Instead of whacking more teenagers running around with AKs, let's kill these guys:
A small but steady flow of money to ISIS from rich individuals in the Gulf continues, say current and former U.S. officials, with Qataris the biggest suppliers. These rich individuals have long served as "angel investors," as one expert put it, for the most violent militants in the region, providing the “seed money” that helped launch ISIS and other jihadi groups.Or these guys (back from the 9/11 investigations):
Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization. (This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to al Qaeda.)Or, what the hell, these guys:
In the spring of 2010, Afghan officials struck a deal to free an Afghan diplomat held hostage by Al Qaeda. But the price was steep — $5 million — and senior security officials were scrambling to come up with the money.Some ultra-rich camel-sodomizer gives money to terrorist group and what do we do about it? Not a damn thing, because the Saudis and the Qataris are our frens.
They first turned to a secret fund that the Central Intelligence Agency bankrolled with monthly cash deliveries to the presidential palace in Kabul, according to several Afghan officials involved in the episode. The Afghan government, they said, had already squirreled away about $1 million from that fund.
Some friends they are. If we're going to prosecute morons for trying to join
And then there is the question of one of the largest state supporters of terrorism: Pakistan.
8 comments:
Charley Pierce speaks eloquently to this:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39727/paris-attacks-middle-eastern-oligarchies/
I thought that IS is a threat to the Saudis as well. You would think it was in their own interest to shut down the money trail. I guess all the power isn't in the King's hands over there.
No one will ever defeat IS while they can just buy more stuff.
w3ski
Stewart, yeah, much better piece.
w3ski, the deal is pretty obvious: The Saudis and the Qataris give the terrorists protection money. The taps stay open as long as the terrorists do their dirty work elsewhere.
The Saudis and Qataris all have to ply by the rules. Those are dictated by the
criminals, the criminals elect to use Chicago rules, pay us and we do our worst
elsewhere.
You deal with them the usual way, find the head, cut it off, find the replacement
and cut it off, rinse and repeat, till the organization cannot organize and fights
internally.
Eck!
Some background: Power in the Middle (and inescapably Muslim) East derives from warriors and religion. IIRC, as far back as the late 1700s, the House of Saud made alliance with an unusually extreme and radical Muslim sect, Wahhabism that,so to speak, effectively wedded church and state. Wahhabist cleric would bless and support the House of Saud and vice-versa. This devil's bargain continues to the present day: there are religious police that patrol Saudi Arabia (yes the Arabia of the House of Saud) and the royal family supports Wahhabist religious extremism and warfare world-wide. The family might like to get out of bed, but they can't. And people forget (or never knew) that almost all the 9/11 terrrorists were Saudi, that a lot of Saudis fled the US in the aftermath when the FBI would have liked to question them but were prevented by Dubya..who is very much a partner and tool of the Saudis.
This isn't conspiracy woo-woo, it's fact. One of the things that just might come of the world oil glut might be the freedom to cut ourselves free of dependency on our "good buddies", the Saudis
Stewart, I know. And there are allegations that a small number of Saudis fled the country beforehand.
In antiship missle defense, there is a saying: "Shoot the archer (the missle shooter), not the arrows (the missiles)." Killing Daesh terrorists is akin to shooting the arrows. We ought to be aiming not only at the archer, but the people who are paying the archer.
Dear Leader,
I figured you did. but the readership might not...or need a booster shot. :(
Let's not forget that Daesh wish the far-right in Europe gain power. The reactions of blaming all the refugees play into the Daesh recruitment effort. The same will start to happen in the US if we continue on this path of blaming certain groups for the actions of a few.
Unfortunately, there is very little alternative to the Saud family that doesn't involve radicals, war, bloodshed and terrorism. The point is that at some point we will have to do something...if not now, when? And that something will result in pain, sooner or later.
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