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    Kenhe LoginMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:08am

    Saudi Arabia is a horrible country run by a group of greedy, backward assholes that we help prop up because the people who eventually will overthrow them will be much worse. They will make the worst member of the House of Saud seem like the Dalai Lama.

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      yousayclamato, joeKenhe Login
      4/19/16 12:14am

      “A ... country run by a bunch of greedy, backward assholes.”

      Thank god the USA is nothing like that!

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      Kenhe Loginyousayclamato, joe
      4/19/16 12:16am

      Who are also religious nuts, uh who are Islamic.

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    GeorgeGeoffersonLivesMuna Mire
    4/19/16 1:00am

    This is either the president just being profoundly wrong on an issue, or one of the rarer instances of the difference between being a head of government responsible for keeping relations with other important/strategic heads of government, and the privilege of being everyone else.

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      stillburnswhenipostGeorgeGeoffersonLives
      4/19/16 1:10am

      And in both cases, the cost of being a leader

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      KC RibsGeorgeGeoffersonLives
      4/19/16 1:16am

      The article doesn’t say that Obama has actually taken a position on this issue.

      It’s a bogus issue, because if Americans are allowed to sue Saudi Arabia over 9/11, the State Department will prevent them from collecting their judgments. That’s what the State Department has done to Americans with anti-terrorist judgments against Iran. The families of Colonel Buckley and Colonel Higgins have multi-million dollar wrongful death judgments against Iran, and the State Department blocks them every time they try to collect. Both men were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered over 30 years ago.

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    ╰(　´◔　ω　◔ `)╯< Woke and BokeMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:15am

    Why are we blaming Saudi Arabia the kingdom for what their rich assholes do? Does anyone ever collectively blame America for the behavior of our tech bros, Wall Street bros, politibros, and evangelibros?

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      Fuckboy85╰(　´◔　ω　◔ `)╯< Woke and Boke
      4/19/16 12:19am

      Because none of those groups support terrorism?

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      JiminyCricket╰(　´◔　ω　◔ `)╯< Woke and Boke
      4/19/16 12:27am

      Yes, actually...

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    e.nonMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:13am

    i’m kind of surprised at the credence this section is being given, esp considering the 9/11 commission has pretty much been discredited. no doubt the saudis were likely the financiers; but the true puppetmasters were likely much closer to home...

    obama’s playing the long game.. because any trial targeting the saudis could likely start pulling those strings and making connections.

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      Darius Miles in "The Perfect Score"e.non
      4/19/16 12:22am

      bush did 9/11

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      birdpersone.non
      4/19/16 12:24am
      GIF
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    the 1969 Dodge Charger GuyMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:39am

    Oh, c’mon: ISIS is Sunni. Al-Qaeda is Sunni. Saudi Arabia is Sunni and they’ve been bankrolling those viciously psychotic terrorists from Day One.

    ISIS bite the hand that subsidizes them? Nawwwwww....

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      suppiluliumasthe 1969 Dodge Charger Guy
      4/19/16 12:54am

      Daesh fucking hates the Saudis. They consider the Saudis to be infidels. There are Daeshbags who’ve vowed never to go on Hajj as long as the Saudi regime is in power, and a while back one of Daesh’s religious authorities proclaimed overthrowing the Saudi regime to be more important to them than destroying Israel, because the Saudis have turned Mecca into ‘a pulpit for preaching apostasy.’

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      XrdsAlumthe 1969 Dodge Charger Guy
      4/19/16 1:03am

      They started out funding Daesh as a proxy force against Iran, until Daesh made it clear very quickly that they were near the top of the hit list. Since they’re dimwits it took some additional prodding on the part of the U.S. before they cut off the funds, but (as it ever has been with the al Sauds) it was too late.

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    Tidal TownMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:02am

    It’s pretty clear at this point, isn’t it? Saudi Arabia had major influence in the 9/11 attacks but we stayed allied for petroleum reasons. Seems pretty cut and dry to me given the way certain parties are reacting to and pushing back on this whole thing.

