[Peace-discuss] Fwd: October 2017 Harper's article: Crime and Punishment

[Karen Aram]

From: Mildred O'brien via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
To: peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
Sent: Wed, Sep 20, 2017 7:48 am
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: October 2017 Harper's article: Crime and Punishment



The following article in Harper's Magazine on the status of In Re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001 grew out of a suit filed in 2002 on behalf of family members and other victims of the attacks:

https://harpers.org/arch/2017/crime-and-punishment/4<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fharpers.org%2Farch%2F2017%2Fcrime-and-punishment%2F4&data=02%7C01%7Ckarenaram%40hotmail.com%7C8f074067511a42276a7408d539afb554%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636478349172730610&sdata=bnN2KSRH1oaviofqF0aRsO5v0rQw3sDafCil9FL%2FXXw%3D&reserved=0>

The October 2017 Harper's article "Will the 9/11 Case Finally Go to Trial?, by Andrew Cockburn reported that Sharron Premoli, a 9/11 survivor injured in the North Tower and one of the 6500 plaintiffs against Saudi Arabia, said. "We started a war because of 9/11--more than one war--and the wars are still going on.  Every war we start now, we say it's because of 9/11. They keep fighting the 'war on terror,' but we are giving the Saudis a pass, despite all the evidence."  Cockburn says there has always been evidence--in abundance.  The Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attack began work in February 2002 under the leadership of former Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, who has been active even since he retired from the Senate in 2005.

With low oil revenues and the effect on Saudi Aramco stock prices, the war in Yemen dragging on at a cost of $200 million a day, the Sauds are afraid of a default judgment against them and some of their assets will be seized, curtailing their bellicose plans, said Premoli.  "That is precisely the goal," she said.  As the suit drags on into some 12 years, the Saudi expenditure on lobbyists and attorneys in Washington mounts, adding to the expense into a possible hundreds of billions.  The lawyers for the plaintiffs are committed in spite of obstacles put in their way by the Bush and Obama administrations and FBI and CIA.

Back in 2002 Senator Bob Graham himself was already coming to the conclusion that the 9/11 attacks must have had an elaborate support network, abroad and in the U.S.A.  As he later wrote, "I believed almost intuitively that the terrorists who pulled off the attacks could not have been the work of a stand-alone terrorist cell.  In reality, the Obama Administration was well aware that Saudi Arabia was a supporter of terrorism, though it kept the information to itself.  Only through WikiLeaks did we learn of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's classified cable, circulated to department officials in December 2009 stating as fact that "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide."  On this side of the Middle East, the CIA and FBI were complicit in not revealing what they knew about the 9/11 attackers..

A successful conclusion of the lawsuit for the plaintiffs could strike a more powerful blow for peace and withdrawal of Saudi support for Middle East wars than organized protests against Saudi Arabia!.

The entire article at Harpers.org<http://harpers.org> is worth a read.

Midge O'Brien




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