Jihad Bullettin

1.  MORE CLERICS PREACHING HOLY WAR IN UK MOSQUES

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C01%5C15%5Cstory_15-1-2007_pg7_30

Britain’s Channel Four is to air a documentary today that shows
clerics at a number of leading British mosques exhorting followers
to prepare for jihad,to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and
to follow Islamic law over UK law,The Observer reports.

The documentary, Undercover Mosques, Dispatches, contains video
footage secretly filmed in British mosques over a period of 12
months.

At the Sparkbrook mosque, run by the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM),
an organisation that maintains 45 mosques in Britain, a preacher
is captured on film praising the Taliban. In response to the news
that a British Muslim solider was killed fighting the Taliban,
the speaker declares: ‘The hero of Islam is the one who separated
his head from his shoulders.’

Another speaker says Muslims cannot accept the rule of non-Muslims.
‘You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir,’ Dr Ijaz Mian tells a
meeting held within the mosque. 'We have to rule ourselves and we
have to rule the others.’

When contacted by The Observer, UKIM said: ‘We are a nationwide
organisation and hold different programmes in our mosques. We are
very concerned about this. We have instructed all our branches not
to allow any more speakers with radical or fundamentalist views.’

Elsewhere the documentary records the huge popularity of DVDs and
Internet broadcasts produced by extremist preachers. At the
Islamic bookstore at Regent’s Park Mosque in central London,
DVDs of a preacher called Sheikh Yasin are sold. In one DVD, Yasin
accuses missionaries from the World Health Organisation and
Christian groups of putting the AIDS virus in the medicine of
African people.

Inside the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, a preacher is recorded
saying: ‘Allah has created the woman deficient.’ A satellite broadcast
from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh,
beamed into the Green Lane mosque suggests that Muslim children should
be hit if they don’t pray: ‘When he is seven, tell him to go and pray,
and start hitting them when they are 10.’ Another preacher is heard
saying that if a girl ‘doesn’t wear hijab, we hit her’.

Another preacher says: ‘The time is fast approaching where the tables
are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of
being uppermost in strength and, when that happens, people won’t get
killed - unjustly.’

2. 'MUSLIMS MUST GROW IN STRENGTH THEN TAKE OVER' - IMAM

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=britain-s-new-preachers-of-hate&method=full&objectid=18442715&siteid=94762-name_page.html

IN a dilapidated mosque, half a dozen awestruck young men listen
to a preacher spell out his vision for Britain.

'King, Queen, House of Commons... if you accept it, you are a
part of it,' says Dr Ijaz Mian. 'If you don't accept it, you have
to dismantle it.

'So you being a Muslim, you have to fix a target. There will be no
House of Commons. From that White House to this Black House, we
know we have to dismantle it.

'Muslims must grow in strength... then take over.'

A 10-month undercover investigation into home-grown extremism has
revealed hard-line Islamic fundamentalism being preached in British
mosques. Some speakers call for girls to be hit if they don't wear
Islamic dress and say that they can marry before puberty, others praise
the Taliban. Speaking at the Ahl-e-Hadith mosque, in Derby, Dr Mian
tells his listeners: 'You are in a situation in which you have to live
like a state-within-a-state - until you take over.

'But until this happens, you have to preach, until you become such a
force that the people just submit to you.'

Dr Mian wants to see religious policemen roaming our streets, modelled
on the feared Saudi Arabian force.  He says of their strict implementation
of Sharia - or Islamic- law: 'They send the police and they say: 'Well, if
you don't come for prayer, we will arrest you. But if you still don't,
then we have to bring the punishment on you - you will be killed and nobody
will pray for you.''

Dr Mian is just one of many UK preachers who've been taught the wahhabi
branch of Islam in Saudi Arabia, then come back here to spread the word.
The radical ideology, which is bitterly opposed to multi-culturalism and
integration, is spreading in Britain. And it's coming from clerics in a
country that the British government claims is its main Middle Eastern
ally in the fight against terrorism.

At UKIM's Sparkbrook Islamic Centre, in Birmingham - which PM Tony Blair
has lauded for its multi-cultural activities - a preacher praised the
Taliban. He gloated over the fate of British Muslim Jabron Hashmi, who
joined the British Army and was killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
'The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders,'
he says.

