Canuckus Deploracus wrote:
Taliban? Really?
Thought it was Saudis... With Saudi money...
We should not be in Afghanistan...
Protect our borders and leave others to their own designs...
Actually the Saudi government (the Saudi Royals) were not involved in any way in financially supporting Al Qaeda. Obviously, Saudis were involved in the attacks, but the founder of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was exiled from Saudi Arabia because of his extreme opposition to the Saudi Royal family and their lavish and quite decadent lifestyle.
I have attempted at least a dozen times to set the record straight on OPP, but either my research was ignored or the 9/11 t***hers have attempted to refute it.
The story goes back to the 1950s and begins with the work of Sayyid Qutb--the Egyptian teacher, writer and journalist--whose 3 year sojourn in the United States disgusted him to such a degree that he began a campaign to radicalize Islam--his goal was "Pure Islam". Qutb is considered the god father of the Muslim Brotherhood. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were students of Qutb, he was their inspiration. (al-Zawahiri, BTW, is now the leader of Al Qaeda.)
Osama bin Laden wanted his native country to be ruled by Islamists, not by a super-rich family of princes who owned 300 million dollar yachts and villas on the French Riviera, and above all who were in business with the Great Satan.
The 15 Saudis who made up the majority of the 9/11 terrorists were among thousands of young Arab men in countries around the ME who felt betrayed by their governments for their secularization of Islamic rule, and they were idle young men, jobs were hard to come by, they felt disenfranchised. Osama bin Laden's call appealed to them so they flocked to Pakistan and Afghanistan to join the fight against the Soviets.
Following the Soviet withdrawal, these young Muslims had no home to return to, they were men without a country. Osama bin Laden's message appealed greatly to them, so they joined Al Qaeda and found their calling there.
As the records have shown, Osama bin Laden appealed to wealthy Muslims in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere for funding. He did not seek help from the Saudi Royals. The entire 9/11 operation cost Al Qaeda about a half million dollars.