{"id":14640,"date":"2015-11-21T10:28:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-21T15:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14640"},"modified":"2015-11-21T10:28:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-21T15:28:29","slug":"the-saudi-connection-to-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14640","title":{"rendered":"The Saudi Connection to Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/11\/20\/the-saudi-connection-to-terror\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Saudi Connection to Terror<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-meta\"><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong>\u00a0While Official Washington devotes much sound and fury to demands for a wider war in Syria and\u00a0the need to turn away Syrian refugees,\u00a0Democrats and Republicans dodge the tougher question: how to confront Saudi Arabia\u00a0about its covert funding for Islamic State and Al Qaeda terrorists, writes Daniel Lazare.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<hr \/>\n<p>How does ISIS pay for its operations?\u00a0This is the key question as the war against the terror organization advances to a new level in the wake of the Paris atrocities. But the mainstream\u2019s approved answer is part of the problem.<\/p>\n<p>That approved answer, from\u00a0many political leaders and assorted \u201cterrorism experts,\u201d is that ISIS (also known as ISIL, Islamic State and Daesh) funds its operations through a variety of illicit activities such as illegal antiquity sales, kidnapping for ransom, holding up banks, and peddling crude from oil fields it controls in northern Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"image-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/saudiss-13-1.jpg?51b5ee\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14821\" src=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/saudiss-13-1-300x200.jpg?51b5ee\" alt=\"Saudi King Salman meets with President Barack Obama at Erga Palace during a state visit to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 27, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" data-lazy-loaded=\"true\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The line,\u00a0dutifully parroted by news outlets from\u00a0<em>The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>to<em>\u00a0The Wall Street Journal\u00a0<\/em>and the<em>\u00a0Guardian,\u00a0<\/em>is nothing if not\u00a0politically convenient.\u00a0If ISIS is truly self-supporting, then it\u2019s essentially self-contained.\u00a0If so, then all the Western powers have to do once they\u2019ve sealed it off in its self-proclaimed caliphate is to send in the F-18\u2019s and Mirage 2000\u2019s to rain down smart bombs and blow it to smithereens.<\/p>\n<p>This is the thinking behind President Barack Obama\u2019s unfortunate remarks on Nov. 12.\u00a0When ABC\u00a0<em>This Week<\/em>\u00a0host George Stephanopoulos asked whether ISIS was gaining strength, Obama shot back that it\u00a0was simply not the case:<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Saudi Connection to Terror Exclusive:\u00a0While Official Washington devotes much sound and fury to demands for a wider war in Syria and\u00a0the need to turn away Syrian refugees,\u00a0Democrats and Republicans dodge the tougher question: how to confront Saudi Arabia\u00a0about its covert funding for Islamic State and Al Qaeda terrorists, writes Daniel Lazare. How does ISIS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6963,1239,446,447,584,701,793,865],"class_list":["post-14640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-consortium-news","tag-is","tag-isis","tag-islamic-state","tag-obama","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-terrorism","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14641,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14640\/revisions\/14641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}