Kerry's statement on 9-11 report

[phillybri]

Note the shot at the Saudis:

In a statement on Thursday, John Kerry said, "Today’s 9/11 report is another reminder that we as a nation have to act urgently on the conclusions of the Hart-Rudman Commission. The truth is that this nation has a dangerous preparedness gap. The President can’t walk away from the truth, he must be straight with the American people about the work needed to make America safe. The Bush Administration needs to report immediately to the American people what has been done and what remains to be done to fill the intelligence gaps identified in the report. We should be shaking up the bureaucracy so intelligence is shared with officials who need it, thoroughly investigating visas -- not rubber stamping them, and cutting off terrorist financing by those at the highest levels of Saudi society."

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. Good

Kerry is my guy and hope he keeps the heat on * and the Saudi's.

Kerry can take down Bush, and he can do it without looking like a hothead, like Dean - or like a pushover, like Lieberman.

[Punkingal]

2. Kerry is my guy, too......

I think he is so intelligent. He could devastate Bush in debates, and he has the capacity to understand complex situations, as Clinton did. We need a President like that.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. To Paraphrase The Late Lee Atwater

we should strip the bark off George Bush and make Prince Bandar his running mate.

In 1988, the later Lee Atwater said "we'll strip the bark off Michael Dukakis and make Willie Horton his running mate"

[Octafish]

5. Prince Bandar is crapping gold bricks.

I like how you think, DemocratSinceBirth. We need to remind those who don't know: The wife of the Prince-ambassador-Saudi CIA cheese was GIVING terrorists MONEY — right here in the good ol' USA!

Michael Isikoff's take, from Newsweek/MSNBC on 22 NOVEMBER 2002:

The Feds probe a possible new Saudi link to Al Qaeda

Nov. 22 — The FBI is investigating whether the Saudi Arabian government—using the bank account of the wife of a senior Saudi diplomat—sent tens of thousands of dollars to two Saudi students in the United States who provided assistance to two of the September 11 hijackers, according to law-enforcement sources.

THE BUREAU, THEY SAY, has uncovered financial records showing a steady stream of payments to the family of one of the students, Omar Al Bayoumi. The money moved into the family’s bank account beginning in early 2000, just a few months after hijackers Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi arrived in Los Angeles from an Al Qaeda planning summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, according to the sources. Within days of the terrorists’ arrival in the United State, Al Bayoumi befriended the two men who would eventually hijack American Flight 77, throwing them a welcoming party in San Diego and guaranteeing their lease on an apartment next door to his own. Al Bayoumi also paid $1,500 to cover the first two months of rent for Al Midhar and Alhazmi, although officials said it is possible that the hijackers later repaid the money.

Sources familiar with the evidence say the payments—amounting to about $3,500 a month—came from an account at Washington’s Riggs Bank in the name of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and the daughter of the late Saudi King Faisal. After Al Bayoumi left the country in July 2001—two months before the September 11 terror attacks—payments for roughly the same amount began flowing every month to Osama Basnan, a close associate of Al Bayoumi’s who also befriended the hijackers. A federal law-enforcement source told NEWSWEEK that Basnan—who was recently convicted of visa fraud and is awaiting deportation—was a known “Al Qaeda sympathizer” who “celebrated the heroes of September 11” at a party after the attacks and openly talked about “what a wonderful, glorious day it had been.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/838867.asp?cp1=1

[Eloriel]

9. But can he do it

with putting me (and millions of others) asleep?

Sorry, I couldn't resist. That's the response I have to him: a big yawn followed by a strong desire to take a nap.

Eloriel

[CWebster]

4. If they were truly interested in battling terrorism

they would be discussing root causes, and not strutting around like adding another 10,000 police to guard the ports at 100 million dollars is going to stop anyone with a $1.29 box cutter on an angry mission.

[Octafish]

6. Bushes closer to bin Laden than Saddam ever was.

For those who may not be familiar with the neighborHOOD: The Houses of Bush, Saud and bin Laden are built on adjacent properties.

