News stories recently started covering an FBI disclosure of a connection between Saudi intelligence services, a Saudi national named Omar al-Bayoumi, and the hijackers responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
The idea being asserted in such stories is that Bayoumi was undoubtedly a Saudi spy, and could have had advance knowledge of the oncoming suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001.
Suspicious timing of revelations
First of all, the US government may have cynically timed the revelations due to current problems in the relationship with Saudi Arabia. Numerous moves, or lack thereof, in support of United States foreign policy objectives, suggest the Saudis are losing interest in supporting Western strategic aims in the Middle East.
The United States is becoming increasingly frustrated by oil-producing nations' lack of interest in helping the West manage the price of oil its confrontation with Russia, one of the dominant oil-producing nations. This can be observed with the passing of the so-called NOPEC bill at the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, as the US hopes to sue OPEC members over oil prices. Such attempts probably coincide with other pressure tactics, with Saudi Arabia being a big target of American lawmakers right now.
A history of dark deeds and redactions
Before embracing the FBI's supposedly brave revelations about the truth of 9/11, people should consider that the information was redacted in the first place by the US government. In other words, the US government was actively concealing information about the possible chain of responsibility for 9/11 from the victims, while repudiating people for suggesting such concealment as conspiracy theorists.
It is almost certain that the US is still redacting additional information about 9/11, because such information is not convenient to them. The 9/11 Commission Report is thrown into doubt by these recent amendments to the story, and that is hardly a good look for the US government's credibility.
What else will be amended about the story, in another 20 years? Will the families of victims ever actually know the truth, while they are alive?
The US government may have accidentally encouraged suspicions about its own potential murderous involvement in 9/11. Saudi defence and intelligence activities are so deeply connected with US defence and intelligence activities, dating back to the days of Operation Cyclone, when the US encouraged radical insurgents against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan, that any Saudi involvement in 9/11 would point to possible US involvement in 9/11 as well.
Shifting blame for 9/11
Let us state once again, emphatically: the US government was the party redacting information about possible Saudi involvement. The US government, therefore, probably knew and still knows far more than it allowed the public to know. It hid, and is probably still hiding, the truth from the victims.
There was a time when alleging the Saudis 'did 9/11' would be outrageous. Now, that seems to be changing. It may simply be that Saudi Arabia did coordinate the 9/11 attacks, but what next? In another 20 years, further disclosures may show that US agents were leading Saudi agents in turn, thus placing responsibility for 9/11 with the US government, just as conspiracy theorists had claimed all along.
The US government has accused everyone of 'doing 9/11', except itself. Blame for 9/11 has always been used as a political device to attack people. Blame for 9/11 shifted over time from al-Qaeda, to Iraq, to Iran, to Saudi Arabia, and aggressive action always followed such blame. For people to suspect the US government of murdering its citizens on 9/11 is a normal thing, and for people to act aggressively on that suspicion is at least as reasonable as everything else that happened after 9/11.
If the information being released by the FBI leads to lawsuits alleging the Saudis carried out, or by failure of action caused, the mass murder of 9/11, it would be interesting to see the Saudi response. Did they themselves redact information incriminating US agents, and if US accusations become more serious, will they reveal such secrets in turn?