The Saudi 9/11 connections starts coming to light

This past week has seen the release of a Congressional report on 9/11. Well, at least portions of the report. Many press reports have noted that
information on Saudi support of the 9/11 terrorists have been cut. While most information on Saudi Arabia has been cut on orders by the White House (on grounds of national security, that wet blanket of an excuse), we do learn that a earlier CIA report concludued that there was “incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists" from Saudi officials.

Polls have shown that most Americans have bought the Bush line that it was Iraq and Afghanistan that bred the 9/11 terrorists. But despite the made-up evidence and downright forgeries, we've always known the real country behind the worst terrorist attacks in American history.

Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis. Osama bin Laden was born and raised in Saudi Arabia and his family is very prominent there. The bin Ladens run a hugh construction business based on their close friendship with the ruling Saud family. All of the bin Laden family money comes more or less directly from the ruling government.

I've long argued that 9/11 is best explained as a terrorist attack in an ongoing Saudi civil war. It takes a lot to be so angry that you’ll throw away your life in a terrorist act. From the accounts of the hijacker’s whoring before boarding the plane I don’t think they were particularly religious. They were political radicals trying to attack the source of the Saudi government’s military power: the United States. This is not to defend them or excuse the attack but it is to explain its source in an honest way.

Neither Saddam Hussein nor anyone else in Iraq was involved in the attacks against the World Trade Center towers or the Pentagon. Afghanistan was only bin Laden’s staging ground, a hide-out if you will, that was useful because it had a chaotic and weak government so desperate for money that it would play to a radical oil millionaire who wanted to play terrorist.

The real story is Saudi Arabia. All the money trails and most of the biographies of the terrorists go back there. The royal family of Saud is repressive and too full of Westerized playboys to make it popular at home. Someone with Osama bin Laden’s wealth, drive and charisma should have gone into politics. He could easily have been the loyal opposition in an Arabian constitutional democracy. But there is no democracy and seemingly no channel for anger but terrorism (of course there are channels and nonviolent responses possible but even I’ll admit it’s a tough career in a country where torture and imprisonment of opponents is routine).

The United States has fought two wars in the name of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We’ve seen the President reach out for even the most pathetic forgeries to excuse the wars. Yet he’s still giving a pass to the real country behind the attacks. And American is no safer from more Saudi dissident attacks. The war on terrorism will continue to be a joke of tragic proportions as long as the Saudi royal family is forgiven and the democracy there stifled.

See also:
TalkLeft's The Missing Pages of the 9/11 Report and Media Whores' coverage of the missing Saudi bits.