By Tim Baldwin
The federal government has kept secret 28 pages of a report on 9/11. The president indicates he is poised to release those documents, which supposedly will have severe repercussions on our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has responded very harshly, including threatening to drop its investments in the U.S. dollar.
It’s been 15 years since the attacks. Our presidents have classified this report for reasons purported to help us win the “War on Terror.” Meanwhile, it is reported that the U.S. government has given billions of dollars’ worth of our most sophisticated weapons to Saudi Arabia. One LA Times reporter said this about the situation: “The implication of official Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks and the possible coverup by successive U.S. administrations is mind boggling.”
Notably, Donald Trump has discussed the 9/11 attacks in his campaign – very differently than most mainstream talking points. Months ago Trump said, if he is elected, “you will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center.” Some commentators, like Mark Levin, criticized Trump for his 9/11 exposition calling him a “radical kook.” Coincidentally, after Trump’s trumpeting, this report is anticipated to be released. What does Trump know about the classified report? Is Trump right that there was government coverup?
The people have a right to know the truth of 9/11, whether President Barack Obama or Trump releases the information.
By Joe Carbonari
Consider oil flowing as blood in the body that is the world economy. The money and military might to develop, protect, and exploit it came largely from Britain, France and the United States. We got the oil, the Saudi family, Sunni Muslims, got the oil money. Life in the desert was much improved.
Their social development, however, has not kept up. What worked well and was necessary in the harshness of the desert is not appropriate for the world of today. Cutting people’s heads off is unnecessarily harsh, and suggests a strain of insensitivity that is both distasteful and dangerous. It is, however, the practice of the day in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi’s brand of Sunni Islam is called Wahhabism. It is strict. Women are neither free nor independent. Society as a whole is restricted in expression and action the Saudi elite somewhat excepted. Oil money has allowed the Wahhabis to establish schools around the Islamic world to teach their brand of thinking. ISIS is this brand of thinking taken to the extreme.
The Saudis are going to have to change their way of thinking, and so are we. The Saudis are not as interested in peace and stability as they are in maintaining and extending their power in the Arab world. They must get their Wahhabism under control, and we must stop pretending that they are playing nicer than they actually are. It’s not working.