Someday my prince will come???

I vaguely remember the new ambassador from Saudi Arabia being named - but there certainly wasn't any big hullaballoo about it that I recall. (I perked up when this crossed my radar screen over at the CounterTerrorism Blog. I kind of dig that Steve Emerson over there. He, along with Patrick Al Kafir, are on the manifest for Dinah's Flight of Fantasy interview, but more about that later.)

Back to Prince Turki al Faisal of Saudi Arabia.

In a case of it's-a-small-world-after-all we discover that Prince Turki went to Lawrenceville Prep. Lawrenceville Prep is located just down the road from the Lord estate and is known as the Princeton of Prep Schools. I don't know what the heck they are teaching there if Prince T went there and is now saying things like Douglas Farah tells us. What happened to the prince at Lawrenceville that would have turned him into such a sneaky, low dealer? Because it looks like Prince Turki has been getting his hands dirty when it comes to the affairs of the United States.

According to Global Security:

It is important to understand that Prince Turki not only has ties to U.S. intelligence dating back to the BCCI scandal of the 1980s. But more importantly, he was was head of Saudi intelligence for 24 years, and as such one of the chief propagators of the spread of wahhabism around the world. He also supported radical Islamic and wahhabist causes without hesitation or reserve. He resigned his intelligence position a month before 9-11, and, since 2002 was Saudi ambassador to Great Britain.

He was one of the primary architects and bagmen for the Saudi funding of the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan. He supervised the purchase of some 400 pickup trucks for the Taliban's final push to victory in 1996, and worked closely with Pakistani intelligence to arm, train and supply the Taliban long after the Taliban took in Osama bin Laden as a special guest. He has helped spread around the world the wildly anti-Jewish hate literature that the Saudi government prints and Saudi intelligence helps distribute. This includes calls to kill all Jews, along with calls to wage war against Christianity. These are not passing references, but the heart of wahhabi teachings, which Prince Turki has overseen and spread.

Douglas goes on to wonder where's the outrage and Dinah Lord has to join him. Where's the outrage is right!

Geez-this guy has been around getting his hands dirty in US business since the BCCI affair? Remember that old chestnut?

His connections to OBL date back to 1978 when Turki was the head of the Saudi security service. In 1979, OBL, in a fury because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, took Prince Turki's advice to aid the Afghan resistance. OBL went to Pakistan and launched his jihad from there.

In 2002 he has this to say about US Intelligence:

"In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, [the American] intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting communism and established what was called the Safari Club."

And who were the members of The Safari Club?

France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran.

Quite a line up and not a true friend to the US amongst them. Source Watch has this to say about the club:

Organized with the blessing of Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State for the Nixon and Ford administrations, the Safari Club was the brainchild of French spy chief Comte Claude Alexandre de Marenches and consisted of France, Egypt, Iran, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Information about the group came to light after the 1979 Iranian revolution exposed previously secret documents of the former Iranian regime's Foreign Ministry.

What was their mission?

We would share information with each other and help each other in countering Soviet influence ... The main concern of everybody was that the spread of communism was taking place while the main country that would oppose communism was tied up. Congress had literally paralyzed the work of not only of the US intelligence community, but of its foreign service as well.

He goes on to brag:

And so, the Kingdom, with these countries, helped in some way, I believe, to keep the world safe at the time when the United States was not able to do that. ..... In 1980, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we in the Kingdom, with the United States, initiated a program of countering the Soviet invasion and helping the Mujahideen to repel the Soviets. I was directly involved in that situation ...

And the Prince is right in the middle of the Clintonian bungles to get OBL in the run up to 9/11.

In early 1996 Sudan had offered to extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. President Clinton, hoping the Saudis would take bin Laden and swiftly execute him, called Prince Turki bin Faisal, to consider the plan. The Saudis said no, but Bin Laden soon left Sudan for Afghanistan.

Prince Turki followed up in meetings during the summer of 1998 with Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders. Employing a mixture of possible bribes and threats, he received a commitment that Bin Ladin would be handed over.

By some accounts a moderate group within the Taleban wanted to get rid of Osama bin Laden and establish relations with the United States. Under their pressure, Mullah Omar made a secret agreement to send the al-Qaida leader to Saudi Arabia to stand trial for treason. Prince Turki bin Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence, says it was a done deal - soon to be undone.

After the Embassy bombings in August 1998, Vice President Gore called Riyadh again to underscore the urgency of bringing the Saudi ultimatum to a final conclusion. After the al-Qaida bombing of two US embassies in Africa, the Clinton administration retaliated with a missile attack on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan and alleged terrorist camps in Afghanistan. That put an end to Taleban moderation.

Then there's this cluster f(*&:

In September 1998 Prince Turki, joined by Pakistan's intelligence chief, had a climactic meeting with Mullah Omar in Kandahar. Omar reneged on his promise to expel Bin Ladin. When Turki angrily confronted him, Omar lost his temper and denounced the Saudi government. The Saudis and Pakistanis walked out.

