U.S. government fatally compromised?

This excerpt from a piece by Peter Dale Scott suggests that the "Arab petrodollar investment in the political system of [the U.S.]" has a huge distorting effect on the ability of our political leaders to make foreign policy decisions that are in the national interest.

An article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker reports that NSA intercepts have demonstrated to Washington analysts "that by 1996 Saudi money was supporting Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Central Asia, and throughout the Persian Gulf region." Hersh also writes that it was hard for these analysts to impress their discoveries on senior officials of the Clinton and Bush administrations, a fact to be considered in the light of the enormous Arab petrodollar investments in the political system of this country.^[1]

This effect may account for the fact that the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005, S. 1171 and H.R. 2037 bill has gone nowhere since June 2005.

Our inability to decisively and firmly to "persuade" Saudi Arabia to cease the financing of terror has serious consequences:

• "Moscow has long listed Saudi Arabia among main funding sources for Chechen rebels."
• "Despite the close ties between Washington and Riyadh, there have never been any congressional hearings - under either Republican or Democratic leaderships - regarding human-rights abuses by the Saudi government."^[2]
• "The global reach of Wahhabism is made possible in large part to the movement's generous funding, which is a result of the billions of petrodollars flowing to Saudi Arabia from the West - in particular, the United States."^[3]
• "Fifteen of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudi, most of the al-Qaeda leadership is Saudi, and much of the money trail has already been linked to Saudi Arabia."^[4]
• "In fact, in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration initially ordered US immigration officials to target immigrants and visitors from Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran and Sudan, but not those from Saudi Arabia."^[5]
• "NBC’s Lisa Myers reported last summer: "An NBC News analysis of hundreds of foreign fighters who died in Iraq over the last two years reveals that a majority came from the same country as most of the 9/11 hijackers — Saudi Arabia. Among the suicide bombers was Ahmed al-Ghamdi, a one-time medical student and son of a Saudi diplomat. In December 2004, he climbed into a truck in Mosul and blew himself up. On an Internet video, another Saudi says goodbye to his mother, then drives an ambulance full of explosives into a building.'"^[6]

As salutary as the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is for various reasons, it's hard not to raise the question whether the invasion should have been of Saudi Arabia, which appears to be the real source of the problem.

In short, the country's run by a corrupt family that brooks no opposition or reform, abuses the human rights of its citizens, oppresses women and guest workers with skill and enthusiasm, is in thrall to the Wahhabi monsters, and finances terror and the propagation of the doctrines of the most backward and hateful faction of Islam.

In a rational universe, you'd think that Saudi Arabia would be item no. 1 in any State of the Union speech. Are our real interests being protected by failing to address the problem of Saudi Arabia because we must be "practical" and "realistic"?

One more "ally" like Saudi Arabia and it's BOHICA time big time.

Notes
^[1] "Saudi Arabia's Ambivalence about US Retaliation Plans" in "Oil, Drugs, and Terror in Central Asia: Basic Information, Overviews and Sources." By Peter Dale Scott 10/21/01.
^[2] "Petrodollars fuelling terrorism: Russia." By Vladimir Radyuhin, The Hindu, 10/11/01.
^[3] "America and its 'friend' Saudi Arabia.." By Steven Zines, Asia Times/23/03, reprinted from Foreign Policy In Focus (a project of the International Relations Center and the Institute for Policy Studies).
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id.
^[6] "Saudi Arabia: Still the Face of the Devil." By Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 9/27/05.