Allen773
Graduate Poster
Assuming that some lower-level members of the Saudi government did support at least a few of the 9/11 hijackers once they had arrived in the U.S. (not implausible), is there any evidence that these officials (whoever they are) even knew that they were assisting al-Qaeda operatives - let alone, that these operatives were plotting catastrophic attacks on domestic American targets? The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that a very small number of Qaeda operatives (like, no more than nine or ten at the most) knew the full details of the 9/11 plot. Hell, even most of the hijackers (besides Atta and the other Hamburg Cell members, along with al-Hazmi and al-Midhar) didn't know exactly what they had signed up for until they had already been selected for the attacks.
Furthermore, what exactly is meant by "an al-Qaeda support network" within the U.S.? Lest we forget, al-Qaeda emerged as an offshoot of an existing organization (whose name escapes me - it's the one that was founded by Abdullah Azzam) whose job was to train, assist, and coordinate Arab volunteers for the battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We know that Osama bin Laden was an important figure in that organization, and that he and others in the organization had ties to other Saudi businessmen as well as Saudi intelligence and other government officials back in the 1980s. We also know that al-Qaeda was founded toward the end of the 1980s, and that it wasn't until the early-to-mid 90s (in other words, after the Saudi royal family rejected bin Laden's offer to defend the Kingdom from the threat of Saddam Hussein's Iraq in favor of "infidel" American troops) that bin Laden really started supporting and funding terrorist activities against the West. In fact, it wasn't until around 1996 that bin Laden issued his first fatwa against the Saudi royal family and its Western allies. This was around the time when bin Laden really actively began being directly involved in the planning and coordinating of al-Qaeda's terrorist operations himself, rather than merely providing some financial and ideological support for Sunni terrorist operations (and not just al-Qaeda operations, FWIW).
How does the Saudi government - which, we must remember, is not just the King and his top advisers, but many thousands of other officials (with the top posts invariably being held by members of the House of Saud) in dozens of departments within a sprawling bureaucracy, factor into all this? In a country with an extreme variant of Sunni Islam (Wahhabism) being the official state/religious ideology, it is entirely plausible that within a government of tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of officials and civil servants, there would be at least some sympathy for the likes of al-Qaeda among some of those government employees.
Keep in mind the fact that al-Qaeda has used a wide variety of fundraising methods - many of them through perfectly legitimate channels. The most significant ones would be Islamic charities, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and such; many of these are sponsored by the Saudi government. However, in organizations whose reach expands all over the world, all it would take to funnel money to al-Qaeda operatives would be to identify a handful of "friendly officials" throughout various parts of the world who would turn a blind eye to the transactions, or who otherwise had a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy - which would be pretty consistent with the Saudi government's generally lax regulation and oversight of the Islamic charities and foundations that it sponsors (particularly outside of the Kingdom, which is very relevant to how al-Qaeda and similar groups raise and coordinate their money and transfer funds to their operatives...). Or, certain charities could have been set up by al-Qaeda themselves as front organizations (at least, partially; Hamas is a good example of a group that has set up organizations that have served both legitimate charitable needs and assisted terrorist activities - though it's quite controversial, needless to say, as to what extent one or the other functions dominates among some of these organizations...).
Basically, the blurring of legitimate and illegitimate functions within Saudi or Saudi-sponsored charitable and other nonprofit religious organizations, the lax oversight and regulation of those organizations by the Saudi government (and Middle Eastern Sunni governments in general), the presence of many friendly/sympathetic individuals within said organizations who could assist in (or at least, not get in the way of) the diversion of funds to al-Qaeda front organizations, and my suspicion that the Saudi government was quite supportive of and willing to assist educated middle-class Saudi nationals in general who went to live and/or study outside of the Kingdom - all of these things should be taken into consideration when discussing alleged Saudi sponsorship of the 9/11 hijackers.
Furthermore, what exactly is meant by "an al-Qaeda support network" within the U.S.? Lest we forget, al-Qaeda emerged as an offshoot of an existing organization (whose name escapes me - it's the one that was founded by Abdullah Azzam) whose job was to train, assist, and coordinate Arab volunteers for the battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We know that Osama bin Laden was an important figure in that organization, and that he and others in the organization had ties to other Saudi businessmen as well as Saudi intelligence and other government officials back in the 1980s. We also know that al-Qaeda was founded toward the end of the 1980s, and that it wasn't until the early-to-mid 90s (in other words, after the Saudi royal family rejected bin Laden's offer to defend the Kingdom from the threat of Saddam Hussein's Iraq in favor of "infidel" American troops) that bin Laden really started supporting and funding terrorist activities against the West. In fact, it wasn't until around 1996 that bin Laden issued his first fatwa against the Saudi royal family and its Western allies. This was around the time when bin Laden really actively began being directly involved in the planning and coordinating of al-Qaeda's terrorist operations himself, rather than merely providing some financial and ideological support for Sunni terrorist operations (and not just al-Qaeda operations, FWIW).
How does the Saudi government - which, we must remember, is not just the King and his top advisers, but many thousands of other officials (with the top posts invariably being held by members of the House of Saud) in dozens of departments within a sprawling bureaucracy, factor into all this? In a country with an extreme variant of Sunni Islam (Wahhabism) being the official state/religious ideology, it is entirely plausible that within a government of tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of officials and civil servants, there would be at least some sympathy for the likes of al-Qaeda among some of those government employees.
Keep in mind the fact that al-Qaeda has used a wide variety of fundraising methods - many of them through perfectly legitimate channels. The most significant ones would be Islamic charities, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and such; many of these are sponsored by the Saudi government. However, in organizations whose reach expands all over the world, all it would take to funnel money to al-Qaeda operatives would be to identify a handful of "friendly officials" throughout various parts of the world who would turn a blind eye to the transactions, or who otherwise had a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy - which would be pretty consistent with the Saudi government's generally lax regulation and oversight of the Islamic charities and foundations that it sponsors (particularly outside of the Kingdom, which is very relevant to how al-Qaeda and similar groups raise and coordinate their money and transfer funds to their operatives...). Or, certain charities could have been set up by al-Qaeda themselves as front organizations (at least, partially; Hamas is a good example of a group that has set up organizations that have served both legitimate charitable needs and assisted terrorist activities - though it's quite controversial, needless to say, as to what extent one or the other functions dominates among some of these organizations...).
Basically, the blurring of legitimate and illegitimate functions within Saudi or Saudi-sponsored charitable and other nonprofit religious organizations, the lax oversight and regulation of those organizations by the Saudi government (and Middle Eastern Sunni governments in general), the presence of many friendly/sympathetic individuals within said organizations who could assist in (or at least, not get in the way of) the diversion of funds to al-Qaeda front organizations, and my suspicion that the Saudi government was quite supportive of and willing to assist educated middle-class Saudi nationals in general who went to live and/or study outside of the Kingdom - all of these things should be taken into consideration when discussing alleged Saudi sponsorship of the 9/11 hijackers.
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