Hillary Clinton gave a speech Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relation, where she outlined her genius plan to defeat ISIS. (Step 1: Defeat ISIS.) She also offered a few more specific proposals [emphasis added]:
When it comes to terrorist financing, we have to go after the nodes that facilitate illicit trade and transactions. The U.N. Security Council should update its terrorism sanctions. They have a resolution that does try to block terrorist financing and other enabling activities, but we have to place more obligations on countries to police their own banks, and the United States, which has quite a record of success in this area, can share more intelligence to help other countries. And once and for all, the Saudis, the Qataris and others need to stop their citizens from directly funding extremist organizations as well as the schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path to radicalization.
Clinton is right about the fact that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates have for years funneled money to terrorist groups, essentially bribing them to ensure that they don't cause trouble in their incestual oligarchies. She is certainly right that these oil-rich countries have made a habit of giving away money to powerful interest groups in an effort to curry favor. Some of those groups happen to be comprised of terrorists, while others are charitable foundations founded by a former United States president whose wife is currently seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the same position in 2016.
Here's how much those three countries and their affiliated entities have donated to the Clinton Foundation:
- Qatar — Up to $5.8 million
- United Arab Emirates — Up to $11.5 million
- Saudi Arabia — Up to $50 million
The gulf nations represent three of the largest donors to the foundation, but that is hardly the extent of their ties to the Clintons. Qatari, UAE, and Saudi firms paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars for speeches during the time Hillary served as secretary of state, when she also approved weapons deals with all three countries worth billions of dollars to U.S. defense firms, many of which are also Clinton Foundation donors.
Bill Clinton has praised the Qataris as "intelligent, forward looking" investment partners for their collaboration on Clinton Foundation projects. One of Hillary's top advisers, Cheryl Mills, served on the board of the New York University campus in Abu Dhabi. Bill Clinton is the friend and former classmate of Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, who recently attended a lavish Clinton Foundation conference in Marrakech, hosted by the King of Morocco. The Bill Clinton presidential library in Little Rock was funded in part by a $10 million from the Saudi Royal family.
Hillary is right, the time has come for Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia to stop using their oil wealth to buy influence and protection from special interests.