The Saudi connection

By Hossein Jelveh

(Hossein Jelveh is an independent Iranian journalist based in Tehran. He has graduated with a master’s degree from the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran. You can follow him on Twitter @hossein_jelveh.)

It was a secret that the United States government had doggedly tried to keep for two decades. Twenty years during which the United States attacked Afghanistan and fought the longest war in its history while keeping the truth from the American people. Twenty years during which the United States assumed the appearance of a victim who had been subjected to such horror that she was now warranted exceptional power to hit anyone she deemed necessary. Except, of course, the one who the United States knew was actually responsible.

To much of the world, to the peoples and governments who knew the terrorism-nurturing character of Saudi Arabia first-hand, the Saudi regime’s role in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States was more or less clear, even if many governments did not care enough to produce evidence for the US government. It was the American people, the actual victims, who never knew.

Merely because of a US government blunder now, the victims can know the actual offender. Yahoo News reported in an exclusive piece on Wednesday, May 13, 2020, that the FBI had mistakenly revealed the name of a Saudi diplomat involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in a court filing, inadvertently putting two decades of US government secrecy to waste.

The Saudi diplomat, stationed in the Saudi Embassy in Washington at the time, directed “crucial support” to at least two of the Saudi hijackers in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. His name was Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, a Saudi Foreign Ministry official who was assigned to the Saudi mission in Washington, DC, just before 9/11. And the FBI knew.

FBI accidentally names Saudi official suspected of supporting 9/11 hijackers: Yahoo News

An FBI mistake reveals the identity of a Saudi diplomat, who is suspected of directing support for two of the 9/11 attacks

Earlier this year, when another article came out investigating the Saudi connection to 9/11, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington called Saudi Arabia “a critical ally” of the United States. The use of the word “critical” was noteworthy. Saudi Arabia calling itself an indispensable ally of the United States, with emphatic overtones, as winds of attention began to gather, could only be a sign of panic.

The reason for the US government secrecy remains unclear to this day. (The FBI has even withdrawn the court filing that included al-Jarrah’s name from the public docket, claiming it was “incorrectly filed.”) And the US was mum even after the filing revealed the name of the Saudi diplomat. Re-imagining the horrors of that September morning when so many lives perished, one can’t help wondering why. Why protect the regime that was so directly involved? Are there trade interests involved? Oil price concerns? Reservations about “alienating” an ally in a separate rivalry with Iran?

I ask you: what in heaven’s name is worth keeping the truth about who really was responsible for the horrors of 9/11 from the American people?

In the years that followed, the United States military hit thousands of targets, sometimes in the active combat zone of Afghanistan but also in drone strikes around the world that took little attention because the targets were often not publicly identified.

Hundreds of people, guilty or not, were subjected to torture in so-called CIA black sites, locations around the world that US-allied governments had allowed the CIA to run in their territories under the radar, locations that, virtually, did not exist. Who knows what horrors went on there?

A succession of three US administrations lied and perverted the course of justice while assuming the ultimate position to carry out that very justice. That they acted hypocritically only disqualifies them from executing justice on behalf of the American people.

How could have all the human suffering that the United States has caused avenged the human sufferings of 9/11 when the real malefactor was in fact protected?

The American people now know a little more of the truth. The question now is so simple that it is almost painful: will the US government act?

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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