Today on Air America Radio, Randi Rhodes made the "point" that the 19 9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudis. Michael Moore has made the same "point" in his film. My question is ... so what?
The implication seems to be that Bush should have attacked Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq.
First off, I don't think the Left really believes this. Had Bush attacked Saudi Arabia, the Left would be bashing Bush for that. There are many good reasons to bash Bush. But the Left does so largely irrespective of any good reasons. They attack Bush mostly because he is a Republican. Clinton's wars drew little outrage from the Left.
(Yes, Clinton had more allies in the Balkans, but so did Bush I in the Gulf War; yet the latter was not spared from Leftist criticism).
But more importantly, the hijackers' nationalities are irrelevent because (1) individuals often act independently, and (2) governments often hire foreigners to do their dirty work. Thus, the hijackers may have been acting alone, or on the behest of ... [fill in the government of your choice].
A criminal's nationality is irrelevent to anything. So why do some on the Left keep harping on the hijackers being Saudi? I think because they (rightly) oppose Bush's Iraq War, yet they still feel the need to offer Americans a foreign target, in order to prove that they're pro-national security. Which is silly, but I suppose that's considered politically prudent in a nation gripped with war fever.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - rapid
A criminal's nationality is irrelevant if it is proved beyond doubt that there was no connection whatsoever with the government. But that said it is pointless to keep harping on the saudi connection if american politicians really have america's interests at their heart( I am not an american by the way) They very well know that any attempt to bring democracy into places like Saudi Arabia will only result in rabid, america-hating, Islamic fundamentalists coming to power and that's the reason successive governments ,both democratic and republican, have persisted with the Saudi royal family. Of course some have benefited more from this than others but that's just good business sense.Right?
2 - Thomas M. Sipos
Rapid said: "A criminal's nationality is irrelevant if it is proved beyond doubt that there was no connection whatsoever with the government."
I would change that to "A criminal's nationality is irrelevant UNLESS it is proved beyond doubt that there WAS a connection with the government."
The way you have it, the burden or proof is on the government to prove there was no connection. Yet the burden of proof should be on those claiming there is a connection. Otherwise, one would assume that every American criminal overseas is acting on US government orders.
3 - NC
Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis; Mohammed Atta was Egyptian, another was from the U.A.E. and I forget where the other two were from.
You're right, though, about what the left's reaction would have been to an invasion of Saudi Arabia. If you think the "war for oil" trouser-soiling is bad now, imagine what it would have been like if U.S. troops had occupied the world's largest petroleum exporter. An invasion also would have put us at least temporarily in possession of Mecca and Medina, a fact which Islamic fundamentalists would have exploited to the hilt and which Democrats would have been only too happy to use as proof that Bush's war was creating more, not less, extremism.
In short, take every criticism the left has leveled at the administration and turn the volume up so that it's ten times as loud. That's what things would sound like right now if we had attacked Saudi Arabia. So, as usual, fuck Michael Moore in his fat ass.
4 - Thad Anderson
I think a lot of the criticism is a response to Bush and Cheney's non-stop efforts to link 9/11 and Iraq, which began on the afternoon of 9/11/01, and, as far as I know, continues to this day (the only mistake Bush would admit to during the debates was appointing the wrong people to a post or two).
Especially for those of us who were here in New York that day, having the President of the United States claim a non-existent link between 9/11 and Iraq is, and will always be, incredibly offensive. It is very hard for me to comprehend how Bush supporters do not at least understand where critics of the bogus 9/11-Iraq link are coming from.
Imagine how you would feel if the city you live in was the victim of the largest terrorist attack in American history, and the President used your city's tragedy as the rallying cry for an unrelated war. Imagine how you would feel if that President created a secret "Office of Special Plans" -using money that could have gone towards actually fighting terrorism - charged with finding evidence that might justify an invasion of Iraq, but ended up with nothing better than fraudulent claims from shadowy figures like Chalabi (seen here, standing behind Laura Bush at the 2004 State of the Union Address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/images/20040120-7_d012004-2-515h.html).
Then, imagine how you would feel if a well-publicized bipartisan commission on 9/11 found that there was no substantial operational relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but a slight majority of Americans still believed Bush's conspiracy theory linking the two, so he was re-elected anyway. According to PIPA, a polling organization affiliated with the University of Maryland, 52% of Americans polled on the verge of the elections still believed Iraq had provided "significant support" to Al Qaeda, despite the 9/11 Commission report's finding to the contrary (p.10 - http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Report10_28_04.pdf).
