Valued ‘Ally’ Saudi Arabia Supports Terrorism, Urges US War in Syria

Saudi Arabia, the brutal authoritarian theocracy that the democracy-promoting Washington claims as one of its closest allies, has a bit of a history of pressuring the U.S. into Middle East wars. The 1991 First Gulf War to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait was fought largely in defense of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom also encouraged the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003. And the Saudi king has repeatedly urged Washington to attack Iran to secure Saudi interests in the Sunni-Shia regional divide.

Saudi Arabia also has a rather incriminating and duplicitous history of harboring Islamic extremists of the al-Qaeda, jihadist type. They helped the U.S. fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis (and they were directed by a Saudi, named Osama bin Laden). There is even a classified record that members of Congress have claimed indicates the Saudi government’s role in the 9/11 attacks.

Since the start of Syria’s civil war, foreign jihadists have been flooding the country – many of them coming from Saudi Arabia. Al Monitor reports:

Estimates of the number of Saudis fighting in Syria range as high as 2,500. Some are hardened veterans of earlier jihads in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq. A few are compatriots of Osama bin Laden. Others traveled to Syria from the kingdom, despite individual travel bans imposed for dissident activities at home. Some traveled directly through major Saudi airports, leading many observers to conclude they were encouraged by the authorities to leave the kingdom and go fight Assad. For over two years, the Saudi government seemed to turn a blind eye to travel by its citizens — even political dissidents — to Syria.

Kuwait, which has close ties to the Saudi government, “is a major source of private funding for Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s official arm in Syria,” Al Monitor reports.

Interesting enough, but that is not the big piece of news from this Al Monitor report. The big news is this: “King Abdullah will make a major push for a more vigorous American effort to oust Assad when he hosts Obama [late next month]. The Saudis have been openly disappointed that Obama has not used force to get rid of Assad or provided more assistance to training and arming the Syrian opposition.” Now, the report says, the Saudis are trying to persuade Obama to impose regime change in Syria by promising to cut back on its support for jihadists.

To sum up, Saudi Arabia’s policy on Syria amounts to funding groups considered by Washington to be terrorists and to lobbying the President of the United States to destroy the Damascus government. The two initiatives are deeply intertwined given that a collapse of the regime in Syria would mean chaos and huge ungoverned spaces, which foreign funded jihadists could thrive in.

I’ve been hammering away on the issue of entangling alliance for months now, but where is the outrage on Saudi Arabia? The U.S. government continues to help prop up and arm the Saudi government and yet it supports terrorism and is trying to suck the U.S. into another dangerous and endless military quagmire in the Middle East. Where are the belligerent members of Congress, the Peter Kings and Charles Schumers, condemning Saudi Arabia? They condemn other countries for much less.

53 thoughts on “Valued ‘Ally’ Saudi Arabia Supports Terrorism, Urges US War in Syria”

  1. Good article Mr. Glaser, and an inspired title. With allies like those with which we have "valued" and "special" relationships we'll never lack for enemies.

    1. Iranian written article. The brutal regime is Assad regime in Syria.
      This is not anti-war blog. It should be called the Iranian Propaganda and lies Blog.

  2. Saudi Arabia a "valued ally"? WTF? Freedom House rates it a 7 for civil rights and political liberties, its lowest possible rating and always places it in the list of ten least free countries in the world. Wasn't Bin Laden a Saudi? As were 15 of the 19 9/11 mass-murdering terrorists. With an "ally" like this we don't need any enemies.

    1. Obama: you guys don't understand politics, that's why I am a president. in order to serve my masters [ The War Lords] I support the Saudies who support the terrorists whom I kill using your money….. and you elect me twice! now…. that's politics.

  3. In a 2009 leaked cable, the Obama regime stated that Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest supporter of Sunni terrorism, including Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

    Obama then proceeded to ship Saudi Arabia almost a billion dollars worth of banned cluster bombs, 60 billion dollars of other lethal weaponry (the biggest weapons shipment in US history), and work closely with Saudi Arabia to wage a terrorist proxy war against Syria, one of HIllary Clinton's biggest ambitions (see here: http://empireslayer.blogspot.com/2013/11/hilary-c….

    It has also, as Glaser states above, long been essentially known that Saudi Arabia's government helped carry out 9/11/01.

    Obama really needs to be tried for terrorism, aggression, and war crimes.

  5. Glaser…

    The US is currently ‘at War’ with Syria. There is a currently ‘proxy war’ being waged against Syria at moment. This proxy war against Syria is a ‘group’ “effort” by international powers to bring about “regime change”. The US is the ringleader. Several of the US’s “allies”, both within the “region” and globally, perform various tasks and provide various forms of “support” ranging from political and financial “support” to direct military “intervention” (i.e. Israel directly bombing Syria).

    I'm not entirely sure how/why this seems “complicated” for some, especially after all this time and all that’s happened.

    How does Saudi Arabia get weapons into Syria? These weapons typically go through the Turkish and Jordanian border. Saudi Arabia has “training camps” in Jordan—as does the US. This is no “secret”; although AW.C commonly omits this “information”. Is the Jordanian government Saudi Arabia’s stooge or the US’s stooge? What about Turkish government…a Saudi stooge or US stooge?

    Saudi Arabia’s mercenary terrorists are essentially the US’s mercenary terrorists. They are the same exact people. This is also no secret—as John Kerry has essentially openly declared this as US policy several times now.