The probe uncovered British preachers being trained in Saudi Arabia
and mosques taking money from rich sheikhs. DVDs and tapes of radical
speakers, who are linked to Saudi, are available. They attack integration,
multiculturalism and even other Muslims who don't follow their extreme
brand of Islam. It's a theology which many moderates are deeply concerned
about, as they see the traditional, more tolerant beliefs being eroded.

On one DVD, filmed in a mosque run by a national Islamic charity - which
claims to be committed to moderation - a speaker said girls should be
'forced' to wear the hijab and, shockingly, adds: 'If she doesn't wear
hijab, we hit her.'

Undercover reporters spent four months filming at Green Lane mosque, in
Birmingham, an enormous place which caters for thousands of worshippers.
One preacher there said that marrying your daughter off before she reaches
puberty is permissible in Islam.

But the main preacher at Green Lane is Abu Usamah, an American convert who
studied at Medinah University in Saudi Arabia. He rails against non-Muslims,
telling listeners not to believe in the arrests of alleged terrorists in
Britain - as non- Muslims are liars.

Green Lane mosque says it is a centre for 'interfaith communication and
dialogue',welcoming people of all religions and cultures. But in front of
a Muslim-only audience, Abu Usamah says that Jews and Christians were
'enemies' to Muslims. He goes on to condemn the kuffaar - infidels or
non-believers.

No one loves the kuffaar, not a single person here loves the kuffaar,'
he rants. 'We hate the kuffaar!'

Although he says he doesn't agree with Osama Bin Laden's violent actions,
he says he prefers him to non-Muslims, because Bin Laden is a Muslim.
'He's better than a million George Bushs, he's better than a thousand
Tony Blairs.

'Allah has not given those people who are kuffaar a way over the believer.
They shouldn't be in authority over us,' he tells his listeners. 'Muslims
shouldn't be satisfied with living in anything other than a total Islamic
state.'

He urges worshippers to discriminate against homosexuals but in a way that
ensures they don't get caught. 'If I were to call homosexuals perverted,
dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that's my freedom of speech,
isn't it?' he says. 'But they'll say no, I'm not tolerant.'

Women, too, are inferior in Abu Usamah's eyes. He tells his audience: 'Allah
has created the woman - even if she gets a PhD - deficient. Her intellect is
incomplete, deficient. She may be suffering from hormones that will make her
emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal the one witness of the
man.'

Abu Usamah says that he condemns terrorism. But he predicts that an army of
Muslims will soon arise to wage jihad - or war - against non-believers.

'They will fight in the cause of Allah. I encourage all of you to be from
among them, to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast
approaching - where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are
going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength.

'And when that happens, people won't get killed - unjustly,' he threatens.

Green Lane mosque is the headquarters of the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, a
registered British charity which runs more than 40 mosques and branches in
the UK.

It's an influential affiliate of the Muslim Council Of Britain, which has
praised it as 'a national body', 'respected among British Muslims for its
educational and outreach programmes'.

It runs a part-time Islamic school for 200 local children and the mosque
has been praised by Lord Nazir Ahmed, Labour's first Muslim peer.  He sat
on a highprofile taskforce - set up after the 7/7 attacks - to combat
extremism in mosques. He also headed a working group on extremism in mosques
and imams.

In 2003, he said of Green Lane mosque: 'This is the most amazing place. When
I walk in, I feel I am entering the biggest palace on earth.' Most of the
speakers there have been trained in Saudi universities.  And to underline
the point, throughout last year, live satellite links were set up to
broadcast talks from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the country's most
senior Islamic cleric. In the course of one live session, one worshipper
asked the cleric, through a translator, if Muslims should establish good
relations and forgiveness between religions.

The Grand Mufti slapped him down. 'This is not true. Jews and Christians
who do not follow the Prophet Mohammed are kuffaar. They will go to hell.'
For his part, Abu Usamah later said: 'Islam allows for any Muslim to
peacefully co-exist here in the UK with non-Muslims, even though the UK
is not an Islamic society.'

He said he had made it clear that it is a religious duty of all Muslims
to obey UK law and the carrying out of Islamic law could only be done
in an actual Islamic state.  He added: 'Homosexuality is an abomination
against Allah and all mankind, and I will never condone it. Even though
this is the case, I do not believe in disobeying the law when it comes
to the way people deal with homosexuals.'