I'll never, ever forget walking across the Queensborough Bridge to get home on 9/11. And every single time I see that bridge, I think about the fact that, by the time I was walking across it, Donald Rumsfeld had already starting trying to link that tragedy to Iraq.
The good news is that historians usually read stuff like the 9/11 Commission report. If Bush's approval rating is 45% now, imagine what will happen to his reputation when more people look back and realize how unethical it was to try to link 9/11 and Iraq.
5 - lono
Thomas, you are wrong... and missing the point all together. There is a point being made, but it isn't that we should be bombing the Saudis.
The point being made was that we are AWFULLY close with the Saudi's... yet there is empirical data that this is where the bulk of Al Quaeda was birthed. It's not to say who is to bomb and who isn't. We are democrats, we don't think on those terms necessarily. The point was made by Rhodes and Moore to illustrate the fact that the Bush family has NEVER had American interests at heart. Never have, never will. They are concerned about the rich: protecting them, and perpetuating them.
6 - Dave Nalle
The reason the hijackers were Saudis was that they were the "best and the brightest" Al Quaeda had to work with. Most Al Quaeda recruits come from poor, backwards countries with no education - places like Yemen and Sudan. They aren't able to speak English and aren't equipped to go to school in the US to learn to fly a plane. So they sent their best recruits from more advanced countries so they'd actually have a chance of pulling the attack off.
See what happens when you apply common sense - things begin to become clearer.
Dave
7 - NC
I was two blocks away from the Towers when the first plane hit. I stayed in the area long enough to hear the second plane explode and see people running and screaming in the streets. I walked uptown, over the Queensborough bridge myself, and on through to Astoria where I spent the next three months living in my parents' apartment because mine had been rendered uninhabitable by the toxic Trade Center debris. So be careful about speaking on behalf of those who were in Manhattan that day, okay, Thad?
The link between 9/11 and Iraq is the regional culture as a whole. Political repression begets disaffection begets extremism, which is bad news for us unless we can put forth some sort of alternative for people in the Middle East. That's what we're trying to do in Iraq. If it works it'll give Arabs a model for political empowerment that doesn't require hijackings. Admittedly, that's a big "if" but at least it involves thinking big picture, which seemingly no one on your side of the aisle is capable of doing anymore. You guys sit there with your thumbs up your asses apparently believing that the problem Al Qaeda represents is limited to a few training camps in Afghanistan. After all that's been written in the past three years about Islamist fascism and its expanding reach -- even to western Europe -- you continue to drone on about how there weren't any Iraqi on board the planes that day. It's incredible, and made all the more so by the fact that if there had been a few Iraqis involved, you know what you'd be doing right now? You'd be here whining that the involvement of two or three citizens from a particular country in a terror attack is hardly grounds for a large-scale retaliatory strike, and therefore the war is wrong anyway. In short, on this point you're all full of shit. As you are on so many other things.
As for history's verdict on Bush, if Iraq turns out well historians will care less about the 9/11 link than about explaining how the war was really a bipartisan effort in which modern liberals heroically championed freedom for downtrodden people being crushed under the boots of a brutal authoritarian regime, etc. Just like they did during the Cold War.
By the way, you know what I think when I see the Queensborough Bridge? I think, "I can't believe those motherfuckers knocked down the Twin Towers." But you think of Don Rumsfeld. Perfect.
8 - Marc
Dave: "The reason the hijackers were Saudis was that they were the "best and the brightest" Al Quaeda had to work with. Most Al Quaeda recruits come from poor, backwards countries with no education."
I would agree with the first part. OBL is not a stupid man he knew if the towers came down the odds of making a second strike were much lower. So yes he sent he best and brightest.
As for the second there is some research that suggests otherwise. Here is the link to the following. Although it was pubished about ten days ago and sent to archive you can still see the title in the browser.
"The typical recruit to al-Qaeda is Western-educated and has a wealthy, professional background, according to a new study.
"The analysis of 500 members of Osama bin Laden's organisation has turned Western experts' presumptions about al-Qa'ida upside down.
"Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist who conducted the study, said he assumed it would find that most recruits were poor and ill-educated. 'The common stereotype is that terrorism is a product of poor, desperate, naive, single young men from Third World countries, vulnerable to brainwashing and recruitment into terror,' he said.
"However, his study showed 75per cent of the al-Qaeda members were from upper-middle-class homes and that many were married with children; 60 were college-educated, often in Europe or the US.
"Some, such as British-born terrorist Omar Sheikh, were educated at fee-paying schools before heading for Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya...
"Dr Sageman said most of the terrorists came from a small number of wealthy Arab countries, from immigrant communities in the West or from Southeast Asia. Few were from poor Islamic countries such as Afghanistan...
"He said most grew up in caring families concerned about their communities. The men in Dr Sageman's sample joined al-Qaeda at an average age of 26. About half grew up as religious children, but only 13 - mostly from Southeast Asia - attended Islamic schools."
9 - Thad Anderson
"So be careful about speaking on behalf of those who were in Manhattan that day, okay, Thad?"
I wasn't trying to speak for anybody besides myself, although, if I was trying to, I could have pointed out that the city of New York voted against Bush by an 80/20 margin, and that many people were highly offended by the tone of the Republican National Convention.
"By the way, you know what I think when I see the Queensborough Bridge? I think, "I can't believe those motherfuckers knocked down the Twin Towers." But you think of Don Rumsfeld. Perfect."
Thanks for trying to call me unpatriotic, or whatever you're trying to say. I guess I should have put in a line about the intense anger I harbor towards the actual terrorists (none of whom, as you pointed out, were from Iraq). But I tend to make the mistake of assuming that other Americans are above this kind of crap.
The 9/11 attacks were (obviously) the worst thing that I have ever experienced, and it is very offensive to think that the Bush administration was willing to lie about the connection between 9/11 and Iraq. If caring about the facts means I have "my thumbs up my ass," fine. How a bunch of Yale grads convinced conservatives to brand anyone who opposes their views as "elitist" blows my mind, but there seem to be plenty of people willing to do just that.
"The link between 9/11 and Iraq is the regional culture as a whole."
Let me get this straight - you honestly, truly, don't think that it should matter at all that the Bush administration has consistently misled the American people about the Iraq-Al-Qaeda link and the WMD evidence? The rationale for invading Iraq keeps getting more and more vague. Bush defenders don't even try to use facts or military arguments anymore - it's all just a bunch of buzzwords and cliches. Is there a weekly meeting on how to defend Bush policies using buzzwords and cliches, now that the factual arguments have deteriorated?
Here are my facts: http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf. When you can do better than vague buzzwords, please tell me.
10 - Temple Stark
THat caught my eye, too
The link between 9/11 and Iraq is the regional culture as a whole.
Say what? So it's just a culture war? And we just picked any old spot. Isn't THAT what many on "the left (Like Novak, Buchanan)" have been saying?
11 - Dave Nalle
Fascinating stuff, Marc. I suspect that to some degree the article has a very good point. But I think that two things remain true. First, that few if any of the recruits are as likely to be good English speakers or as capable of getting along in the US as those from Saudi Arabia - bet they get very few recruits from Lebanon, for example. And second, that there are essentially two tiers of recruits. It's very clear from what's happened in Iraq that they are getting a lot of recruits from Yemen, Sudan and Somalia, becuase that's who they keep finding dead with suicide bombs strapped to them. Al Quaida reflects the culture of the Arab world, with those from wealthy and educated backgrounds running the organization, and a bunch of ignorant, highly religious foot soldiers from backwards countries available to die for Allah.
Dave
12 - billy
its nice to see the right showing their true hatred for america. they are willing to defend a terrorist saudi dictatorship who killed 3000 people on 9-11 simply to cover for Bush who let osama bin ladens family fly out of the country after 9-11 when all other flights were grounded.
keep up the good work on the right. keep defending the terrorist dictators. the american people will remove your representatives from office soon enough.
13 - MDE
re:"its nice to see the right showing their true hatred for america. they are willing to defend a terrorist saudi dictatorship who killed 3000 people on 9-11"
From a leftie - billy, inflammatory bullshit is of little use coming from us, either. If you want to flame, do so with less assailable 'facts'.
