obama-holder ONCE AGAIN STABS AMERICA IN BACK

Justice Dept. Backs Saudi Royal Family on 9/11 Lawsuit

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: May 29, 2009




WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is supporting efforts by the Saudi royal family to defeat a long-running lawsuit seeking to hold it liable for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Justice Department, in a brief filed Friday before the Supreme Court, said it did not believe the Saudis could be sued in American court over accusations brought by families of the Sept. 11 victims that the royal family had helped finance Al Qaeda. The department said it saw no need for the court to review lower court rulings that found in the Saudis’ favor in throwing out the lawsuit.

The government’s position comes less than a week before President Obama is scheduled to meet in Saudi Arabia with King Abdullah as part of a trip to the Middle East and Europe intended to reach out to the Muslim world.

Lawyers for the Saudi family said that they were heartened by the department’s brief and that it served to strengthen their hand before the court, which has not decided whether to hear the case.

But family members of several Sept. 11 victims said they were deeply disappointed and questioned whether the decision was made to appease an important ally in the Middle East. The Saudis have aggressively lobbied both the Bush and Obama administrations to have the lawsuit dismissed, government officials say.

“I find this reprehensible,” said Kristen Breitweiser, a leader of the Sept. 11 families, whose husband was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center. “One would have hoped that the Obama administration would have taken a different stance than the Bush administration, and you wonder what message this sends to victims of terrorism around the world.”

Bill Doyle, another leader of the Sept. 11 families whose son was killed in the attacks, said, “All we want is our day in court.”

The lawsuit, brought by a number of insurance companies for the victims and their families, accuses members of the royal family in Saudi Arabia of providing financial backing to Al Qaeda — either directly to Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders, or indirectly through donations to charitable organizations that they knew were in turn diverting money to Al Qaeda.

A district court threw out the lawsuit, finding that the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act provided legal protection from liability for Saudi Arabia and the members of the royal family for their official acts.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan said in the brief to the Supreme Court that her office agreed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit “that the princes are immune from petitioners’ claims,” although she pointed to somewhat different legal rationales in reaching that conclusion.

Ms. Kagan noted that the Supreme Court had historically looked to the executive branch to take the lead on such international matters because of “the potentially significant foreign relations consequences of subjecting another sovereign state to suit.”

The government said in its brief that the victims’ families never alleged that the Saudi government or members of the royal family “personally committed” the acts of terrorism against the United States “or directed others to do so.” And it said the claims that were made — that the Saudis helped to finance the plots — fell “outside the scope” of the legal parameters for suing foreign governments or leaders.

Justice Department officials declined to address the issue of whether the timing of the brief was related to Mr. Obama’s trip to Riyadh, but other lawyers involved in the case said the timing appeared to be coincidental. They said as a practical matter the department, which was invited to state its views in the case in February, needed to do so by this week if it hoped to influence the court’s decision on whether to accept the case before it leaves for summer recess in June.

William H. Jeffress, a Washington lawyer who is representing Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the United States who is one of the princes named in the lawsuit, said the Justice Department came down on the right side of the law in supporting immunity.

Any suggestion that the timing of the brief was influenced by Mr. Obama’s upcoming visit was “baseless,” Mr. Jeffress said, as were the accusations in the lawsuit itself about the Saudi ties to Al Qaeda. “Osama bin Laden is a sworn enemy of the royal family of Saudi Arabia, and the idea that they would be providing financial support to Bin Laden is a little absurd,” Mr. Jeffress said.

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FBI SHUT DOWN SAUDI INVESTIGATION OF 9/11 TERRORISTS



February 5-- Venice, Florida.
by Daniel Hopsicker





A software company called Ptech, founded by a Saudi financier placed on America’s Terrorist List in October 2001, had access to the FAA’s entire computer system for two years before the 9/11 attack.

Last week, when the National 9/11 Commission held hearings on The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attack, government and aviation officials described a system unprepared for the events that unfolded on September 11. None of them, however, mentioned security breaches involving “Saudi terrorists in the basement of the FAA.”

Yet that's what happened, according to a high-level risk analyst who had troubling dealings with the firm.

"Ptech had a couple of very troubling client relationships," states risk architect and whistleblower Indira Singh, "one of which was with the FAA. One of the 'persons of interest' in the investigation had a team in the basement of the FAA for two years."

"P-tech worked on a project that revealed all information processes and issues that the FAA had with the National Airspace Systems Agency, NAS," Singh said









Before anyone breaks out the tin foil hats, our source for this ‘wild conspiracy theory’ is America’s paper of record: the very un-wacky NY Times.

A front page article in the New York Times reported that people who were on the ground in Afghanistan during the siege of Tora Bora believe that American commanders did not act with anything like the zeal you'd expect from people whose mission was hunting down America's Most Wanted Man.

American forces in Afghanistan, the Times reported, "have not been helped by the suspicion here at Tora Bora, where bin Laden was all but trapped, that Indecisiveness on the part of American commanders, or perhaps reluctance to risk casualties, may have helped him (bin Laden) escape."

"If (bin Laden) fled to Pakistan he did so over snow-choked mountain trails that were not blocked by American or other allied troops until after the bombing—an oversight that some of the allies point to as having squandered the best opportunity of the war to snare America's most wanted man."

"Within weeks high-ranking British officers were saying privately that American commanders had vetoed a proposal to guard the high-altitude trails, arguing that the risks of a firefight, in deep snow, gusting winds and low-slung clouds, were too high," said the article.

Low-slung clouds? The snow was too deep?

"Similar accounts abound among Afghan commanders who provided the troops stationed on the Tora Bora foothills—on the north side of the mountains, facing the Afghan city of Jalalabad," continued the Times. One Afghan commander told of pleading with Special Forces officers to block the trails to Pakistan. "Their attitude was, 'we must kill the enemy, but we must remain absolutely safe," said warlord Hajji Zaher. "This is crazy."

In a fight to capture the leader of the forces that attacked America on Sept 11 and took 3000 innocent lives, it is inconceivable that American Special Forces would back down or insist on remaining absolutely safe.

So an order to 'stand down,' if one was given, must have come from above.

Way above.

Bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, we thought, had been the U.S. objective in Afghanistan.

Apparently, we were mistaken.