The Bush-Saudi Connection

By Michelle Mairesse

Ancestral Voices

In 1920, under a League of Nations mandate, officials from France and Great Britain carved up vast tracts of warlord-dominated territories in Arabia into what they imagined would be nation states devoid of the complex historical, cultural, and tribal realities of the Mideast.

Instead of establishing European-style nation states, the strongest warlords quickly entrenched themselves with the aid of standing armies and spy networks. In much of the Mideast, fealty is often accorded to tribal overlords and the Islamic sects they favor rather than to the territory and people within the boundaries of the nation state. Jonathan Rabin succinctly defines the reality, past and present, of the desert sheikdoms: "The systems of government that have evolved in Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are paranoid family dictatorships with ancestral roots in a single city or village." (1)

Islamic fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden make their appeals to the nation or community of believers, not to any particular nation state, although the rich and powerful among the Muslims have founded Western-style businesses and formed corporations both inside and outside the boundaries of their native countries. Because Osama himself is a scion of a rich Saudi family with wide-ranging business interests throughout the world, the split Saudi personality is most evident in him and the bin Laden clan. Osama, who calls America "The Great Satan," has done business with the infidel Americans whenever it suited him.

Throughout the eighties, when the United States assisted the Saudis in a giant military buildup of airfields, ports, and bases throughout the kingdom, many of the contracts were awarded to the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Binladen Group, founded by Osama bin Laden’s father.

CONTINUED...

http://www.hermes-press.com/BushSaud.htm



A royal "Howdy!" from Crawford.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

8. TO OCTAFISH:

I don't feel very safe after seeing this picture!!!

[Octafish]

10. Truth IS scarier than Fiction, PROGRESSIVE1!

Mr. Bath, the bin Laden's official US business representative, was a close, dear friend W made in the Texas Air National Guard. Seems that the terror and fraud business makes for some extreme bedfellows.

BTW: Sen. John Kerry is the reason BCCI was busted. Too bad Ed Meese and Dick Thornburgh thought it best for the country to keep it operational. Kerry took the story to NYC DA Henry Morenthau. From the same article:

EXCERPT...

Jihad

The Wahhabi Taliban in Afghanistan had the blessings of the Saudi royal family and of The Big Three--the bin Laden family, the al Ahmoudi family, and the Mahfouz family--the richest clans in that medieval kingdom. (A C.I.A. official testified to Congress that Khalid bin Mahfouz is bin Laden’s brother-in-law). The desert oligarchs profited from world-wide investments as well as sleazy banking schemes such as the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

Salem bin Laden, Osama’s brother, has conducted all his American affairs through James Bath, a Houston crony of the Bush family. Bath’s former business partner Bill White testified in court that Bath had been a liaison for the C.I.A. In 1979 Bath invested $50,000 in Arbusto, George W. Bush’s first business venture. Rumor had it that Bath was acting as Salem bin Laden’s representative. "In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests." (4)

In addition to doing aviation business with Saudi sheiks, Bath was part owner of a Houston bank whose chief stockholder was Ghaith Pharaon, who represented the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a criminal global bank with branches in 73 countries. BCCI proceeded to defraud depositors of $10 billion during the ‘80s, while providing a money laundry conduit for the Medellin drug cartel, Asia’s major heroin cartel, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and Islamist terrorist organizations worldwide. (5)

Big Three wheeler-dealer Khalid bin Mahfouz, one of the largest stockholders in the criminal bank, was indicted when the massive BCCI banking scandal blew apart in the early 1990s. The Saudi royal family placed him under house arrest after discovering that Mahfouz had used the royal bank to channel millions of dollars through fake charities into bin Laden’s organizations, but Mahfouz was not so much punished as inconvenienced. (6)

CONTINUED...

http://www.hermes-press.com/BushSaud.htm

[molly]

7. I think he knows a lot more than what he is saying here