#WTH America ❤️ terrorist financiers

This is how 9/11s happen

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (R), in a meeting with Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh (L) and official Khaled Mashal in Doha, Qatar, October 17, 2016 (Qatar government handout)

Monday, the Biden administration decided to admit Qatar into the visa waiver program, which permits Qatari passport holders to enter the US without a complex visa approval process, and only a short ESTA form. Here’s what Secretary of State Tony Blinken said in his presser to announce the great news: “Qatar’s fulfillment of the stringent security requirements to join the Visa Waiver Program will deepen our strategic partnership and enhance the flow of people and commerce between our two countries. Qatar’s entry will make travel between the United States and Qatar safer, more secure, and easier for both Americans and Qataris.”

How Qatar meets these standards will be a mystery to anyone who believes the “law” is a thing. Here are the relevant provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act:

C) Law enforcement and security interests

The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State-

(i) evaluates the effect that the country's designation would have on the law enforcement and security interests of the United States (including the interest in enforcement of the immigration laws of the United States and the existence and effectiveness of its agreements and procedures for extraditing to the United States individuals, including its own nationals, who commit crimes that violate United States law);

(ii) determines that such interests would not be compromised by the designation of the country.

PLUS:

Not later than 270 days after December 18, 2015, except in the case of a country in which there is not an international airport, the government of the country certifies to the Secretary of Homeland Security that, to the maximum extent allowed under the laws of the country, it is screening, for unlawful activity, each person who is not a citizen or national of that country who is admitted to or departs that country, by using relevant databases and notices maintained by Interpol, or other means designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

So, let’s get this straight:

• The late Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas, lived in… Qatar.

• His predecessor Khaled Mashal lives in… Qatar.

• Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy, an alleged al Qaeda financier, lives in… Qatar.

• Abd al-Latif Bin Abdullah Salih Muhammad al-Kawar, a Qatari national, is an alleged al Qaeda financier.

• Multiple reports labelled Qatar as a supporter of the al Nusra Front, which was the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

• Qatar is the financier and host of Al Jazeera, a nakedly pro-Salafi global cable channel.

We could go on and on here. The Treasury Department has implicated numerous Qatari officials and organizations in support for terrorist organizations. The Qatari royal family is a major donor to Hamas.

Does Qatar meet the criteria for the Visa Waiver Program? Or rather does it meet the criteria for designation under Sec. 311 of the USA Patriot Act ACT regarding terrorist financing? How about Sec. 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 requiring the designation of countries that have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”?

Doubtless, Qatar has made efforts at times to rein in its direct support for terrorism. There has been no evidence Qatari officials are actually planning specific terrorist attacks. But Qatar has acted as a middle man in multiple negotiations with terrorists including Hamas and the Taliban. This role has earned it the adoration of President Biden, and Donald Trump is now a fan too. In addition, the Qataris will tell you with some justification that they have often done the bidding of the Israeli government in slipping money into Gaza, which is correct.

But there’s no one asking them to host Hamas’s leadership or their money. No one asking them to host the Taliban. No one asking them to continue funneling cash to Hamas after October 7. And they still are.

There’s lots more, but you take my point. The problem is, we don’t want to tell the Qataris that they need to clean up their act. Largely for reasons relating to decision making in Washington, and a certain louche sluttiness in our defense policy – “so you’re saying you’ll pay for a military base…?” – too many in Washington feel as if America owes Qatar something. This is ridiculous on its face. We owe Qatar a slap in the face. And the best example of exactly this sort of self-defeating American reticence is the case of Saudi Arabia.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for many years enjoyed a special relationship with the United States. If you’re the country where someone can stick a finger in the dirt and up comes a gusher of crude, you’re used to being beloved in a world that runs on fossil fuels. Just ask FDR.

Saudi Arabia is a conservative, Sunni nation, with its king fashioned as the “custodian of the two holy mosques.” Mecca and Medina are important in Sunni Islam, and for decades neither America nor anyone else troubled themselves with questions of women’s rights, Shia rights, or human freedom in Saudi Arabia. The real problems — if you don’t care about that other stuff — arose after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Saudi looked at the situation next door, and wondered whether it too should up its “export of revolution” game. And it did.

Frankly, even before 1979, but with vigor afterwards, the Saudis sold their brand of conservative Wahhabi Islam hard. “You want a mosque?” they asked. “We’ll build it if you take our preachers.” “You want a school?” they asked. “Madrasas are good schools.” And thusly did they use their lucre to crowd out moderate Islam, tolerant Islam, and every other good kind of Islam, only to replace it with Salafism, Wahhabism, and extremism. (Saudi schools were all over America too, just btw.)

