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Does Washington beginning to reconsider the alliance with Saudis?


Fifteen years after the shocking attacks on World Trade Center, the US House of Representatives, rather unexpectedly, has passed a bill allowing Americans to sue Saudi Arabia over 9/11.

As RT reports:

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill allowing Americans to sue Saudi Arabia over 9/11, days before the attack’s 15th anniversary. The measure passed without objection or opposition, but the White House is threatening a veto.

House Resolution 3815, also known as the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” or JASTA, creates an exception to sovereign immunity created by a 1976 law, thus allowing US citizens to sue foreign countries for terrorism that kills Americans on US soil. The law has been invoked to shield Saudi Arabia from lawsuits over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Fifteen out of 19 men who hijacked commercial airliners and used them as missiles to target the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were subjects of the Saudi kingdom.

[...]

Saudi Arabia has tried to block the bill, using the services of its many lobbyists in Washington. Among them is the Podesta Group, co-founded by current Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta and run by his brother Tony.

Recall that, in March, a US judge ordered Iran to pay over $10 billion in damages to families of victims who died on September 11, 2001 – even though there is no evidence of Tehran's direct connection to the attack! The same judge earlier cleared Saudi Arabia from culpability. The ruling is noteworthy particularly since none of the 19 hijackers on September 11 were Iranian citizens!

However, this time we have a bill passed by the US House of Representatives, which has much more weight, but the truth is that, even in the case of Saudi Arabia, there are no clear indications of direct involvement of the country in the 9/11 attacks.

We know that, various US governments in the past proceeded even in manufactured evidence, to justify military invasions in third countries. As Adam Curtis describes in the third part of his documentary The Power of Nightmares, even al-Qaeda was actually invented, to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. From Wikipedia : “... in order to prosecute bin Laden in absentia for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, U.S. prosecutors had to prove that he is the head of a criminal organisation responsible for the bombings. They find a former associate of bin Laden, Jamal al-Fadl, and pay him to testify that bin Laden is the head of a massive terrorist organisation called "al-Qaeda". With the September 11 attacks, neoconservatives in the new Republican administration of George W. Bush use this invented concept of an organisation to justify another crusade against a new enemy, culminating in the launch of the War on Terror. After the American invasion of Afghanistan fails to uproot the alleged terrorist organisation, the Bush administration focuses inwards, searching unsuccessfully for terrorist sleeper cells in America. In 2003, they extend the War on Terror to a war on general perceived evils with the invasion of Iraq.

So, does this bill by the US House of Representatives marks the beginning of the end of the United States/Saudi Arabia alliance? It's quite early to say, but rather not.

It appears that this bill is included in a series of actions through which the US attempt to "cut any ties" with suspected connection to any factor (e.g. CIA training camps) linked with ISIS or other terrorist groups, especially after the expansion of chaos in the Middle East, as well as, the multiple terrorist attacks in Western soil.

Such a factor is also Saudi Arabia, one of the most solid US allies that has been completely exposed for the various aid that offered to ISIS jihadists. Therefore, this bill could be considered a smoke screen to calm down the reactions from the fact that the US continue to cooperate closely in various levels with one of the most brutal regimes in the Middle East that arms and helps terrorists.

Another indication towards this theory, is that the United States finally took a clear position against Al-Nusra, in the context of the recent agreement with Russia. As John Kerry stated: “going on Al-Nusra is not a concession to anybody” but “is profoundly in the interests of the US.

In any case, it is rather doubtful that Obama will act for this matter too. Apart from the Middle East chaos, he will leave this new "hot potato" to the hands of the next US presidency. In case that Hillary Clinton get elected, she will have to deal with another "headache". The Saudis have plenty of money to pay for compensations, so this is not the big issue. They will be expecting from their friend Hillary to reject the bill, in order to send them a signal that the new US government still considers Saudi Arabia an ally. We will have to wait and see if all these come true, or, if something much bigger is taking place that would change dramatically the balance and the geopolitical game in the Middle East.

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