Clintons and the Saudis.... donations = protection

[Blarch]

The Saudis have donated to the Bush cause for years and years, probably decades. We all know what that money bought the Saudis...protection.

So when we learn that the Saudis were also 'donating' to the Clintons, we need to ask ourselves, how much ? ..and what did they get in return.

Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday.

The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million, roughly the same amount it gave toward the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121402124_pf.html

Craig Unger, the author of House of Bush/House of Saud ...claimes ... "Finally, it is worth pointing out, as Craig Unger does in his book, that Saudi Arabia has not just contributed to the Bush family. According to Unger, Bill Clinton approached Prince Bandar in 1991 for $20 million to launch a Middle East studies program at the University of Arkansas and that Prince Bandar announced that the request was approved shortly before Bill Clinton won the presidential election. There may be some irony in that, by Unger's own account, Saudi Arabia has contributed eight times as much to Bill Clinton's charities than to George H.W. Bush's" http://www.newsaic.com/f911chap3-2a.html


So what did the Saudis get in return ? ...Did the Clintons think that the money was 'no strings attached' ? ..of course not..the favors would start to roll..

The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic charities, concerned that a public probe would expose Saudi Arabia's suspected ties to a global money-laundering operation that raised millions for anti-Israel terrorists, federal officials told The Washington Times.....If federal agents had been allowed to conduct the investigation they wanted in 1995, they would have made the connection between the Saudi government and those charities," said Mr. Loftus, now a St. Petersburg, Fla., lawyer who filed a lawsuit last week accusing a Florida charity of fraud.
?????"Had the charities been shut down, they would have been unable to raise the millions that since have been used by terrorists in hundreds of suicide attacks," he said. http://www.prisonplanet.com/clinton_white_house_axed_terror_fund_probe.html

Following the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, Clinton hunted Osama with a passion -- but a passion circumscribed by the desire to protect the sheikdom sitting atop our oil lifeline. In 1994, a Saudi diplomat defected to the United States with 14,000 pages of documents from the kingdom's sealed file cabinets. This mother lode of intelligence included evidence of plans for the assassination of Saudi opponents living in the West and, tantalizingly, details of the $7 billion the Saudis gave to Saddam Hussein for his nuclear program -- the first attempt to build an Islamic Bomb. The Saudi government, according to the defector, Mohammed Al Khilewi, slipped Saddam the nuclear loot during the Reagan and Bush Sr. years when our own government still thought Saddam too marvelous for words. The thought was that he would only use the bomb to vaporize Iranians....Clinton granted the Saudi defector asylum, but barred the FBI from looking at the documents. Al Khilewi's New York lawyer, Michael Wildes, told me he was stunned. Wildes handles some of America's most security-sensitive asylum cases. "We said , 'Here, take the documents! Go get some bad guys with them! We'll even pay for the photocopying!'" But the agents who came to his office had been ordered not to accept evidence of Saudi criminal activity, even on U.S. soil. http://www.thinkingpeace.com/Lib/lib016.html



In 1997, the Canadians caught and extradited to America one of the Khobar Towers attackers. In 1999, Vernon Jordan's law firm stepped in and -- poof! -- the killer was shipped back to Saudi Arabia before he could reveal all he knew about al Qaeda (valuable) and the Saudis (embarrassing). I reviewed, but was not permitted to take notes on, the alleged terrorist's debriefing by the FBI. To my admittedly inexpert eyes, there was enough on al Qaeda to make him a source on terrorists worth holding on to. Not that he was set free -- he's in one of the kingdom's dungeons -- but his info is sealed up with him. The terrorist's extradition was "Clinton's." "Clinton's parting kiss to the Saudis," as one insider put it. http://www.populist.com/03.08.palast.html


Do the Clintons really think that the Lobbyists don't want anything in return ? ..or do they know EXACTLY what they want, and will give it to them, just like they did with the Saudis ? The Saudis were buying protection in the same way a store owner pays the mob for protection.

[MethuenProgressive]

1. Antoni "Toni" Rezko's a Saudi, isn't he?

All this old chit being rerun by the Clinton haters is just plain silly.

[Blarch]

2. Whats so silly ?

[11 Bravo]

5. Silly is someone who has been here a little over a month ...

and has, in that time, posted approximately 760 threads, every fucking one of which says the same damn thing.

[Blarch]

9. Well...

When Bush was taking donations in exchange for protection it wasn't very silly at all..