Lord Ahmed told us that Green Lane mosque was one of many mosques he visited.
'It would be ludicrous to suggest that by visiting an institution I become
responsible for, or aware of, every word spoken at that establishment.' The
Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith told us that it was 'committed to promoting
inter-faith dialogue and political harmony in our society'.

It said that scholars from many different backgrounds spoke at its mosque
and that we had quoted many out of context.  It had not known what each
speaker would say beforehand and did not necessarily agree with everything
that may have been said. It said the word kuffaar was a neutral term, and
added: 'We reject the assertion... that we are influenced by and teach an
extreme version of Islam.

'We have no desire or intention to seize power or discriminate against
others. We accept the rule of law and we treat our non-Muslim neighbours
with respect.'

Finally, Dr Mian said that he did not advocate that Islam would be forced
upon anyone and said we had not quoted his many speeches condemning terrorism
and the killing of innocent people.

features@mirror.co.uk

3.  CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES ON LONDON SUPERMOSQUE

http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=mosque11207.htm

Indicating that the U.K. has learned little from the 7/7 London bombings and
the increasing militancy of its Muslim population, construction plans continue
unabated on the largest mosque outside of the Arab world, a huge 17 acre
complex in East London that will accommodate 70,000.

The group behind the mosque is Tablighi Jamaat [TJ] meaning 'proselytizing
group' an association of Islamic fundamentalists whose aim is to spread their
creed throughout the world.

Middle east scholar Alex Alexiev calls TJ 'wolves in sheep's clothing' quoting
the FBI's Deputy Chief of International Terrorism who said there is 'a
significant presence of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States…and we have
found that Al-Qaeda used them for recruiting now and in the past.'
[source Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005
http://www.meforum.org/article/686#_ftn13]

According to Alexiev, Tablighi [also Tabligh] Jamaat which originated in
India but is active in Pakistan 'have long been involved in terrorism' and
have created spin off organizations including Harakat ul-Jihad-i Islami
and Harakat ul-Mujahideen. which has conducted airline hijackings and
mass murders.

It is believed that London bombing kingpin Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader
of the July 7 might have been associated with Tablighi Jamaat.

Quoting from an investigative piece by MSNB:

'If al-Qaida needed a fresh set of bodies in order to pull an operation,
one of the places that they would go to for that fresh set of bodies would
be Tablighi Jamaat, whether it's in the United States or not,' says former
FBI agent Steve Denny, who has investigated members of Tablighi.'

This makes it all the more surprising that the Blair government would be so
tolerant of such a huge potential terror risk.

Not only are American security officials highly suspicious of the group
behind the new mosque, but so are members of London's Muslim community:

Dr Irfan al-Alawi, Chairman of the Muslim Heritage Foundation opposes the
building of the mosque, saying it is an obvious security risk.

'I think, yes. Once the youth have been brainwashed, and been captured by the
satanic ideology of the Tablighis, yes, it will come as a very hard-hitting
movement…The person who is really behind it is Ken Livingstone,' al-Alawi said.'
(source: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/83805.aspx)

Livingstone is the notorious 'Red Ken' the anti-Semitic mayor of London and
his support of this monstrosity is indicative of the still growing unholy
alliance between the left and the Islamists.

4.  WORLDWIDE PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS BY MUSLIMS

http://www.spcm.org/Journal/spip.php?article5394

As many as 250 million Christians worldwide will face persecution and repression
in 2007, just for following Jesus Christ, according to the latest roundup of the
world’s persecution hot spots by Release International.

Inspire Magazine (www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news.aspx ?action=view&id=716)
reported that Release, a voice for the persecuted hurch, has found that most
persecution takes place in four distinct 'zones ;' those of Islam, Communism,
Hinduism and Buddhism.

But persecution is growing fastest of all in the Islamic world.

Governments in even moderate Muslim countries often fail to safeguard the
rights of their Christian minorities. According to Release, abuses suffered
by Christians include kidnapping, forced conversion, imprisonment, church
destruction, torture, rape and execution.