Obviously, this is a Saudi Arabia for Dummies version of history. Hopefully, I’m hitting some of the high points. Anyway, what Saudi Arabia succeeded in doing was creating a felicitous environment for the rise of groups like al Qaeda. And yes, many Saudis in and out of government helped fund AQ. This was all to the good when the jihadi types wanted to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was once that war was won that things began to go south. (Yes, there is much, much, more to this.)

Long story short, 9/11 happened and the Saudis were given a choice: You can continue to allow your people in and out of government to support Osama bin Laden and his ilk, or you can dump that crap and embrace a new future. To Saudi’s credit, they made the hard call. But the damage throughout the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and South Asia was done, and will be with us for decades to come.

Pause for a moment here. We — we, America, we the CIA, we the White House, we the Defense Department, we the Congress — we knew this long before 9/11. But the selfsame “we” was not courageous enough to have a tough conversation with the Saudis. Sure, we gnawed around the edges of the antisemitic curricula they fed to madrasas the world over. We grumbled about funding extremists. We looked a bit askance at general Salafi-Wahhabi bloodthirsty bigotry. But not really.

While we definitely frowned, we also sent favored political appointees, generally defended the good ole’ Saudis when oil prices went up — except for that embarrassing embargo in the 1970s, oops — and cheered them when oil prices went down. On the whole, there was creepy and willful blindness to Riyadh’s jihad-o-rama. Because, after all, once you left the White House, defense Department, State Department, CIA, whatever, you might go to work for Bechtel, right? And I mean, that’s money.

But what if we had said something? What if we had denounced Saudi Arabia’s financing of Salafi jihadi terrorists? What if we had told them that, sorry, actually, we are against antisemitism? What if the White House had listened to the exhortations of the Congress, and told the Saudis that they risked actually being labeled a sponsor of terrorism? What if we had shut down their nasty schools in America, and condemned their horrible, and hate-filled imams? What if we had insisted that the price of American friendship was reform, at home and abroad?

We will never know. But I’ll venture a guess.

Perhaps 9/11 would never have happened.

Again, all of those who suggest Saudi had a hand in planning 9/11 or hoped to bring down America through their man Osama fail to understand the country at all. They’re weak, they’re scared, and they defend their own notwithstanding support for terror or anything else. But Saudi Arabia slid into its role as Salafi-supporter #1, and never paused to rethink. And we never asked them to.

Back to Qatar. I quoted former Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir in my earlier piece about Qatar saying this:

“The Qataris, since the mid 90's, have been sponsoring radicals. They have been inciting people. They have become a base for the leadership for the Muslim Brotherhood. And the Muslim Brotherhood, you have to keep in mind, is what begot us Takfir wal-Hijra, which begot us Al-Qaeda, which begot us Al-Nusra.”

“The Qataris allow their senior religious clerics to go on television and justify suicide bombings. That's not acceptable. The Qataris harbor and shelter terrorists. That's not acceptable. [Abd Al-Rahim] Al-Nashiri, the head of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 2000 entered Saudi Arabia on a Qatari passport. We captured Al-Qaeda types coming into Saudi Arabia with Qatari passports. The Qataris know this, the Americans know this. The world knows this. The Qataris are funding dissidents in the Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. In order to cause problems for those governments and to create instability.”

Oooh, I definitely want those people to have visa-free travel to the United States.

Nor have the facts laid out by al Jubeir changed or improved much, and there’s no understanding in Doha about what the problem is. Qatar just wants to get along with everyone — Hamas, al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Israelis, the Houthis, Iran, Saudi, America et al — not necessarily in that order.

But what if we told them this will not stand. What if we said to them, here are the steps you need to take before we label you a state sponsor of terrorism, a primary money laundering concern, pull out of our nice little base, and otherwise relegate this Dubuque of the Middle East back to its proper place?

• Eject Hamas from Qatar

• Eject all other terrorist groups from Qatar

• Confiscate money stolen from the Palestinian people (and anyone else)

• End provision of banking services to terrorists

• Shut down al Jazeera

• Eject the IRGC

That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there’s more. So, what if we told them to do this, rather than sucking up to this tinpot emirate and its unwise rulers? Imagine the change America could wreak with just a little display of guts. Imagine the lives we could save, the terrorist attacks we could avert, the peace we could build, if only we had just a little bit of courage.