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      NobizdashizTidal Town
      4/19/16 12:07am

      I’m pretty sure this is the first time a government official admitted on the record that the saudis were the original source of funding for al Qaeda. Makes you wonder if it’s because the Saudis just threatened to dump billions in US backed securities

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      BeeeDubsTidal Town
      4/19/16 12:15am

      They also buy a lot of our armaments.

      http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-…

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    PoodletimeMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:21am

    Rather than try to get reparations, or in addition to it, this would be a perfect time to do a cram-down on anyy debt we may still have with the Saudis. We may have to prop up their horrible regime because it forms a bulwark against Daesh (although they also create new terrorists every day, so it’s a razor-thin margin of helpfulness here,) but we certainly don’t need to help finance it!

    They need cash. We are in a position to negotiate a debt reduction. Let’s do it!

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      XrdsAlumPoodletime
      4/19/16 12:35am

      Exactly. They’re like cheap hoods, trying to threaten the U.S. when (thanks to their own stupidity) they’re in no position to do so.

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      GeorgeGeoffersonLivesPoodletime
      4/19/16 1:13am

      We pay them for more than just being a bulwurk against ISIS. We pay them to play nice with Israel, for not kill us with their oil, to help us spy in the region, etc...

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    The noble houseMuna Mire
    4/19/16 8:08am

    No shit but everyone has to realize that the populace is one of the most conservative on earth. There is no law saying women cant drive, organized religious police ensure they dont drive. We support the royalty because they actually push the countries foreign relations and policies to the left. If saudi arabia was a democracy, they would vote something akin to hamas or the muslim brotherhood. Obama doesnt want to deal with thag, and if pushed, the saudi royalty will go strait to appeasing their own populace, which means more terrorism fundig and suppresion of women.

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      The Voice of Harold MontgomeryThe noble house
      4/19/16 8:20am

      Who pays the Committee for the Primotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice? They’re a supposed independent agency, but get paid by the House of Saud. They had the power of arrest, which is a fundamental function of government.

      The committee allows the House to have a hands-off appoach to sharia. “Oh, it wasn’t us, it was the Hai’a. Just don’t pay attention to the fact that we chartered them in the first place."

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      The noble houseThe Voice of Harold Montgomery
      4/19/16 8:23am

      Again no shit, they have two diametrically opposed masters and have to appease thrm both. We tolerate this because we are terrified, again terrified of the saudi arabia general population. They would democratically elect a religious north korea.

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    koishkiMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:26am

    Goddammit. The first thing that popped into my head after reading the headline was that shitty Godsmack song.

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      suppiluliumaskoishki
      4/19/16 12:46am

      shitty Godsmack song

      That’s redundant.

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      Desi_Relafordkoishki
      4/19/16 12:55am

      My favorite (only?) Godsmack memory was about ten years ago the local butt rock station was giving away tickets for a Godsmack concert.

      After about 20 minutes, the station had to make an announcement that the tickets were for Godsmack, not WWF’s “Smackdown”. So please stop calling in looking for Smackdown tickets.

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    RobLymanMuna Mire
    4/19/16 12:15am

    The US is a financial safe haven for Chinese criminals and Arabs. Why would we want to push them away? Do people really think currencies are only propped up by precious metals?

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      PoodletimeRobLyman
      4/19/16 12:27am

      I think we’ll still be the default currency even if we tell the Saudis to take their petroleum ball and their bat and go on home.

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      XrdsAlumRobLyman
      4/19/16 12:57am

      The USD is currently the international reserve currency. Russia and China make a lot of noise about establishing an independent reserve currency, but that’s a while off and they’ll have to get their own faltering currencies in order before the U.S. would sign on. Same goes for the Euro.

      If the Saudis pulled out, they wouldn’t have anywhere else to go at the moment, even if they weren’t universally loathed for their support of Islamist terrorism. They’ll inflict a pain, but there’s no way they’re pulling out hundreds of billions worth of assets from the U.S. without literally signing their own death warrants.

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