Suing Saudi Arabia & Why Some Hoped to Stop It

“I think it was a mistake, and I understand why it happened,” - Mr. Obama

Of course he did go on to fully explain why .. so I will give it a shot.

Today, the United States Congress voted to override an attempted Veto by President Obama, in order to pass into law the right of families of 9/11 victims, to sue Saudi Arabia. Many wonder why President Obama attempted to stop this, against public opinion, and against the majority of sitting members of his own party - the answer points to everything that is wrong about the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Sentate Vote: 97-to-1

House Vote: 348-to-77

The law allows families of the Sept. 11 victims to alter lawsuits already underway — or file new suits — to directly sue Saudi Arabia and to demand documents and other evidence. It amends a 1976 law that grants foreign countries broad immunity from American lawsuits. Now nations can be sued in federal court if they are found to have played any role in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on United States soil.

Source: Congress Votes to Override Obama Veto on 9/11 Victims Bill

Credit: JUSTIN LANE / POOL

Those that opposed the legislation included General Electric, Dow Chemical, The European Union, and the CIA (Source: Congress rejects Obama veto, Saudi September 11 bill becomes law) - the reasons for this are clear, in that these nations and corporations fear reciprocal legislation & actions, or that they would themselves become the targets - for example if a terrorist attack was launched against the United States from within France, and if their intelligence services had known of the plot and preparations, but failed yo stop it, France could potentially be sued. For corporations such antagonistic legal web spinning is always bad for business, and of course the CIA sees it as a source of tension that would limit cooperation and potentially increase threat.

As for Saudi Arabia, they have threatened to liquidate assets in the United States, which many believe would hurt them far more. But what do we say about a country that has funded not only the 9/11 attacks, to a degree, but other organizations around the world, and its material and financial support of Wahhabism, to mosques world-wide, has been well-documented. In an October 2007 article in Brtain's Indpendent Daily, entitled Wahhabism: A deadly scripture, the author Paul Vallely clearly describe both the support and what has made Wahhabism the philosophical wellspring of Islamic Extremism primarily, at least it had been until the Extreme Extremist form currently creating an ocean of blood & tears across Iraq & Syria, under the ISIL banner.

From a 08/27/2014 article in the Huffington Post, You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, written by former Mi-6 agent Alastair Crooke:

In the collaborative management of the region by the Saudis and the West in pursuit of the many western projects (countering socialism, Ba’athism, Nasserism, Soviet and Iranian influence), western politicians have highlighted their chosen reading of Saudi Arabia (wealth, modernization and influence), but they chose to ignore the Wahhabist impulse.
After all, the more radical Islamist movements were perceived by Western intelligence services as being more effective in toppling the USSR in Afghanistan — and in combating out-of-favor Middle Eastern leaders and states.

Which brings us back to the question of why "powers" in the United States would be reluctant to support lawsuits against Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia, has been instrumental to United States foreign policy goals over many decades - which of course makes 9/11 skeptics start nodding their heads energetically. In my view, The Islamic State, was born of the Iraq invasion, specifically when the occupational authority disbanded the Iraq military, putting 10s of thousands of trained youth out of work. This "mistake" of foreign policy later became a tool for the West, to topple the Assad regime securing access to oil and to improve security for the state of Israel, and secondarily to threaten both Iran and Russia.

See my previous post, Islamic State: A "Mistake" of U.S. Foreign Policy ... Now Made a Tool

All of these things directly benefit Saudi Arabia .. however, ISIS went "off the leash" as it were, and now turn their sights on the United States and Saudi Arabia, and there is no guaranteed supply of cheap oil from either Syria nor Iraq. The dependency on Saudi Arabia, and the other Arab states, only increases, while the security of those nations becomes less and less assured. Instead of weakening and antagonizing, forces in the United States and Europe wish only to let bygones be bygones, and move on .. if only the families of 9/11 murder victims would get out of their way.