In a recent tweet by US presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard, the Army colonel and congresswoman called President Donald Trump out on America’s controversial support of Saudi Arabia. The candidate’s record and her recent gestures are at the center of what will be a pivotal American presidency. The 2020 elections are right around the corner and my countrymen need to know the real score. Here’s the latest on Donald Trump’s questionable intentions.
Gabbard is bringing to the forefront suspicions that the Trump/Pence team is hiding the fact that it is the Saudis who are a fundamental cause of the recent attacks on Christians/Christian churches in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. In another Tweet, the Hawaii representative railed at Trump for doing business with a regime many consider one of the instruments of Middle East chaos. Gabbard tweeted directly to POTUS:
“Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not ‘America First.”
This came on the heels of President Trump announcing his administration would take no actions against Saudi Arabia’s rulers regarding the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump sided with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who allegedly ordered the killing. The CIA reported to various news outlets that it had concluded the Saudi Prince did, in fact, order the killing.
President Trump made a statement saying, “It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” In the same statement, Trump outlined how the US needed Saudi support to help fight terrorism and to help keep oil prices low. Right after this chain of events, oil prices plummeted. Here is the President’s Tweet to the American people:
“Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let’s go lower!”
Now, unless you are a fanatical right-wing extremist Trump supporter, another American president kissing the Saudi leadership’s behind should be an easy vision for you. Tulsi Gabbard made the call for us all. I have no doubt that Rep. Gabbard is focusing on the real Achilles heel of Trump and the deep state on the other side of the political aisle. If you’ll allow me to explain.
It was the same Jamal Khashoggi who criticized Prince Salman, then governor of Riyadh and head of the Saudi committee for support to the Afghan mujahideen, for funding Salafist extremist groups for screwing up the war effort against the Soviets. Khashoggi was the only important Saudi Arabian outside the royal family who knew of the sheiks’ intimate dealing with al-Qaeda in the lead-up to the 11 September terrorist attacks. After 9/11, the journalists dissociated himself from Osama bin Laden. The reporter killed by the Saudis was, in fact, a friend to the heroic mujahadeen fighter nicknamed Abu Abdullah (Bin Laden), who ended up consumed by his hatred. Clearly, there is a lot more to the CIA, Saudi Intelligence, 9/11 story behind the Washington Post contributor’s murder. The fact President Trump is not revealing what he knows is telling here.
Khashoggi was a loud opponent of the Saudi war on Yemen, which has taken or destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives. Successive US administrations have not only turned a blind eye to the carnage, but Obama and Trump have also aided and abetted the criminal war on Yemenis.
Donald Trump Jr. promoted the idea that Khashoggi was a “jihadist,” which seems strange coming from the son of a sitting US president. All of this makes me wonder exactly what Jamal Khashoggi knew from all his dealings with the Saudi royals, his associations with the Muslim Brotherhood, the mujahadeen, and current affairs. Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has said the Saudi government monitored some of Khashoggi’s telephone conversations using Pegasus, the iOS spyware tool. So, what were the Saudi’s so afraid of? Why risk world disfavor by murdering a journalist in your embassy? Or, did the sheiks know the US president would back their play all along?
The whole Khashoggi affair and US support for the war in Yemen have become a political football now. The US House of Representatives has voted to discontinue aid to the Saudis in support of that war – finally. But Rep. Gabbard’s efforts cannot be compared with those of the Democrats on Capitol Hill. The Hawaii congresswoman has been on the “case” of bad U.S. policy since before she went on a ‘fact-finding’ mission in support of ‘peace’ for Syrian people, and met with Syria’s President Assad back in 2017. After that fact-finding mission, she characterized US-backed rebels as ‘terrorists,’ which is exactly what they were. The Democrats were silent back then, and are only now turning against the Saudis to battle Trump. Gabbard and a few other American leaders seem to have another more honest mission.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky tweeted, “I’m pretty sure this statement is Saudi Arabia First, not America First.” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, from Tennessee, tweeted, “I never thought I’d see the day a White House would moonlight as a public relations firm for the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.”
It is no secret that the United States government has actively collaborated with the Saudi regime in suppressing the revelation of evidence of the Saudi government’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Subsequent administrations have denied FOIA requests since that fateful day. Florida Senator Bob Graham, who was the chairman of the Congressional Inquiry into the attacks, was quoted as saying the “there was evidence of support from the Saudi government for the terrorists.” The senator called the situation an “aggressive deception,” before the American people. And the current U.S. president sides with the Saudis to get cheap gas! The matter of the cause of the multi-trillion dollar “War on Terror” is still open, and Gabbard and a few colleagues are the only ones screaming “look!”
Back in March 2016, the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir threatened to sell off some $750 billion dollars in US assets to destabilize the dollar if Washington decision-makers passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would negatively affected the Saudi regime. President Obama vetoed the law, but Congress passed the law over his veto. That successive US presidents have tried to “cover” the Saudis is evident in the notorious redacted “28 pages” of the initial 9/11 investigation. This New Yorker story tells a riveting story that goes back before the 1991 Gulf War. We’ve no space here for delving into how US troops on Saudi soil affected the royal family’s relationship with Wahhabi clerics, but it’s enough to know these princes rule only with the blessing of these fundamentalists. The following from John Lehman, the former Secretary of the Navy and a member of the 9/11 commissioner, is as telling as it gets:
“It was well-known in intelligence circles that the Islamic affairs office functioned as the Saudis’ ‘fifth column’ in support of Muslim extremists.”
Now let’s return to Tulsi Gabbard and her assertions that the Saudis are behind the terrorist attacks on Christians/Christian churches in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Furthermore, it seems fair to point out that there is, in fact, an “extremist Saudi ideology at work” and that billions are being spent propagating these ideas/strategies worldwide. And for those of you who may think Washington is unaware, the houses of power along so-called Think Tank Row are fully aware of what’s going down. This Foreign Policy story reveals the dirty truth of Whabbism and our allies the Saudi elites. Oil dollars can buy anything, just like we all suspected. This report reminds us of America’s role in creating ISIS, which helped us move into Syria, where Tulsi Gabbard went to find the truth. I should not need to say more.
President Donald Trump is selling us out just like Obama and Bush did. Unless he has some genius-billionaire plan to ride to the rescue of the refugees of Libya, Syria, and Yemen, our president is just playing ball like every commander-in-chief in memory. Anything is for sale. This is the message I’ve been getting from Trump since I supported him in 2016. I had hoped my vote of confidence would not be shaken, but this administration has betrayed us like every another one. War for profit is impossible to end without a drastic awakening of the American people. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard is the real deal?
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”