"Now that the Arab Spring has been turned into a totally owned subsidiary of the Saudi royal family, it is time to honor Prince Bandar bin Sultan as the most effective Machiavellian politician of the modern era. How slick for this head of the Saudi Intelligence Agency to finance the Egyptian military’s crushing of that nation’s first-ever democratic election while being the main source of arms for pro-al-Qaida insurgents in Syria.
Just consider that a mere 12 years ago, this same Bandar was a beleaguered Saudi ambassador in Washington, a post he held from 1983 to 2005, attempting to explain his nation’s connection to 15 Saudi nationals who had somehow secured legal documents to enter the U.S. and succeeded in hijacking planes that blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. How awkward given that the Saudi ambassador had been advocating that U.S. officials go easy on the Taliban government in Afghanistan, where those attacks incubated......
That big chunk of cash, $12 billion from the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, is not aimed at stopping terrorism, if by that we mean the sort of attacks associated with 9/11 and al-Qaida. As the Journal story reminded, “A generation ago, Prince Bandar, in a role foreshadowing his current one on behalf of Syrian opposition, helped the CIA arm the Afghan rebels who were resisting occupation by Soviet troops.” That’s how the Saudi bin Laden came to be in Afghanistan. Earlier, Bandar had been involved in the CIA’s effort to deliver arms from Iran to the Contras in Nicaragua.
Can you imagine the blowback from the prince’s current efforts to get the United States to once again meddle madly in a region that we don’t care to comprehend? Why not ask Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham who, according to the Journal, met with Bandar in September to urge the Saudis to provide the Syrian rebels with more potent weapons.
Or ask Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who was among those courted by Bandar. As the Journal described the Saudi junket by members of the congressional intelligence committees, “They [the Saudis] arranged a trip for committee leaders to Riyadh, where Prince Bandar laid out the Saudi strategy. It was a reunion of sorts, officials said, with Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) warmly scolding Prince Bandar about his smoking.”....."
Watch Bandar:
Bandar: We Are Corrupt; So What!
www.theguardian.com/news/video/2007/jun/07/bae.files.bandar
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