THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 185, August 19, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SLEEPING WITH THE SAUDI ENEMY
By Alan Caruba
FULL STORY:
An article in an early July, 2004, edition of the Washington Post took notice of the many Saudi Arabian Jihadists, holy warriors,
returning to the Saudi “sacred” sands from Iraq, prompting the fear that they will begin to plot new attacks on the Saudi government and on
Western targets that include more than 100,000 expatriates who help run that nation’s oil industry and whose military and technical
support is crucial.
How dangerous are these angry young men? The butchers who beheaded Paul Johnson in June because he worked for Lockheed
Martin Corporation (whose Saudi headquarters is in Riyadh) claimed they were members of the Fallujah Brigade of a larger group
called the al-Qa'ida of the Arabian Peninsula.
Heading up the Saudi insurrection is Saleh Awfi, 33, who is known to have been in Iraq as a member of Ansar al-Islam. He has
reportedly returned home. The Saudis have a list of the Kingdom’s most wanted terrorists, and Othman Amri, number 19 on the list,
took advantage of the amnesty offered after, you guessed it, having spent most of last year in Iraq.
The border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq is officially closed, but many Jihadists are coming back through Yemen. In addition, some
Jihadists, as well as numerous weapons smugglers, have managed to get across the Saudi-Iraqi border.
In recent months, Saudi border guards have confiscated tons of explosives and ammunition from smugglers crossing that same border.
Speaking of the Saudi-Iraqi border, just imagine some of the most desolate deserts and mountains to get an idea of how porous they
are for anyone willing to traverse them. The border has become such a problem the Saudis are building a 900-mile concrete barrier
along it, but probably will not succeed in their efforts to plug all the holes.
With the Jihadists and other Saudis returning home, there will soon be a network of native-born terrorists that will play havoc with the
government and foreign nationals. This will, parenthetically, create a vacuum in Iraq that will be replaced by Iranian terrorists intent on
insuring it does not become a viable constitutional democratic nation on their border. All of this is part of the greater struggle between
Sunnis (Saudi Arabia) and Shi’ites (Iran) that goes back to the earliest years of Islam.
While this is a problem for the Saudis, it is also a problem for the United States of America. We currently import approximately 18
percent of our oil from Saudi Arabia and any disruption would presumably have a severe impact on our economy. Oil, however, is sold
on the world market and the United States, for many years now, has been importing more than 50 percent of the oil we use from sources
other than Saudi Arabia. Nothing would impede our purchasing more oil from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Angola, Great Britain, Nigeria,
and Norway in order to take up the slack, should the Saudi oil be impeded. And, then, of course, there’s all that newly freed up oil in Iraq,
a nation that sits atop the Middle East’s second greatest reserves after Saudi Arabia.
There is, however, an even larger question that must be addressed. How far is the U.S.A. willing to go to protect (or replace) the House
of Saud? Ever since World War II, we have been sleeping with the enemy, forging a close relationship with the Saudis to insure their oil
flows to us. In the 1970s, they reminded us of our dependency by causing a brief crisis when they shut off the flow. It also jacked up
the cost of oil to its current levels.
Coinciding with the rise of the environmental movement, the U.S.A. has failed to develop its own vast reserves of offshore and Alaskan
oil reserves, nor has a single new oil refinery been built since then. The dependence on foreign oil is so great that oil wells in states like
Texas have actually been capped. This is so shortsighted as to constitute criminal neglect of our single greatest national security
requirement, energy.
Slowly, the American public has become aware that the greatest source of the Third Great Jihad occurring around the world is none
other than the House of Saud. The paradox of this will keep future historians writing books for decades to come. It has been the Saudis
and their extreme form of Islam, Wahhabism, that has funded madrasses and mosques all around the world to teach and preach the
supremacy of Islam and its goal to be the single religion for the entire world.
The irony is, of course, that terrorism has found its way to the heart of Saudi Arabia. Since May, 2003, armed insurgents have waged a
series of attacks, but none have targeted members of the House of Saud. Instead, it has primarily been compounds for foreign residents
that have been bombed. More than 80 people have died from bombings and shootings. The Saudis’ real fear is attacks on their pipelines
and refineries.
Despite the fact that the Arabs of the Middle East have suffered defeat after defeat since the downfall of the Ottoman Empire following
World War I, (the Empire's rise was called the Second Great Jihad), the vast, ignorant Islamic masses, combined with the true believers
now spread widely throughout Europe and Africa, have been a fertile incubator for the attacks being experienced by both Western and
Islamic nations. Funding the dream of Wahhabi Islamic domination has been the House of Saud.
It is instructive, therefore, that at least 160 of the 650 detainees being held in Guantanamo, Cuba, are from Saudi Arabia. That’s almost a
quarter of those picked up in Afghanistan and Iraq during the active phase of the conflicts in those two nations. They do not include
the Saudis who, immediately following 9-11, were allowed to be flown out of the U.S.A., even when all other aircraft were grounded.
That permission was granted by none other than Richard Clarke, the former staff member of the National Security Council who then
wrote a book that criticized the Bush administration for its presumed failures.
Saudi-funded networks of terror groups operating in the United States are being rolled up in states that include Virginia and Florida,
but virtually nothing is being said publicly by the Bush administration about the very obvious fact that the Saudis are, in every way
other than open warfare, still waging a holy war with the U.S.A. in the crosshairs.
The day is not far off when this hypocrisy, both of the Saudis and the U.S. State Department, will end. When that day comes, it may
be because American military forces will have been dispatched to Riyadh, Medina, and Mecca to put down a full-scale insurrection
and install yet another new, provisional government in the Middle East.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Arabs
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
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 columns, 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 Nations vs. the United States,
both of which are available from the National Anxiety Center, 28 West Third Street, Apartment 1321, South Orange, New Jersey, 07079.
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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