A British friend told me to mostly ignore articles from The Daily Mail because they were British equivalent of US tabloids like National Enquirier. Worth keeping in mind here.
Just to make it clear to everyone: The US has done a really good job of (I assume deliberately) screwing the Saudis over the last couple of years. Firstly the Iran agreement has shown them nothing is off the table, secondly the US shale oil has given the US maneuvering room by crashing the oil market, and finally this set of "leaks" is showing the Saudis that they had better fall in line.
Exactly what the US wants isn't clear to me though. Maybe cutting off funds to ISIS?
From what I understand, much of the dogma and propaganda used to recruit religious extremists is sourced from SA universities, and academia. The people behind it hold a priviliged position in SA society due to the culture's emphasis on religious values and the nation's role as the center of Islam (ie Mecca).
It's not necessarily the fault of the ruling family (although the ruling family may be sympathetic to the cause) but the propagation of Islamic fundamentalist dogma has become an international problem leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. If SA wants to remain in good standing with the rest of the world the ruling family will need to take action or suffer the consequences.
You don't win an ideological war by going after suicide bombers, you starve and alienate the few Developing and broadcasting the message to the impressionable youth.
SA shit the bed and they were previously given a 'free pass' because their control over oil supply. Meanwhile the US has dramatically shifted the energy production landscape where SA's dominant position is no longer a serious threat.
What was previously their greatest strength is now their greatest weakness. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Acknowledge that violence motivated by religious dogma is unacceptable and take action to fight it, or watch their enemies grow stronger each passing day with growing support from the West.
You could be right, but it's a familial monarchy in ownership of a country. One that behaves pretty badly as well. So if it is a screwing, it seems the very very least that they deserve.
The family is going through internal conflict at the moment as well.
Looking at today's world the Chinese curse comes to my mind may you live in interesting times.
Seriously. For all we know, this envelope originally contained a "happy birthday" letter, or a notice of tax delinquency or something. Unless there's more to it, this no more indicates a link to the Saudi government than a letter from the IRS to me indicates my activities are linked to the US government.
And then these guys manage to write how many paragraphs about this? Sheesh.
The original post says:
>Since people often re-use envelopes and citizens of any country may have legitimate reasons for correspondence with the embassies of their government in foreign countries they live in, the Saudi embassy envelope isn’t by itself conclusive of anything. 28Pages.org couldn’t find any other history of the FBI’s find or of the government’s evaluation of its significance.
Seems a little fishy. I would expect a greater level of operational security from a Saudi Arabian official in the position to be involved here. If you knew the long term plan why would you ever hand someone a key piece of evidence in an envelope bearing your own information? Even if you didn't personally know the long term plan, ensuring the certificate is untraceable in all forms seems like something you'd of been made to understand.
You'd be really surprised. In a theocracy such as Saudi Arabia where individuals are born into power, the hubris is overwhelming. They believe they are above all consequences (which has shown to be true thus far), and have little concern for operational security.
Is mail sent from foreign embassies within the U.S. protected in any way, similar to the contents of a diplomatic bag? Does it make any sense that someone associated with the Saudi Embassy in D.C. would use an official letter to exfil sensitive documents like the pilot certificate? Sure doesn't seem like a wise move, but some sort of legal protections might make the scenario more plausible.
Embassies worldwide often mail letters (party invitations, a check to pay for power, etc) using the postal services of host countries.
The vast majority transmit anything sensitive by diplomatic courier.
I suspect in this case the document was simply placed in an envelope and not actually mailed, while the individual responsible didn't realize the consequences of using an branded envelope.
"plane" strikes exact area where pentagon was doing audit of $2.3 trillion, noted missing the day before by Rumsfield... also debris don't resemble plane crash
explosions in the bottom floor of WTC
perfect implosion of towers
Saudi govt had nothing to do with all that, real enemy is likely closer to home
For future reference, that's what the tiny 'web' link does at the top of this page - it will search Google for the article title, so you can clickthrough from Google.
The Australian's article title (before the link was changed) was "Saudi diplomats linked to September 11 terror plot".
Since the submitted URL (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/saudi-d...) is blocked, we've switched to this one for the time being. I tremble, because any Daily Mail article provokes a storm on HN, let alone one about 9-11. But the article appears to be substantive and to contain new information, and those are our criteria. So let's see what happens. If anyone finds a more substantive article we can change the URL again.
