WASHINGTON — Documents gathered by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family, but the material may never find its way into court because of legal and diplomatic obstacles.But we already knew this.... and they are trying to get rid of the evidence.
The case has put the Obama administration in the middle of a political and legal dispute, with the Justice Department siding with the Saudis in court last month in seeking to kill further legal action. Adding to the intrigue, classified American intelligence documents related to Saudi finances were leaked anonymously to lawyers for the families. The Justice Department had the lawyers’ copies destroyed and now wants to prevent a judge from even looking at the material.The Saudis and their defenders in Washington have long denied links to terrorists, and they have mounted an aggressive and, so far, successful campaign to beat back the allegations in federal court based on a claim of sovereign immunity.
Allegations of Saudi links to terrorism have been the subject of years of government investigations and furious debate. Critics have said that some members of the Saudi ruling class pay off terrorist groups in part to keep them from being more active in their own country.
But the thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents compiled by lawyers for the Sept. 11 families and their insurers represented an unusually detailed look at some of the evidence.
Internal Treasury Department documents obtained by the lawyers under the Freedom of Information Act, for instance, said that a prominent Saudi charity, the International Islamic Relief Organization, heavily supported by members of the Saudi royal family, showed “support for terrorist organizations” at least through 2006.
Why? We already know if we really had wanted to retaliate against the 9/11 hijackers, we would have invaded Saudi Arabia.
8 comments:
Hey what's the statute of limitations on mass murder? Can't we still have a grand jury investigation?
The outrage and furious cries for an investigation have to pierce the Washington DC bubble... and that's hard work.
Maybe if we got a megaphone...
Maybe if we replace the media.
And start over with new elected officials...
Might take us a few years to fix this. At least if we replace the media first we can make elected officials responsive to the people instead of the corporations.
Taking a point from Shakespeare, we start with the lobbyists and the lawyers...
No need to kill anyone, just change the game.
Don't click. Don't watch this.
Nice. Thanks.
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