One of the world’s worst abusers of religious freedom is Saudi Arabia,
guardian of Islam’s holiest sites Mecca and Medina. A Muslim found
'guilty' of converting to Christianity could face the death sentence for
apostasy. And anyone who leads a Muslim to Christ faces jail, expulsion
or execution.

'There’s a conspiracy of silence around Saudi,' said Release International’s
CEO Andy Dipper, 'probably because the West wants their oil and their money.
But this is a government that hands out the death sentence for its own
citizens who want nothing more than the freedom to choose their own faith.
And while Saudi bans all Christian literature, it spends billions of dollars
each year propagating Islam around the world.'

But some of the most violent persecution in the Islamic world is beyond
government control, Inspire reported Release commented. Since the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11 2001, the world has been made dramatically aware of
Islamist global networks.

Although the best known is Al Qaeda, there are others who exploit religious
tensions for their own political ends.

A rising number of extremists interpret the call to jihad as a call to
violence, Release commented. The organization added that extremists apparently
regard it as their religious duty to force Christians and non-Muslims to
convert to Islam. Those who refuse must be driven out or killed.

There is a growing movement to impose Islamic (Sharia) law, Inspire reported
Release stated, which results in increased pressure on Christians. In Nigeria,
militants have driven Christians from their homes to remove political opposition
and pave the way for Sharia law.

Despite the collapse of Communism in Europe, persecution of Christians continues
in China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea.

Communist governments remain ideologically opposed to Christianity and have
pursued systematic programs to weaken and destroy the Church, Release commented.
Some persecution also continues under the 'old guard' in the former Soviet
Union, and China - which Release commented for all its economic openness -
continues to drive Christians underground.

'As China prepares for the Olympic Games western governments would do well to
remember that China detains more Christians than any other country,' Inspire
reported Dipper commented. 'Believers and leaders who want nothing more than
to worship freely face imprisonment, torture and even death.'

In the Hindu world Christians face persecution in India and Nepal, Release
stated. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of India’s largest political
parties, is associated with militant Hindu nationalist groups. Extremists
have been involved in a growing number of attacks against both Christians
and Muslims. Several Indian states have introduced laws against forced
conversion, but these are wide open to abuse, Inspire reported Release
commented. Christians face most pressure in rural areas, where militants
have destroyed churches and threatened, attacked and killed church leaders.

In the Buddhist world, Christians face persecution in Bhutan, Burma and Sri 3
Lanka. Release reported that Buddhist militants regard Christianity as a
threat to their national identity and unity. They have stirred up harassment
and violence against Christians in Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

Back in 1966 Burma expelled most of its Christian missions. Today the
repressive military regime still maintains controls over religious activity.
There have been many cases of forced conversion to Buddhism as well as violence
against Christians, Inspire reported Release stated.

Through its partners in 30 countries, Release International supports
Christians imprisoned for their faith and their families. Release supplies
Bibles and Christian literature, gives medical aid and welfare, provides legal
aid and sanctuary, and supports church workers.

For more information about release go to www.releaseinternational.org/pages/what-we-do.php

5.  MI-5 CLAIMED NO THREAT BEFORE 7/7

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1985970,00.html

The director-general of the security service MI5 told senior MPs there was
no imminent terrorist threat to London or the rest of the country less
than 24 hours before the July 7 suicide bombings.

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller gave the assurance at a private meeting of
Labour whips at the Commons on the morning of July 6 2005, the Guardian
has learned from a number of those present.

The whips are said to have been confident, on leaving the meeting, that
they could brief fellow MPs that the security situation was under control,
and are said to have been deeply alarmed by the following day's events.

Last month Dame Eliza announced that she is to retire in April. That
announcement came weeks before details are expected to be made public
of an MI5 operation which saw two of the July 7 bombers kept under surveillance,
but not arrested. It is now known that officers had trailed the bombers'
leader, Mohammed Siddique Khan, more than a year before the attacks, and had
listened as he spoke of his plans for waging jihad. They had also photographed
him, yet had not been able to identify him.

Security sources denied that Dame Eliza's decision to retire was in any way
connected to the briefing given to the Labour whips, or to any aspect of
MI5's performance before the July 7 bombings. They said she had made her
plans clear in early 2005 to Charles Clarke, then home secretary, before
the bombs went off.

This would suggest that just two and a half years into her tenure, she
was able to give a leaving date more than two years in advance.

