Terrorism and Oil: How the U.S. Made 9/11 Possible

The media tell us that the Bush Administration's number one priority is fighting radical terrorism. The media tell us that the U.S. is winning the "War on Terror." Indeed, the media have turned George W. Bush into the saint of all saints, a man who can do no wrong. As a result of this ongoing PR campaign, Americans seem almost maniacally obsessed with following the words of George Bush.

However, Americans have not realized one simple fact. Like all humans, presidents tend to manipulate the truth to serve their own agendas. In fact, most presidents (including both Bushes) usually resort to outright lies in order to gather support, not for fighting terrorism, but instead to implement their own alternate agendas.

While George Bush himself made it very clear that "we will make no distinctions between the terrorists and those who harbor them," it still remains to be seen what the American people would do if they found out that for all Bush's rhetoric, his Administration has done next to nothing to stop terrorism. On the contrary, the Bush Administration has done more to strengthen radical terrorism. Bush has not stood up to Islamic terrorists. What he has done instead is fund and protect the terrorist regimes that made the September 11th attacks possible. And by bombing innocent civilians in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration has ensured that there will be an entire new generation in the Middle East who view the U.S. as the primary source of their troubles.

While many Americans rallied behind the President after September 11th (supporting his proposed war to annihilate Afghanistan and anyone in it), was Afghanistan really the right spot to begin looking for those that made September 11th possible? Most Americans are probably not even aware that 15 of the 19 hijackers that attacked the World Trade Towers were from Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan.

Without a doubt, it is now clear that the 15 hijackers received most of their financing and support from the Saudi government. The New York Times published a report done by "experts" on terrorist finance from the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations. The report actually admitted that the Saudi government is the "largest source of terrorist financing" and "The report faults the United States for failing to confront the Saudis, saying American government officials have asserted that Saudi Arabia is cooperating on stopping terrorist financing, when they know very well all the ways in which it is not."

The report goes even further than general statements in implicating the Saudi government: "It is worth stating clearly and unambiguously, if only because official U.S. government spokespersons have not: for years individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for Al Qaeda, and for years Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem."

Anyone who follows U.S. foreign policy should know that U.S. funding and support is one of the primary reasons that such a corrupt, autocratic and extremist government exists in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has supported the royal Saudi family through the worst of its human rights violations.

U.S. sponsorship of the terrorist Saudi government is instrumental in allowing the Saudis to violently suppress dissenting voices, hinder democracy, and degrade women to the status of third-class citizens.

Predictably, the U.S. government exonerates itself from its crimes by denying and suppressing the inconvenient facts. The Bush Administration's denial of its role in supporting the Saudi's oppression and their funding of the attacks on September 11th has gone as far as flagrant lies.

Rob Nichols, a spokesman for the Treasury Department claimed, "the report of the Council of Foreign Relations was helpful but flawed" (flawed because it focused too much on U.S. connections that support terrorism abroad?). Nichols even went so far as to state he was "pleased with the cooperation with the Saudis."

Why has the U.S. financed and supported the corrupt Saudi government? It has been made very clear throughout the business press that it is necessary for the U.S. to finance terrorist governments like Saudi Arabia in order to extract oil from the region for use in U.S. markets. The report by the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations stated, "There's always been a tendency to treat the Kingdom with kid gloves because of its economic and strategic importance." Lawrence Korb, Assistance Secretary of Defense under Reagan also admits, "we want their oil...that's why we put up with a lot from Saudis and rarely lean on them." After all, robbing the oil from the Middle East is more important than stopping terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

The statements of U.S. political figures are crucial because they reveal that the U.S. views Saudi support and funding of Al Qaeda groups as inconsequential. In other words, terrorism is of no concern to the U.S. government, and in fact is a perfectly desirable and necessary path for the Saudi government if it helps the U.S. secure elite economic interests.

One of the major flaws of U.S. foreign policy is that it prioritizes private profits to the exclusion of other factors. This means that fighting terrorism takes a back seat to profiting from oil in the Middle East.

The media also plays a role in this process. Those that own the corporate media have prioritized profits in the Middle East to the point where they will not even report the U.S. government's involvement in funding and supporting the 9/11 hijackers. And even more Orwellian is the fact that Americans actually support men like George Bush and members of his Administration after their indirect participation in September 11th. We even go so far as viewing Bush as the scourge against terrorism!

After this report though, one hopes some members of the Bush Administration will come to their senses and crack down on Saudi-Al Qaeda terror. Unfortunately, this should not be expected any time soon. The New York Times has stated, "Western oil companies are showing no intentions of veering away from the Middle East." And the Bush Administration "has made broadening the sources of America's oil supplies a touchstone of its energy and foreign policies."

American leaders believe that access to cheap oil is more important than preventing terrorism. We can expect the Bush Administration to get into bed with even more unsavory characters in their battle to control Middle Eastern oil. And if this allows for radical terrorists groups to grow even more, then so be it. We can just cover up the connections later on and rally Americans behind the flag for yet another war that will not make a single person safer. September 11th could have very well been avoided if the U.S. government was interested in stopping its funding of Islamic terrorist nations like Saudi Arabia that make it possible for the Al Qaeda network to flourish.

While we all want to be safe from terrorism, if U.S. leaders continue to support the funders terrorist groups, we can expect more atrocities like those that occurred one year ago. We can take our blinders off and accept this, or continue on our route towards a more dangerous, terrorist reality.