{"id":86979,"date":"2017-02-20T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=86979"},"modified":"2017-02-16T16:08:14","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T16:08:14","slug":"worst-joke-ever-u-s-spy-chief-gives-saudi-prince-highest-award-for-fighting-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/02\/worst-joke-ever-u-s-spy-chief-gives-saudi-prince-highest-award-for-fighting-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"Worst Joke Ever? U.S. Spy Chief Gives Saudi Prince Highest Award for \u201cFighting Terrorism\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday [10 Feb 2017], the Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo,\u00a0used his first trip abroad to\u00a0present Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef with the CIA\u2019s highest award for fighting terrorism, the George Tenet Medal.\u00a0\u00a0Although the\u00a0ceremony\u00a0wasn\u2019t covered\u00a0by any of the\u00a0major media,\u00a0it was\u00a0picked up\u00a0on\u00a0various\u00a0blogsites where\u00a0the news was greeted with predictable howls of\u00a0outrage.\u00a0\u00a0Not surprisingly, most American\u2019s still\u00a0see Saudi Arabia as\u00a0the epicenter of\u00a0global terrorism, a point\u00a0which\u00a0was\u00a0underlined\u00a0in a recent article\u00a0at The Atlantic<\/em> titled \u201cWhere America\u2019s Terrorists Actually Come From\u201d. \u00a0Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026after sifting through databases, media reports, court documents, and other sources, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, has arrived at a striking finding: Nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015.<\/p>\n

Zero\u2026<\/p>\n

Nowrasteh has listed foreign-born individuals who committed or were convicted of attempting to commit a terrorist attack on U.S. soil by their country of origin and the number of people they killed. \u2026 the countries at the top of the list, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are not included in Trump\u2019s ban\u2026<\/p>\n

The 9\/11 attacks were carried out by 19 men\u2014from Saudi Arabia (15), the United Arab Emirates (2), Egypt (1), and Lebanon (1). The incident remains influential in how Americans think about the nature of terrorism.\u201d (\u201cWhere America\u2019s Terrorists Actually Come From<\/a>\u201c, The Atlantic)<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s true that 9-11 has shaped the way that Americans think about terrorism,\u00a0it\u2019s also true that most people\u00a0are unaware of the deeper operational relationship between the CIA and the Saudis that dates back to the funding of the Mujahidin in Afghanistan in the 1970\u2019s. This\u00a0is where\u00a0bin Laden and al Qaida first\u00a0burst onto\u00a0the scene, which is to say, that the sketchy CIA-Saudi\u00a0connection created the seedbed for the War on Terror.\u00a0Unfortunately, \u00a0even now\u2013 16 years\u00a0after the attacks of 9-11\u2013 \u00a0the\u00a0relationship between\u00a0the notorious intel agency\u00a0and its\u00a0Middle East allies\u00a0remains as foggy as ever.\u00a0\u00a0As a result, the Saudis are typically fingered as the main source of the problem while the CIA\u2019s role is conveniently swept under the rug. For example, take a look at this clip from an article in the Independent:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSaudi Arabia is the single biggest contributor to the funding of Islamic extremism and is unwilling to cut off the money supply, according to a leaked note from Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

The US Secretary of State says in a secret memorandum that donors in the kingdom still \u201cconstitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide\u201d and that \u201cit has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia is accused, along with Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, of failing to prevent some of its richest citizens financing the insurgency against Nato troops in Afghanistan. Fund-raisers from the Taliban regularly travel to UAE to take advantage of its weak borders and financial regulation to launder money.<\/p>\n

However, it is Saudi Arabia that receives the harshest assessment. The country from which Osama bin Laden and most of the 9\/11 terrorists originated, according to Mrs Clinton, \u201ca critical financial support base for al-Qa\u2019ida, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during the Haj and Ramadan\u201d.<\/p>\n

(\u201cSaudi Arabia is \u2018biggest funder of terrorists<\/a>\u201c, Independent)<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s this gem from ex-Vice President Joe Biden:<\/p>\n

\u201cBiden said that \u201cour biggest problem is our allies\u201d who are engaged in a proxy Sunni-Shiite war against Syrian President Bashar Assad. He specifically named Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad \u2013 except that the people who were being supplied were (Jabhat) Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world,\u201d Mr Biden said.\u201d (\u201cJoe Biden forced to apologize to UAE and Turkey over Syria remarks<\/a>\u201c, Telegraph)<\/p>\n

The evidence against Saudi Arabia is overwhelming and damning, and that\u2019s what makes Pompeo\u2019s performance in Riyadh so\u00a0confusing. Why is the head of the CIA bestowing an award on\u00a0a man\u00a0who could undoubtedly identify\u00a0some of the world\u2019s\u00a0biggest terrorist donors,\u00a0unless, of course, the CIA derives some benefit from the arrangement?<\/p>\n

Is that it? Is there is a quid pro quo\u00a0between Washington and the Saudis that no one knows about but from which\u00a0Washington\u00a0reaps\u00a0tangible geopolitical\u00a0benefits?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly within the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n

Is it too far-fetched to\u00a0think that\u00a0the Saudis are actually a franchise that acts as Langley\u2019s\u00a0primary subcontractor carrying out\u00a0operations deemed too sensitive for its own agents\u00a0while obscuring the Company\u2019s role\u00a0behind a cloak of plausible deniability? Isn\u2019t that what Friday\u2019s freakishly Orwellian awards ceremony really suggests, that the\u00a0skullduggery\u00a0is much darker, deeper and more complicated than anyone would care to imagine?<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s support for the Mujahidin\u00a0helped to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan which is why the Brzezinski crowd thought it was a\u00a0success story.\u00a0\u00a0If that\u2019s the case, then isn\u2019t it logical to assume that subsequent administrations\u00a0might have used the same model elsewhere,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0like Kosovo, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan?<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it at least worth investigating?<\/p>\n

And, another thing:\u00a0\u00a0Is it possible to uncover the root of terror by capturing and interrogating individual terrorists\u00a0to find\u00a0out what they know?<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s not possible, because the individual cogs\u00a0have never revealed the\u00a0source of the funding-streams which originate from within the deep state. Every effort has been made to distance the\u00a0authors from their illicit handiwork, to\u00a0remove the tracks and erase the fingerprints. Once again, it\u2019s all about plausible deniability and\u00a0preventing the public from identifying the real perpetrators. Which means the only way to end this madness is by shedding light on the shadowy goings on between the Intel agencies and their Middle East\u00a0proxies. There\u2019s no other way.<\/p>\n

One thing is certain,\u00a0you\u2019re not going to\u00a0win the war on terror\u00a0by handing out\u00a0medals to the prime suspects.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike Whitney<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to\u00a0<\/em>Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion<\/a>\u00a0(AK Press).\u00a0Hopeless is also available in a\u00a0Kindle edition<\/a>.\u00a0He can be reached at\u00a0fergiewhitney@msn.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday [10 Feb 2017], the Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, used his first trip abroad to present Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef with the CIA\u2019s highest award for fighting terrorism, the George Tenet Medal\u2026 One thing is certain, you\u2019re not going to win the war on terror by handing out medals to the prime suspects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}