    The so-called “al-Qaeda” people are an effect/result of this broader “effort” of “regime change” in Syria…a ‘regime change’ “effort” declared as US policy by Obama himself multiple times now; albeit not in those exact words. The destabilization of Syria in turn creates safe havens and breeding grounds for the terrorists. You also can't be 'choosy' when it comes to contracting mercenary terrorists. Think of it as if if you wanted to hire a hit-man. Can you demand/expect certain 'qualities' and/or 'moral values' when going about hiring a hit-man?

    But hey…why listen to me when there is a vast swath of so-called “foreign policy’ “experts” to listen to. Why is the US still in Afghanistan? What’s the rational? What do these nimrod so-called “experts” say Glaser?

  6. Pingback: On Syria, Obama Dons His Interventionist Cap – Again « Antiwar.com Blog
  7. Pingback: John Glaser: Valued ‘Ally’ Saudi Arabia Supports Terrorism, Urges US War in Syria | Stop Making Sense

  8. Notice how Obama is suited in blue. That is considered a royalty color that kings etc would wear.
    hmmmm.

  9. Any reasonable American knows that the United States should have declared war on Saudi Arabia after 9/11/2001. It is quite evident that the Saudi royal family has compromised the "White House" in what may be termed as a "treasonable alliance" in that President Clinton "after leaving office" received over $42 million dollars for his Presidential Foundation. President Bush and his associates received over $1.5 billion dollars in contracts after attacking the wrong nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Later, with full knowledge that the Saudis financed the Pakistan nuclear program in exchange for access to those very same nuclear weapons, President Clinton's wife gives the Pakistanis over $6.5 billion dollars to "like America better"? The Muslim would has announced it is their strategy to keep the U.S. in military conflicts and deplete our national treasury, as well as engage in taking over Western mainstream media via their "media Jihad" which again, a Saudi Prince who is portrayed as a very prestigious and moderate, while his brother offers money to murder Israelis. We in America need to disengage from the Middle East and change our currency being held in Islamic overseas accounts into non-redeemable dollars and pay for themselves and their never ending wars. One long term goal of the Saudis is to create war that affords a fast action mass population transfer of Sunni Muslims into the United States under our refugee process to create a 5th column for the future conquest of the United States. This is my opinion and the content of a new screenplay that I'm writing entitled, "The House of Saud" which exposes this fanatical royal family and their deceptive techniques to rule the world under their conceptual nation of "Ummah Islam" or the Nation of Islam – because in reality all of these Islamic nations are only provinces of the conceptual "Ummah Islam" (Nation of Islam).

  10. Obama 57 terror states/OPEX are ON: X=Israel , E=evil doincc , P=Pentagon , O=Oilee dogs celebratink MADoff 100yrs of FASAD.

  11. WE should replace Iran with Saudi arabia as our ally, Iranians are much more educated and cultured than these stupid arabs, and They are much closer to democracy than this saudi arabian bastards

  12. Looking back into USG "democratic" approaches all over the world what we se is USA militarism protecting such regimes as Saudis. It is not secret that oil company as BP providing US needed petroleum products to continue its wars in area where USG, Saudi Arabia, EU have interests, both in economical and geopolitical interests, BP gets its oil from Saudi Arabia and rest of UAE, although most of consumed oil products in America is not from Middle East but it comes from Africa, yet, what USA and EU doing is to make a militarize ring around Saudi Arabia and change regimes that are against such rules in Middle East, Saddam Hussein was one if them, Libyan government was the other and Syrian, Iran is yet another. Saudis kingdom, Turkish government, USG and EU all are involved in Africa creating what is Saudis paid and trained jihadists. In Syria they are engaged by training and again supplying Saudis mercenaries in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey where the EU terrorist citizens are supported and sent to Syria to terrorize the Syrian nation, Obama's rule is to expend the Saudis alike regimes, Turkish government rule is to support the logistic for the operation, Jordanian king is the English puppet, they have been for many years, their rule is to support Israel making sure non of these "good terrorists" inter Israel while they train these "good terrorists" for fighting in Syria.

    The executive officers of BP oil company is a Swedish man and relative to Sweden kingdom family which is not surprising when the king of Sweden two years ago traveled to Saudi Arabia supporting the kingdoms and their inhuman politics in Middle East, the Swedish right wing conservatives, all most all of them, supporting the war in Syria as they did the Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright war in dividing Yugoslavia and Bush Neo fascism regime war in Iraq and partricipitation of the Swedish Air Force bombardment in Libya.

  13. The obvious solution to the US's Middle Eastern problems is for the US to go cap in hand to South Africa and buy their coal to liquids and gas to liquids technology. All the gas and coal wasted on producing electricity can be converted to liquid fuels. The electricity can be provided by nukes. The money pissed away on wars in the Middle East would have paid for this twice over. Of course, this means the price of oil would drop. With sanctions and invasions and wrecked oil fields, the price rises. Guess I'm not looking at it the right way.

    1. Oops. Section 526 of the 2007 US Energy Independence and Security Act prohibits US federal agencies from buying fuels whose life cycle emissions are higher than those of conventional petroleum. In effect, the act makes it illegal for the US to gain energy independence and security by the only technologies that work. Must admit I found this one hilarious. I'm sure the Saudis and American oil companies laugh all the way to the bank, too. Perhaps I can look at this the right way if I try!!

  14. Pingback: On Syria, Obama Dons His Interventionist Cap – Again | Michigan Standard

  15. this article lacks all logic, and is completely skewed by your irrational opinions. How is this even allowed to show up under google news. This is a propaganda website!

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