Mark
14 - gonzo marx
ok...Thomas, the writer of the original Article here posed this Question..
*Today on Air America Radio, Randi Rhodes made the "point" that the 19 9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudis. Michael Moore has made the same "point" in his film. My question is ... so what?*
well..we have seen how many of the hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi's...Osama bin Laden...yep he's a Saudi
how many Iraqi's on the planes?...none
how many Iraqi's in Al Qaeda ladership?
none
Saddam did pay $25k for palestinian suicide bombers...how much money sent to al Qaeda has been proven?...none
how many millions flow from wealthy Saudi's to the Wahabi fundamentalist schools that teach anti-americanism as well as the Koran?
and how much money went to the Wahabi schools form Saddam?....none
now, both Saddam and Osama were friends with the U.S. at one time..ni the '80s we sold lots of WMD to Saddam to use against Iran, whom we were really mad at at the time and our CIA did teach Osama how to do terrorist stuff in Afghanistan in the 80's when he was leading part of the mujahadeen there fighting the Russian invasion
so the only link i see here are that both these maniacs learned a lot from the U.S.
the link i don't see is how removing a Sunni, secular government is fighting al Qaeda..or catching Osama...ya know..the folks RESPONSIBLE for 9/11
even if we toss out the whole WMD rhetoric as bad intelligence...any alleged "connections" between the secular Sunni regime of Saddam and the shi'ia fundamentalist movement of al Qaeda have been completely shot down by the 9/11 commision (above commenter has the link)
now..Thomas asks.."so what?"
and i say back..doesn't all this preponderance of ACTUAL links between Saudi Arabia and al Qaeda deserve at least being looked into and investigating..i mean we're spending 100's of billions of dollars, not to mention the human costs...to liberate Iraq and give them democracy when they have NOTHING to do with the actual conflict with the folks that took down the Towers....shouldn't we at least be looking at bringing democracy to Saudi Arabia as well..or stopping the money to the wahabi schools...
or anything?
i will always support the folks on the ground in this conflict...but i will always question those that sent them
as for "so what?" i say...
so there..
Excelsior!
15 - Mark Schannon
>The implication seems to be that Bush should have attacked Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq.<
When people bash the Saudis (The House of Saud), it's because they're a repressive, dictatorial, sybaritic regime with no legitimate right to the land they occupy having been put there by the Brits as a thank you for helping out in WWI.
As keepers of the two holiest Islamic sites, they're complete hypocrites. Go watch a Saudi the minute he's left his country--they head for the nearest bar and/or casino.
But attack them? There's as much reason to attack them as there was to attack Iraq--zero!
Three little letters: WPM.
Thus Spake Zarathustra.
16 - NC
No foolin' you, eh, billy? Listen carefully: no one's defending the Saudis. They're the tumor at the heart of the Wahhabist cancer. Thomas's point was simply that if Bush had attacked the Kingdom, those on the left who have been squealing about his cozy relationship with the royal family would instead be squealing about a war for oil and our blasphemy against the Islamic holy places and so on and so forth. That's what you guys do, after all; you squeal. Never, ever do you offer any alternative strategies.
Which brings me to Thad's reply. First, you say you weren't speaking for any New Yorker but yourself. Really? From your previous comment:
"Those" is plural, isn't it? Also, there's a little more to that 80/20 figure you threw out than meets the eye. Here's a county-by-county breakdown of how New York voted in the last two presidential elections. Turns out Bush's share of the vote increased in all five boroughs and the three major suburbs. How "incredibly offended" could New Yorkers be by the war if the guy actually got more votes this time around than he did as an unknown quantity in 2000?
Second, I didn't call you an elitist. I didn't call you unpatriotic either, but why would it be "crap" if I did? You said that every time you see the bridge, you think of 9/11 and Rumsfeld nefariously plotting to invade Iraq. Let me borrow your M.O. for a moment and say, on behalf of most New Yorkers (I hope), that that's a screwy thing to associate with the horror of that day. It's like Michael Moore writing that what really bugged him about the attack was the fact that it was directed against a blue state and not a red one. Not unpatriotic per se but it does suggest an interesting set of priorities, don't you think? It'd be like someone who was at Pearl Harbor saying, "Every time I visit the U.S.S. Arizona I think of FDR plotting to take us to war with Germany."