However, the disclosure that MI5 had been so completely taken by surprise
on July 7 will fuel calls for a public or independent inquiry into the
events leading up to the suicide bomb attacks that claimed 52 lives and
injured hundreds.

Grahame Russell, whose son Philip, 29, died in the Tavistock Square bus 3
bombing, said: 'Unless we have a public inquiry where witnesses can be
called and questioned, we will never get the truthful answers about what
happened before, during and after July 7 2005.'

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, repeated his demands for an
independent rather than public inquiry, along the lines of the Franks committee,
which examined the causes of the Falklands war.

'Reports like this, and the Metropolitan police commissioner saying hours.
before the bombings that London had a 'gold standard' of counterterrorism
policing, can only reinforce the absolute need for an independent inquiry,
along the lines of the Franks inquiry.

'It is absolutely necessary for the continued security of the British public
that we know precisely if, when and how security failures have occurred,
and for action to be taken to minimise the risk of it happening again.'

The government argues that such an inquiry would be an expensive and
time-consuming diversion for the police and the security service.

MI5 says it has identified 30 major terrorist plots in Britain and is
targeting more than 1,600 individuals actively engaged in promoting attacks,
here and abroad.

A dozen Labour whips were addressed by Dame Eliza about the terrorist threat
to the UK the day before the bombings, at a meeting called by Hilary Armstrong,
then the government chief whip. Such meetings have been held on an irregular
basis since the attacks of September 11, although they are usually given by
a senior MI5 officer rather than the director general.

Sources have told the Guardian that Dame Eliza told them that there was
'no imminent threat to London or the country' from a terrorist attack.

They also say she appeared rather detached from the detail of security
operations that must have been taking place at the time.

It was already known that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, a
government body based at the headquarters of MI5, had reduced its
assessment of the threat to Britain from level 2, or 'severe-general'
to level 3, or 'substantial', six weeks before the July 7 bombings.

Whitehall is now trawling for candidates to replace Dame Eliza. The clear
favourite is Jonathan Evans, her respected deputy, who has led MI5's al
-Qaida-related counterterrorist operations.

As part of a decision to make the terrorist warning system more transparent
,from today anyone who registers their email on MI5's website will be told
when the threat level changes as well as about any other new information
placed on the site.

The current assessment is at level 2, now known as 'severe', meaning an
attack is highly likely. The highest threat level is 'critical', meaning
that an attack is expected imminently.

6.  SAUDI ARABIA, FALSE FRIEND

This old article is being included, in the light of the ongoing BAE scandal
, to make clear to our readers just what an evil and insane society Saudi
Arabia is, despite its pretentions to be our ally against terrorism.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=5222

Austere mosques, women relegated to the background and a puritanical faith
that rejects change. A brand of Islam that drives the Taliban and influenced
the young American who fought by their side has taken root in the Mecca of
modernism, America.

The mosques and women in question are in Dearborn, Michigan, the fruits of
America’s 'special relationship' with the most rigid totalitarian dictatorship
in the world.

Welcome to the Saudi connection, one of the best-kept secrets inside the Beltway.

The moving spirit behind the project is in Muhammad’s homeland, and the fuel that
makes it possible is oil. The Muslim World League was founded in Mecca, Saudi
Arabia in 1962, and a decade later the Organization of the Islamic Conference,
with its headquarters in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Both organizations, and a
myriad of ostensibly private charities devoted to Islamic proselytism, are
richly endowed by petrodollars from Saudi Arabia’s narrow, ultra-rich ruling
kleptocracy. Its members provide aid to countries willing to follow the path
of Islamization, and build mosques wherever they can. They send missionaries,
provide literature, and run electronic media. The MWL runs the world’s largest
printing presses, producing tens of millions of copies of the Koran every year
for worldwide distribution.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the most intolerant Islamic regime in the world.
The practice of any religion besides Islam is as strictly prohibited now as it
was in Muhammad’s lifetime. Even the Taliban allowed more latitude to religious
minorities. While the Saudis continue to build mosques all over the world,
thousands of Christians among the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers
from India, Europe, America, and the Philippines must worship in secret and
in fear. They are arrested, lashed or deported for public display of their beliefs.