But now that it is Hillary, you find it all very childish and silly to bring it up.

Very telling...very very telling.

[11 Bravo]

10. I didn't say "childish", but nobody knows you like you, so I commend you for your introspection.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. May as well just read free republic anymore. What's the point of this?

Obama & Edwards are going to lose.

[Blarch]

4. This is deadly fucking serious

making light of this is reckless.

Are you claiming that any of the stories I posted are false ?

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. They are meaningless conspiracy stories. It's tri-lateral commission

shit that nitwits used to claim about Jimmy Carter. Bilderburg meetings & so on. Give it up.

[indimuse]

6. Rezko ties to the Middle East, his wife and daughter met him in Damascus transferre $400,000

<<<<<<<<snip>>>>>>>>>>>
papau (1000+ posts) Sun Jan-13-08 11:46 PM http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?

az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=493628&mesg_id=493655
Response to Reply #3
5. businessman Stuart Levine?
Obama worked at corporate law firm Sidley Austin LLP - Rezko is accused of helping to get businessman Stuart Levine reappointed to the board of the state's

Teachers' Retirement System and scheming with Levine to get kickbacks from companies seeking business with the state board.

Levine is cooperating with the government, and Niewoehner said there are recordings of Rezko discussing his activities.

who the hell is Stewart Larson?

Former Top State Official Indicted In Rezko Case Ex-Illinois Finance Authority Chief Allegedly Aided Rezko In $10M Fraud Scheme - AP
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_151190806.html


the Chicago Sun-Times writes that “As a state senator, Barack Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko’s successful

bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens. The deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner,

Allison S. Davis, Obama’s former boss, according to records from the project, which was four blocks outside Obama’s state Senate district.”

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/425305,CST-NWS-ob... (MY NOTE Obama has said Rezko paid the full price because Rezko was matching another offer

made to the seller and Obama paid a discounted price because there was no such other offer at the full asking price for the property Obama purchased.)

Ordinarily when a campaign gets caught with letter evidence contradicting previous statements the smart move is to get the full story out and not mock people’s

intelligence. Not so with this Obama campaign.

“The letters appear to contradict a statement last December from Obama, who told the Chicago Tribune that, in all the years he’s known Rezko, “I’ve never done any

favors for him.”

bama’s former boss “Davis soon went into business with Rezko, creating a company called New Kenwood LLC to build the seven-story apartment building for senior

citizens on a vacant stretch of land once occupied by a gas station at 48th and Cottage Grove. The city of Chicago owned the land — nearly two acres tainted by lead,

benzene and other toxic chemicals. Davis is a member of the Chicago Plan Commission. He was originally appointed to the commission in 1991 by his friend, Mayor

Daley. Davis, like Rezko, has been a prolific campaign fund-raiser for politicians including Daley and Obama.”

This is Chicago after all. Michelle Obama works for the Landmarks Commission, Obama’s boss is on the Planning Commission, Obama does legal work for Rezko

real estate, Michelle works for a hospital, the Obama house was sold by a doctor, there are doctors investing in real estate with Rezko including in the Pizza parlors

now in such deep legal troubles. We are sure this is all coincidence. We won’t even mention Todd Stroger and the corruption swirling around him and his dad and how

Obama endorsed Todd and why Todd’s father had to leave public life. That’s for another day.

We do recall, as we have written before, http://www.hillaryis44.org/?p=97 that while Obama was writing letters to benefit by millions of dollars his indicted slumlord

friend Antoin “Tony” Rezko, Obama’s African-American constituents were freezing in their tenements. Obama was busy writing letters.

”Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko’s low-income

housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems — including squalid living conditions, vacant apartments,

lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers. The building in Englewood was one of 30 Rezmar rehabbed in a series of troubled deals largely financed by taxpayers. Every

project ran into financial difficulty. More than half went into foreclosure, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found. “Their buildings were falling apart,” said a former

city official. “They just didn’t pay attention to the condition of these buildings.” Eleven of Rezko’s buildings were in Obama’s state Senate district.

“http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/353829,CST-NWS-rez23...

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/425305,CST-NWS-ob... Read the whole story for yourself.



Rezko has significant ties to the Middle East, and his wife and daughter met him in Damascus recently. He has transferred money around the world, Niewoehner said,

including $400,000 to Beirut in 2004.

[Blarch]

7. Hey Hillary freepers

is there anything false posted in the OP ?

Don't turn away, get in front of it and face the music. I posted facts.