including copies of bin Laden's birth certificate, passport and bank records.

Here's another interesting link on Turki al-Faisal's relationship with Osama:


http://www.onlinejournal.org/Special_Reports/072305Chin/072305chin.html

[AntiFascist]

36. Oh great....

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/082102_saudi_arabia_1.html

based upon new Global Imaging System technologies, confirmed "2,100 known occurrences of gold, silver, copper, and other metals in the western third of the Saudi peninsula." Saudi Arabia appears to be sitting atop one of the largest gold stores on the planet.

But there is something else in the western third of the country -- the two holiest cities in all of Islam -- Mecca and Medina. And a gold bust-out might well signal the end of the U.S. dollar's reign as the dominant currency in world commerce

This article was dated 8/21/02. Is this really true, or is it propaganda to make us believe in an Islamo-Fascist takeover? (I already knew about Mecca and Medina, I'm talking about the gold).