Because Saudi money helps spread Islamist government to other nations which
repress Christianity, like Sudan, Saudi Arabia is now the most powerful and
explicit anti-Christian nation on the face of the earth. It is waging a
world-wide proxy war against Christianity – and, to be fair, other religions
that Islam comes into contact with, like Judaism in Israel, Hinduism in India,
animism in Africa, Bahai in Iran, and Buddhism in Southeast Asia – not matched
in intensity since the dayswhen the Communists were serious about atheism.

Saudi Arabia doesn’t only disregard the rights of its own people, it tramples
on those of Americans, too. In Saudi Arabia, American citizens can be
detained indefinitely at the pleasure of a Saudi Muslim father who kidnapped
them from their American mother. This has happened to Patricia Roush, whose
daughters Alia and Aisha are now clad from head to toe in the black abaya.
Alia has been married off to one of her father’s cousins, and Aisha is the
next on whom the purdah will fall. The State Department directed the U.S.
embassy in Riyadh to remain 'impartial.' Ray Mabus, ex-U.S. ambassador to
Saudi Arabia, explains that diplomats feel they should be working on the
'big stuff.'

Western politicians lie about Saudi Arabia all the time. 'Saudi Arabia is
a good and dependable friend to the civilized world,' Britain’s Tony Blair
declared during a tour of the Middle East in 2001. 'Civilization' is a
relative term to a high priest of post-modernism like Mr. Blair, but his
enthusiasm for the House of Saud may be easier to understand if we consider
that Britain’s arms merchants have their most lucrative buyer in the desert
kingdom. And we are as glued to the same teat as the British: in only six
years (1991-1997) there were $23 billion worth of arms agreements between
the United States and Saudi Arabia. This means jobs, and congressmen,
in places where defense plants are located.

The dirty little secret is that large sections of the American and European
elites are being deliberately fed Saudi money, directly and indirectly,
to bribe them to exert pressures at home favorable to Saudi Arabia. The
Carlyle Group, for example, is a Washington D.C. investment bank that
specializes in investing Saudi royal wealth abroad. It also has a convenient
habit of employing people close to the Bush administration. Shades of
Clintonesque corruption? To be fair, the smoking gun is not in view, but as
citizens, we are entitled to wonder about what are politely called
'conflicts of interest.' Does anyone look at this and not 'get' how the
game is obviously played?

Saudi Arabia’s 'royal' kleptocracy (a dynasty of antiquity inferior to
most decent brands of whisky) owns huge parts of major American corporations,
and that is the 'big stuff.' Suffice to say that the present U.S. Ambassador
there is Dallas attorney Robert Jordan, a man with no diplomatic experience,
but also the lawyer who defended George W. Bush in a probe of insider trading
allegations in 1990. Jordan comes from the Dallas office of Houston law firm
Baker & Botts, which has an office in Riyadh and whose client list includes
The Carlyle Group. One of the Group’s directors is former President George
Bush Sr., while James A. Baker III is the current Baker in Baker Botts. Baker
was a classmate of Donald H. Rumsfeld at Princeton. Rumsfeld, the current
Secretary of Defense, was the roommate of Frank C. Carlucci. Carlucci,
who was head of the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan,
is currently chairman of The Carlyle Group. At least $2 million of Carlyle
funding has come from the bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia.

The focus on the 'big stuff' also allowed thousands of young Saudis easy
access to American visas under various pretexts, many of them hell-bent on
waging jihad against the unbelievers. The Saudi authorities issued them exit
visas in the full knowledge what they were up to. At least they were keen to
get rid of the potentially troublesome hotheads who could stir up trouble at
home. Worse still, they may have considered the resulting mayhem,
exemplified in the predominantly Saudi suicide teams of September 11, as not
necessarily wrong or undesirable. Rather than prevent young Saudis from
enlisting in military ventures abroad or silence the sheiks encouraging them, some officials say Saudi Arabia has mostly tried to deflect
the problem outside its borders.

On September 12, 2001, Crown Prince Abdullah ibn Abdulaziz, the Saudi leader,
and his oil minister Ali Nuaimi decided to break a recent promise to other OPEC
nations to cut oil production. They arranged for quick delivery of additional
nine million barrels of oil to the United States instead, which helped reduce
the price from almost $30 a barrel before 9-11 to under $20 only weeks later.
This was a preemptive gesture by people with a guilty conscience. They knew that
someone, somewhere in the United States would put two and two together: that
whenever there are Islamic terrorists bringing death, destruction, and havoc to
the non-Muslim world, there aresome Saudis lurking in the background, either as
masterminds, or direct participants, or as bankrollers.