Finally, re: this business about buzzwords and cliches and supposedly shifting rationales for Iraq: were they really shifting? Or is it just that you guys have seized on the WMD rationale because that's the one that failed and you've conveniently forgotten about the rest?
Let me see if I can restate the "culture of the region" argument for you and Temple without using buzzwords and cliches. Emphases mine:
Guess where that quote's from. Right; pages 362-63. Big-picture thinking at its finest. Now, you guys disagree about Iraq being the way to get the ball rolling? Fine. Give me an alternative. Explain to me how more money for airport screeners is going to defeat that second enemy the Commission is talking about. Kerry couldn't do it. That's why he lost, and why he even lost ground in NYC compared to Gore four years earlier, and why you guys are going to lose in the midterm elections if you don't stop crying about Rumsfeld and offer some solutions.
17 - MDE
Rule Britannia! England should reclaim its empire - so we don't have to.
Gonzo - when we're done looking at it, how do you suggest we go about this 'bringing democracy' or stopping the money flow. Do you propose that military action is a reasonable course to consider? Can the world afford for us to jeapardize another oil producer's infrastructure?
Mark
18 - Marc
Excellent post NC.
And note the deafening silence after it that includes no alternative being offered.
19 - Marc
I almost forgot: Billy:
"they are willing to defend a terrorist saudi dictatorship who killed 3000 people on 9-11 simply to cover for Bush who let osama bin ladens family fly out of the country after 9-11 when all other flights were grounded."
I hereby revoke your voting rights and mandate a forehead tattoo that reads "STUPID"
And ask this: Have you had your DNA checked? You may possess a Michael Moore strain.
20 - RJ
"its nice to see the right showing their true hatred for america. they are willing to defend a terrorist saudi dictatorship who killed 3000 people on 9-11"
The Saudi government was responsible? Cite?
"simply to cover for Bush who let osama bin ladens family fly out of the country after 9-11 when all other flights were grounded."
That's a Michael Moore LIE. They did not leave the country until flights had resumed.
If you get all your "facts" from F911, then you are not really worth responding to further...
21 - RJ
"the shi'ia fundamentalist movement of al Qaeda"
The al-Queefa loons are NOT Shia. They are Sunni.
Zarqawi (Osama's personal bitch in Iraq) hates the Iraqi Shia majority just as much as the US.
22 - RJ
They had a (historic) election in SA quite recently.
Open a paper sometime...
23 - NC
I meant to call billy on his fucking bullshit lie about Bush approving special flights for Saudis out of the country on 9/11. Good job, Marc and RJ. The truth lies within; pages 329-30.
Keep up the squealing, kids. Nice and loud.
24 - Big Time Patriot
"But more importantly, the hijackers' nationalities are irrelevent because (1) individuals often act independently, and (2) governments often hire foreigners to do their dirty work. Thus, the hijackers may have been acting alone, or on the behest of ... [fill in the government of your choice]."
Hmmm, seems like years after 9-11 you might have finally noticed that the 9-11 hijackers did NOT act at the behest of ANY government, nor were they acting alone. Did you not know that when you wrote this sentence?
The terrorists were working with an international terrorist group (in this case Islamic fundamentalist extremists).
So your paragraph with its (1) and (2) seems odd when we know at this point it was NOT (1) OR (2).
It also seems you are arguing that people of all countries should have exactly the same screening for entering our country, since you have made the point that there nationality is irrelevant? Interesting.
25 - Big Time Patriot
"Now, you guys disagree about Iraq being the way to get the ball rolling? Fine. Give me an alternative. "
It seems like a lot of this argument is exactly ABOUT giving you an alternative. If our goals were to accomplish those things you quote pretty effectively in comment 16, attacking Saudi Arabia would have been MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE in fighting Islamic Fundamentalists than the Iraq war will ever be.
But what if instead the goals of fighting the Iraq war were actually DIFFERENT than the goals mentioned in the 9-11 report, but the administration just USED that rhetoric as ill-fitting cover story(and remember they only used that rhetoric when their earlier imminent danger cover story turned out be false), well things just make much more sense to many of us.
But you can look at the facts of the Iraq war and you can look at the arguments for the Iraq war, and if you see that there is not a close match between reality and the arguments, it will be up to each individual to decide if they are going to go with reality or just stick with the arguments anyway.