THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 34, February 17, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IS SAUDI ARABIA OUR ENEMY, TOO?
By Alan Caruba
Largely unexamined in our press has been the role of the Saudis in 9-11 and the rise of the Islamic Jihad. This commentary addresses
this issue.
The time has long since passed when the United States of America should be referring to Saudi Arabia as an ally. It is our enemy and
an unprecedented demand for the bank account records of the Washington, D.C., Saudi Embassy in November, 2003, demonstrates
that the National Security Council’s working group on terrorism is seeking to determine how the millions spent by the Embassy may
have funded 9-11 and other plots to undermine our nation. The subpoenas were so unprecedented, few can recall if they have ever
been issued to any embassy in the past.
The Saudis, of course, have been working desperately since 9-11 to convince Americans they are “a modern nation” determined to
fight the very terrorism their millions continue to underwrite. In June of last year, records show that Saudi Arabia had paid Patton
Boggs, an affiliate of U.S. Qorvis Communications, a public relations agency, $1.4 million in the previous six months to massage their
image. Part of that money went to arranging a two-day trip and interview by “Today” show host, Katie Couric, to interview Saudi
Deputy Prime Minister and National Guard Commander Crown Prince Abdullah ibn Abdul Al Saud and Saudi Foreign Minister
Prince Saud al-Faisal.
On September 11, 2001, fifteen of the nineteen hijackers who destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon were Saudis.
According to a recent report by United Press International, it turns out that at least 160 of the 650 detainees at the U.S. military base
in Guantanamo, Cuba, are from Saudi Arabia. Some were arrested far from the 2001 battlefield of Afghanistan. Others are being held
at a number of points around the world. Reportedly, Saudis have streamed into Iraq to assist resistance efforts against U.S. forces
there.
The Islamic Jihad being waged around the world today began in eighteenth century Arabia. In 1744, a covenant was drawn up
between the Al Saud clan and Muhammad ibn al-Wahhab, the founder of a militant interpretation of Islam, now commonly called
Wahhabism. In return for protection, the Wahhabis granted the Al Saud clan religious legitimacy. What followed was a form of
nation building, as the leader of the Al Saud clan married the daughters of other clans to bring them under his control. Saudi Arabia
is less a nation than a tribe with a flag. Its “constitution” is the Koran. It is run by a network of some 7,000 “royal princes.”
Wahhabism is the religion of Saudi Arabia and it is distinguished by its complete rejection of foreign influences, its opposition to
modern interpretations of the Koran, and its contempt for non-Wahhabi Muslims. Moreover, the Saudis are Sunni Muslims with a
long history of strife with Shi’ite Muslims, those who parenthetically are the majority in Iraq and in Iran, the other primary enemy
of the U.S.A. and the West.
Thus, a “nation” that subscribes to the most regressive and oppressive form of Islam is both an “ally” of the United States and the
most responsible for 9-11 and other areas of ferment and hostility around the world. The Saudis have underwritten the efforts of
socalled Palestinians in the long history of attacks on Israel. Osama bin Laden’s teacher, Abdullah Azzam, was a Palestinian and the
entire educational system in Saudi Arabia is controlled by those who advocate the Jihad for which bin Laden has become the symbol.
The current Wahhabi Jihad movement did not occur overnight. It began in the 1960s, and, in this regard, it parallels the Iranian
movement led by Ayatollah Khomeini. By the 1980s, the Saudis were pouring millions into the building and spread of fundamentalist
Islam via mosques and madrasses throughout the world. This was done through a series of professed “charities” such as the
International Islamic Relief Organization.
Here in the United States, there are an estimated 1,200 mosques and, as of 2000, none of the imams leading them were native-born
Americans. Nearly eight in ten U.S. Muslims were born abroad.
The contempt that Wahhabism feels for Muslims that do not subscribe to its viewpoint has begun to come back to bite the Saudi
royal family. Their major cities are virtual garrison towns as the family seeks to cope with the biggest threat to its authority in more
than twenty years. After months (if not years) of denial, the Saudi government has admitted to the fact they have a terrorist network
on its “sacred” soil. This has not, however, encouraged them to work more closely and openly with American military and intelligence
communities.
So, we now must contend not just with the re-building of Afghanistan and Iraq. We must keep an ever-watchful eye on the nexus
between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Jihad. Saudi Arabia is a nation in need of a regime change, more so than all the other rogue
states of the Middle East -- that besotted region which breeds the cancer of Islamic extremism, terrorism, and violence besieging the
world.
The irony, of course, is that it is our billions in oil money that has lifted these camel drivers and goat herders from a nomadic life on the
sands of Arabia to a level of wealth that has utterly corrupted a “royal family” whose decadence betrays the very religion they claim
to represent.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Arabs
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, Communications Director of the American Policy Center,
and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly
column, "Warning Signs," posted on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center
(www.anxietycenter.com). A compilation of his past col- umns, entitled Warning Signs, is published by Merril Press. In addition
to Warning Signs, Caruba is the author of A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam and The United Na- tions vs. the United States,
both of which are available from the National Anxiety Center, 9 Brookside Road, Maplewood, New Jersey, 07040.
Copyright 2004 Alan Caruba
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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