All along, the Islamic 'charities' that financed terrorists included prominent
members of the royal family on their boards. Since 1992, one Saudi charity, the
Al Haramin Foundation, has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars, with
money often ending up in extremist coffers.

The United States is still reluctant to read the riot act to the Saudis.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, normally not a mealy-mouthed man, on
a visit to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of terrorist attacks appeared
strangely evasive on the issue of Saudi funds for Islamic terror, and admitted
that he had not asked the Saudis to freeze the assets of people and groups
linked to Mr. bin Laden, even though the United States had asked all countries
to do so.

Saudi Arabia is an economically and socially dysfunctional society. It has 18
million citizens (and 6 million foreign workers), growing at over 4 percent
a year from 1980 to 1998. The average Saudi family now has between six and seven
children. Per-capita income has collapsed from a peak of $19,000 in 1981 to
$7,300 in 1997. Unemployment is rampant, but young people don’t want the
lower-paying jobs held by foreigners.

The government can no longer support the generous social welfare system it
created at the height of the oil boom. From a peak of $227 billion in 1981
oil revenue is down to under $50 billion. The money earned during the boom
was squandered on palaces, corruption, armaments, and foreign laborers who
just sent it back to their own countries. The fabulous flow of wealth was
not used to create a serious industrial base, despite laughable gestures
in this direction. The only expanding industry is that of Islamic extremism.

The Saudi system is not just tyrannical, it borders on comedy at times. In
1966, the Vice-President of the Islamic University of Medina complained that
Copernican theory was being taught at Riyadh University. Three hundred years
after the Christian theologians had to concede that the Earth went around the
Sun the geocentric theory was reaffirmed in the centers of Saudi learning.

In 1967 segregation of the sexes at schools was set at age nine, which was the
age for girls to start to wear the veil. The King was forced to sack the
Minister of Information for 'offensive' TV programs: apparently a cartoon passed
the censors in which Mickey Mouse gave Minnie a little peck. This is a country
where sexual slaves are routinely purchased for harems by the very rich, who have
no qualms about jetting off to Paris (the once-delightful and more convenient
Beirut having been ruined by civil war) for weekends of recreation they would be
beheaded for at home.

The ability of the inherently fanatical and mendacious (as well as profligate
and corrupt) rulers of the desert kingdom to square any circles at all is
entirely due to its oil reserves, which account for up to one-fifth of all U.S.
imports. The Saudis are perfectly aware that this is their only, albeit
enormously powerful trump card, and soon embarked on a multimillion-dollar
public relations campaign to try to restore confidence in the Saudi-American
'special relationship.' They see America – a country in which the rich generally
work in real jobs, mind you – as decadent and dependent on their precious black
goo for its consumer lifestyle. They see our own corruption as the perfect
guarantee that they will never have to pay the price for their own.

For the time being the Saudis and their co-religionists have no reason to doubt
that the talk about promoting democracy is propaganda for internal consumption
and that the US prefers to deal with autocratic rulers, who are much easier
to bribe. The end result, for now, favors an oppressive plutocracy without
elected representative bodies, light-years and worlds apart from all that
America and the rest of the Western world hold near and dear. America and the
rest of the West urgently need to set themselves free from the need to pander
to Saudi whims, including the non- existent and unreciprocated 'right' of its
government to bankroll thousands of mosques and Islamic 'cultural centers'
around the world that teach hate and provide the logistic infrastructure to
Islamic terrorism.

Their ability to break free from the Saudi connection is predicated upon their
liberation from Middle Eastern oil imports. That liberation is possible and
necessary. It only requires political will and monetary investment into the
development of new technologies. This is, and has always been, the crucial
prerequisite to the development of a meaningful anti-terrorist strategy. To
plan on any other strategy is to imagine, with the kind of deal-with-the-devil
cynicism that is always too clever for its own good, that America can find its
own long-term good in propping up fundamentally evil people who hate us just
because they are corrupt enough to satisfy our short-term desires.

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