Saudi Arabia Can't Hide From the Truth | The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-strada/saudi-arabia-terrorism-9-11...

US I NFORM • INSPI RE • ENTE RTA IN • EMP OWE R

03/21/2016 02:40 pm ET | Updated Mar 21, 2016

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Terry Strada Gordon Haberman

9/11 Activist Advisory Board Member, National Air Disaster
Alliance/Foundation; Board Member and
Founder, Housing Our Nation’s Outstanding
Returning Servicemen

Curtis F. Brewer
Professor in Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Albert Einstein
College of Medicine

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Saudi Arabia’s pathetic effort to convince the American public that it is a force
for tolerance and stability in the world continued in a laughable op-ed
published on this site just over a week ago.

Without even a hint of self-consciousness, the Kingdom’s new ambassador to

the United States made the delusional claim that “Saudi Arabia has and will
continue to lead all nations in combating the mindset that foments violent
extremism.” The newly minted ambassador went on to argue that the
Kingdom’s religious leaders, including its Grand Mufti, “have loudly and
repeatedly condemned extremism and terrorism and have worked to guide
those who could be deluded by extremist ideologies away from that misguided
path.”

Really?

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Saudi Arabia Can't Hide From the Truth | The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-strada/saudi-arabia-terrorism-9-11...

Was that the case when, just two years before the 9/11 attacks, the Kingdom’s
Grand Mufti (who by the way is a government official appointed by the King)
published a book stating that “[t]he attack of the Christian crusaders is today
at its most intense...The Muslim whose mind has not been corrupted cannot Matt Masur Entrepreneur,
New Media Personality &
bear to see the infidels wielding authority...[t]herefore such a Muslim strives Progressive Activist

[to] his utmost to expel and distance them—even if he has to sacrifice his own
life, or his most cherished possession for this cause.”?

Perhaps the Ambassador was instead referring to the Saudi government

textbook which proclaimed that true Muslims “must show the infidels rudeness
and violence, and wage Jihad in the way of Allah without fear of the Infidels
and hypocrites, or terror of their arms and numbers.”

Sadly, the examples of this Saudi government-funded, intolerant, violent, and

toxic rhetoric abound, as several studies by the bi-partisan Freedom House
have confirmed.

Much as the oil-rich Kingdom would like us to believe otherwise, it is not a

coincidence that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers and Osama bin Laden
himself were Saudis. To the contrary, they were the horrible products of the
multi-billion dollar Saudi hate machine. And lest you think this is a problem of
the past, Saudis rank number one among the roster of foreign fighters who
have joined ISIS.

Given the actual facts, it should come as no surprise that American political
and thought leaders do not share the new Ambassador’s implausible view of
the Kingdom’s role in the world.
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Just days after the Saudi Ambassador authored his ridiculous plea, The content or advertisements.
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Atlantic published an interview with President Obama in which the president
decried the Saudis as “free riders” whose massive efforts to propagate the
Wahhabi variant of Islam have promoted extremist ideologies and sectarian
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conflicts that imperil our national security across the globe.

The president’s assessments echoed the observation of Thomas Friedman of 1.93 M 970 K

the New York Times several months ago that “all these Sunni jihadist groups
— ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Nusra Front — are the ideological offspring of the 455 K Podcast
Wahhabism injected by Saudi Arabia into mosques and madrasas from
Morocco to Pakistan to Indonesia.” Add us on Snapchat

Friedman’s New York Times colleague David Kirkpatrick likewise confirmed

the intimate link between Saudi Arabia’s propagation of Wahhabi ideology and
the rise of ISIS, explaining in 2014 that “For their guiding principles, the
leaders of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, are open and clear
about their almost exclusive commitment to the Wahhabi movement of Sunni
Islam. The group circulates images of Wahhabi religious textbooks from Saudi
Arabia in the schools it controls. Videos from the group’s territory have shown
Wahhabi texts plastered on the sides of an official missionary van.”

For these very reasons, Micah Zenko, a veteran of the State Department’s
Office of Policy Planning and senior fellow at the Washington-based Council
on Foreign Relations, said this week that the idea of the Saudis leading the
fight against terrorism was akin to a “[drug] cartel leading a counternarcotics

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Saudi Arabia Can't Hide From the Truth | The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-strada/saudi-arabia-terrorism-9-11...

campaign.”

In fairness to the Saudis, they’re right to be nervous about their state in the
world and understandably desperate to make themselves look better. Several
world leaders have joined President Obama in denouncing the role of the
Kingdom in fueling the tide of Islamist extremism that now envelopes the
globe.

Meanwhile, historical allies in Europe and elsewhere are increasingly wary of

selling arms to a state that appears unconcerned with the massive civilian
casualties resulting from its reckless use of those weapons in Yemen, or the
international outcry over its horrific human rights abuses at home.

In the last few weeks the Saudis have lashed out aggressively against allies
who have not fallen in line with their thinking, and in the past they have not
been above making thinly veiled threats when they do not get their way.

In this moment, we who lost loved ones in the September 11th attacks hope
our president and government will finally stand up to our Saudi “friends,” and
tell them once and for all that denial is not a viable path forward.

Winston Churchill once said that a “lie gets halfway around the world before
the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Maybe that’s what the Saudis (and
some in the U.S. government) are counting on. But what they’re not
appreciating is that, once the truth gets dressed, it catches up really fast, and
when it does, you can’t hide from it.

Terry Strada, widow of Tom Strada, North Tower

Gordon Haberman, father of Andrea Haberman, North Tower
Curtis F. Brewer, husband of Carol Demitz, South Tower

More: Saudi Arabia 9/11 Terrorism Islamic Extremists Saudi Terror Funding

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