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posted by takyon on Sunday April 17 2016, @12:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the idle-threat dept.

The New York Times reports (and Yahoo! News repeats without any paywall) that the government of Saudi Arabia is threatening to sell $750 billion in treasury securities and other unidentified assets if Congress passes the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The bill would allow foreign governments to be sued by 9/11 victims and their families. The threat was issued by Saudi Arabian foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir to unnamed US lawmakers while he was visiting Washington sometime last month, on the grounds that these assets could be in danger of being frozen by US courts.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 18 2016, @05:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 18 2016, @05:13AM (#333600)

    Do you know what Saudi Arabia has that is worth even more than all that oil?

    Mecca and Medina.

    SA is the Jerusalem of Islam (ignoring for the moment that many religious sites in Jerusalem also have significance to Muslims). Meaning that just like all Jews are supposed to pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and Catholics to Rome (and Jerusalem and elsewhere as applicable), Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage to Mecca (and Medina? I don't remember the full specifics.)

    Point being that destablilization of Saudi Arabia could make the religious war Daesh/ISIL/ISIS, Al Qaeda and other religiously charges Muslim groups are fighting just that much worse. If one of them were to take the religious centers from Saudi Arabia tens of thousands if not millions more Muslims would be looking to join the new Caliphate backed with the will of God (as show by their newfound territorial control of the very foundations of Islam.) Assured that their holy war was fully backed by the will of God they would not be as easily disenfranchised as Daesh's forces have turned out to be. Furthermore retalitory strikes against the sites after that would only assure them the ends of days had come and this was their glorious last battle as prophesized in their religious texts.