Geez. Imagine everyone's surprise when Turki left the Saudi Intelligence service. He wasn't promoted. He wasn't fired. He left of his own accord. Ten days before 9/11. What a coinky-dink.

"The resignation came to some as a surprise, though others familiar with the Minister's situation expected the resignation eventually, after a quarter of a century on the job. The precise timing was said to derive from [unstated] circumstances in the Minister's immediate family. The surprise departure came only four months after King Fahd had issued a Royal Decree reconfirming him in the post for four more years. His close ties to Crown Prince Abdallah made him a useful ally and a bulwark against Prince Sultan’s influence.

Other speculation focused on the fact that his departure came a few days before September 11th. One conjecture suggested that Turki had found out about the planned attacks and was trying to dissuade bin Laden. His failure to do so, or his failure to report his prior knowledge, could have precipitated his dismissal as intelligence chief."

It is reported he was among the 31 Saudi nationals departing the US on a special flight. What's that tell you?

In November 2001, he voiced support for the Americans in Afghanistan by saying this:

"America is not there to occupy Afghanistan," he said. "It is there to fulfill a certain purpose stemming from the events that occurred over a month ago."

He also "told the New York Times that while Saudi Arabia country regarded Saddam Hussein as one of the world's most active terrorists, it would not support any attack on Iraq by coalition forces. "You target Saddam Hussein, and no one will object. But bombings like the ones we saw against Iraq in 1998, or like the ones we've seen now in Afghanistan, with so-called collateral bombings, when bombs hit innocent people, will have very bad implications," he said.

He was one of the three princes named in a suit for allegedly helping to finance the terrorist attacks of 9/11.(Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz and Prince Mohammed bin Faisal were the other two.)

"The suit alleged that Prince Sultan "publicly supported and funded several Islamic charities that were sponsoring Osama bin Laden" and that Prince Turki negotiated a deal in which Al Qaeda agreed to end efforts to subvert the Saudi monarchy in exchange for a Saudi promise not to extradite terrorist leaders."

To be fair, Prince Turki made this comment in the independent, pro-government, English-language, Arab News on 9/18/2002, but is it taquiyyah?

"Saudi Arabia has worked with the United States for the past 70 years. Both countries have benefited from this enduring partnership. Remember that we face the same threat: Bin Ladin targeted Saudi Arabia before he targeted America. Al-Qa'ida has thousands of followers from more than 60 countries, including those of many U.S. allies. That he chose 15 Saudis for his murderous gang, many of whom, he boasted, did not even know the ultimate goal of their mission, can only be explained as an attempt to disrupt the close relationship between our two countries.... There are those in America who condemn all Saudi Arabians as uncivilized, close-minded and barbaric. But such blanket accusations are not worthy of the American people.... Let us deny extremists the victory of undermining our partnership. Instead, let us remain strong, and, whatever shortcomings we see in each other, let us confront them and overcome them together in a spirit of mutual respect and openness."

In 2003 he was named the Saudi ambassador to the UK.

In 2004 German intelligence reports revealed that a pair of private Saudi companies linked with suspected Al Qaeda cells in Germany and in Indonesia had connections to Prince Turki bin Faisal.

In 2005 a US federal judge dismissed the Saudi princes from 9/11 suits ruling he had immunity from litigation.

In July 2005 he was named US ambassador.

On a cultural note: He is a founder of the King Faisal foundation and chairs the King Faisal centre for research and islamic studies.

His Royal Highness is involved in a number of cultural and social activities. He is one of the founders of the King Faisal foundation and is the Chairman of the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies,

a group founded in 1983 to promote an expanded dialogue within Islam and between Islamic and Christian and Jewish groups.

Oh and he and Prince Charles are close. He is Chairman of the board of The Prince Charles Visual Islamic and Traditional Arts Centre.

He's a Davos Diva, too, chairing the C100 Group which has been affiliated with the World Economic Forum since 2003.

This made me laugh:

Some accounts claim that Prince Turki is affiliated with the fundamentalist and anti-American wing of the royal family, with sympathies to Osama bin Laden, but these seem to be in error. Indeed, he must be considered one of the most Westernized of the Saudi leaders.

But leave it to the http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=2960 to really get down to it:

Whitewashing the green flag of Saudi Arabia


The New York Times has reached a new low, if that is possible. Interviewer Deborah Solomon in the New York Times Magazine interviews Prince Turki, new Saudi Ambassador to the US.

Here are the two smartest questions of the interview:

Q: I don't mean to make you feel unimportant, but aren't you one of some 6,000 Saudi princes?

A: I haven't counted, so I don't know.

Q: Before I go, I have to ask you, why is green the national color of Saudi Arabia?

A: Because we are a desert country whose ultimate ambition is to turn green.

Of course, as a woman she could have asked about the condition of women in the Kingdom or education but no, she'd rather stick to the question of the green flag. By the way the real reason it's green is that is the color of Islam....

You're kidding me right?

To read more check out Wild Turki and Jive Turki.

And the libs had their panties in a wad because of John Bolton going to the UN? While Prince Turki comes waltzing onto our diplomatic scene like he owns the joint?
Where's the outrage?