BUSH AND THE SAUDIS….Why is it that George Bush doesn’t want to release those censored 28 pages about the Saudis from the congressional 9/11 report? Via David Perlman, here is Greg Palast’s theory:
For the answer, let me take you back to Midland, Texas, 1986. A young old man, George W. Bush, seems to have trouble finding oil. But he strikes it rich when his flailing drilling partnership is bought out by Harken Oil. Despite the addition of the business acumen of Bush Jr., Harken faces collapse; but is pulled from the brink by a cash infusion from a Saudi, Sheik Bakhsh. The money from Arabia has nothing to do, we must assume, with Dubya’s daddy at the time holding the post of Vice-President of the Free World.
The Bakhsh booty continued a pattern of the young Bush being saved from his dire business decisions by a line of Sheik angels. His first oil company, Arbusto, going bust-o, was aided by the American financial representative of the bin Ladin family.
And on BBC TV last month, I reported this: following the bombing of our embassies, the Clinton Administration sent two delegations to Saudi Arabia to tell their royal highnesses to stop giving money to the guys who are killing us. But Mr. Bush, once in office, put the kibosh on unfriendly words to the Saudis.
Furthermore, in the summer of 2001, Mr. Bush disbanded the US intelligence unit tracking funding of Al Qaeda. What is it our G-men were uncovering? According to two separate sources speaking to BBC, the funders of Al Qaeda fronts include those who have previously funded Bush family business and political ventures.
Now that’s a wee bit embarrassing. Something you wouldn’t want in a congressional report.
Palast, of course, is a liberal who has written for the America-hating BBC and the Bush-hating Guardian, and is therefore not to be trusted. However, even the conservative blogosphere wonders why Bush keeps playing footsie with the Saudis, and they seem willing to entertain pretty much any theory except the possibility that Bush himself isn’t quite the toughminded, straight talking guy they think he is.
Maybe they ought to start entertaining it.
