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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

If we had anything resembling news media, this would be the end of Giuliani
Posted by Jill | 9:12 PM
Can you imagine if a Democratic presidential candidate had as a business client someone who harbored Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, otherwise known as "the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks"?

Well, if Rudy Giuliani wants to run as the candidate who knew since the 1993 World Trade Center attack that a single network was behind it; as the only candidate with the knowledge and toughness to keep Americans safe from terrorists, he has some 'splainin' to do about why, when there's cash involved, he's perfectly OK with doing business with those who harbor terrorists.

This article by Wayne Barrett in the Village Voice this week ought to be the beginning of the end for Rudy the Saint of 9/11:

Three weeks after 9/11, when the roar of fighter jets still haunted the city's skyline, the emir of gas-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, toured Ground Zero. Although a member of the emir's own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack—a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM—al-Thani rushed to New York in its aftermath, offering to make a $3 million donation, principally to the families of its victims. Rudy Giuliani, apparently unaware of what the FBI and CIA had long known about Qatari links to Al Qaeda, appeared on CNN with al-Thani that night and vouched for the emir when Larry King asked the mayor: "You are a friend of his, are you not?"


"We had a very good meeting yesterday. Very good," said Giuliani, adding that he was "very, very grateful" for al-Thani's generosity.

[snip]

The contradictory and stunning reality is that Giuliani Partners, the consulting company that has made Giuliani rich, feasts at the Qatar trough, doing business with the ministry run by the very member of the royal family identified in news and government reports as having concealed KSM—the terrorist mastermind who wired funds from Qatar to his nephew Ramzi Yousef prior to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and who also sold the idea of a plane attack on the towers to Osama bin Laden—on his Qatar farm in the mid-1990s.

This royal family member is Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani, Qatar's minister of Islamic affairs at the time, who was later installed at the interior ministry in January 2001 and reappointed by the emir during a government shake-up earlier this year. Abdallah al-Thani is also said to have welcomed Osama bin Laden on two visits to the farm, a charge repeated as recently as October 10, 2007, in a Congressional Research Service study. Abdallah al-Thani's interior ministry or the state-owned company it helps oversee, Qatar Petroleum, has worked with Giuliani Security & Safety LLC, a subsidiary of Giuliani Partners, on an undisclosed number of contracts, the value of which neither the government nor the company will release.


More here.

It's no wonder that there's a growing perception of Giuliani as the Bush family-approved successor. His campaign is loaded with neocons that are even further to the right of those surrounding George W. Bush; he's even more of a secretive authoritarian, AND he has the required connection with terrorists so as to make a good tag-team to keep Americans afraid.

While lunatics like this one are obsessing about Hillary Clinton's aide Huma Abedin and whether she is a Saudi agent (or if it's just about their fantasies of hot Hillary-on-Huma action), they're strangely silent about Rudy Giuliani's business partnership with the protectors of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. But then, they were also silent about the Bush family's connection with the Bin Ladens, and didn't see anything odd about the president's father meeting with the family of the alleged power behind the attacks AS THEY WERE TAKING PLACE.

Because even when it comes to associating with those who are, or those who protect terrorists, the IOKIYAR rule always applies.

UPDATE: And there's more Rudy messiness, via Joe Sudbay.

And this is the guy with the highest poll ratings among Republicans? This is the law-and-order, anti-terror guy? Yeesh.

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