May 25, 2017
Two-Faced Saudis Welcome Trump
"Drive them
out! Drive them out!" With these words, Pres. Donald J. Trump sounded the alarm against
the evils of Islamic terrorism, which has led to the genocide, murder, torture,
enslavement, and horrible injuries of people on every continent, and against
more Muslims than against any other group. He emphasized that the USA is
not going to define or even try to define the cultural values of the (Sunni)
Islamic world. Nonetheless, for the preservation of their values, and for
the sake of nation states throughout the world, the Saudis and every other
Islamic nation within hearing distance of Trump's speech should drive out and
destroy the evil, subversive tide of terrorism.
Seemingly to express
Sunni Arab agreement with the Trump call to "drive them out," the
Gulf Cooperation Council signed a memorandum of understanding with Trump
"to prosecute individual members of their countries who funnel money to
terror groups." Trump also "joined in the opening of a new Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in
Saudi Arabia."
But here is the $64,000
question: are the above agreements and the willingness of Sunni Arab
dignitaries to sit through Trump's speech worth the paper they are written on
or the time spent sitting on their robed behinds? Trump's remarks
attempted to be critical, aggressive, and respectful, all at the same
time. Because no shoes were thrown at him, as happened once to Pres. George W. Bush in Iraqin 2008, and because
he was not booed, nor did any of the attendees walk out in disgust, it might be
tempting to infer that there was tacit support for his words. However,
for this writer, disciplined rear ends that can sit without becoming overtly
restless are in no way an assurance of either attentiveness or agreement.
Despite the "art of
the deal," no deal can guarantee compliance, especially in the realm of
international politics, where no real enforcement procedures are in
place. Trust is the basis for true agreements. For there to be
trust, there needs to be a relational history justifying trust. That
relational history does not exist between us and the Sunni Arab world. At
the highest levels of Middle Eastern politics, the name of the game is
"duplicity."
Further, the attempt by
President Trump to link anti-terrorism with the biggest arms deal ever with the
Saudis is disingenuous. The fact is that Saudi Arabia has been the number-one purchaser of U.S.
armaments since 2011, although no previous deal was quite as large
as this one. One may ask, to what extent have these purchases contributed
to a lessening of Islamic terrorism since 2011? In fact, terrorism in the
Middle East has increased since that time, not lessened.
As of the writing of this
article, Saudi Arabia is being sued for complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
Higher-ups in the Saudi governmental bureaucracy – wealthy scions of a
hereditary monarchy (thus, anti-democratic to the core) – are accused by the
families of deceased Americans of financing this atrocious attack on U.S.
citizens of every religion in 2001. The suit asserts that "through a
network of the kingdom's officers, employees and/or agents," Saudia Arabia was behind the most vicious attack ever
launched on our homeland.
During the past few
years, various investigative journalists have pointed their fingers at Saudi Arabia for having channeled money to ISIS and
al-Qaeda. Further, in a powerful evaluation of Saudi complicity in
radical Islam, Saudi Arabia has been properly portrayed as the inspiration for radical Islam because of
Saudi Arabia's promotion of the rigid, simplistic, and cruel version of Islam
known as Wahhabism. Further, although the Saudis officially were glad to
be rid of Pres. Mohamed Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,
even the N.Y. Times noted that there is a new rapprochement between the
Saudis and the Muslim Brotherhood leaders in certain parts of Yemen. Even
as early as 2014, the Saudis, Qatar, and Kuwait were being cited as sources of support for terrorism.
The duplicity and
shifting policies are never-ending among the Saudis and other Middle East
players. In 2015, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace announcedthat
there was a pivot by Hamas, an Iran-backed and financed terrorist group
operating in Gaza, away from Iran and toward the Saudis. Yet, less than a
year later, Hamas was depicted by another news outlet as trying to choose between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Shortly afterward, the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal,was angered by contact between leaders of
Saudi Arabia and Israel.
This writer sees an Arab
world in a state of continuous intrigue and sinister plots. We do not see
stable alliances like NATO, the European Union, or even the Organization of
American States. Rather, we see the willingness of Iran, representing the
Shiite Muslims, vying with the Saudis and other Sunni states, to support terror
groups and vicious groups within the Muslim world. It is not a simple
picture of the Iranian Shiites vs. the anti-terrorist Sunni countries.
Intrigues and pro-death agendas infect both divisions of Islam.
Let us also be aware that Qatar has also been a strong supporter of the terrorist
organization al-Qaeda operating through the Al-Nusra front
organization in Syria. Al-Qaeda is fighting ISIS, but this is part of the
internecine warfare between different terror-oriented organizations, not a
fight between "good guys" and "bad guys." Can the
reader of this article begin to understand the dark underbelly, the sinister
thread, involved with Sunni Muslim phony commitment to anti-terrorism?
By all means, let us
"drive out, drive out" the evil ones, the terroristic ones, but let
us not adjust to a simplistic understanding of what this means. We must
remain ever vigilant, lest we be slain by our own weapons and our own rhetoric.
EYE ON THE NEWS
May 23, 2017
The Wahhabi Threat
Westerners must wake up to the danger in our midst.May 23, 2017
Public safety
The Manchester suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was the son of Libyan refugees to Britain. It has yet to be established whether he acted on his own or in concert with others, though it seems likely that, at the very least, he was part of a like-minded (if mind is quite the word for it) group of youths. He was already known to the security services. He was also a student at Salford University, which, given the high rate of employment for college graduates in Britain, suggests that hopelessness and an utter lack of prospects could not explain—as they are often claimed to in the case of suicide bombers in truly miserable parts of the world—his decision to kill as many young Mancunians as he was able.
What, then, does explain it? Perhaps in earlier times he would have found a Marxist groupuscule that would have provided him with the total explanation of all the ills of the world that troubled youth so often seek, and that also suggests to them the equally total solution to them. But the downfall of the Soviet Union destroyed completely the prestige of Marxism, however much theoretical Marxists may have denied that the Soviet Union was a genuinely Marxist state: and so, Salman Abedi sought his total explanation and solution elsewhere. The obvious place was Islam, for he was of Muslim descent and heritage and there were no other contenders for the possession of his soul, both little and grandiose. I never thought I would lament the demise of Marxism, but I have recently begun to remember it rather more fondly. By comparison with Islamism, it was intellectually compelling; Marxists could have interesting things to say, however mistaken they were, which Islamists never can and never will be able to do. At most, they are interesting to psychopathologists.
The ideology of the caliphate is so absurd and intellectually vacuous that to try to refute it is to do it more honor than it deserves or is capable of supporting. But the history of the world proves that absurdity is no obstacle to acceptance, even (or perhaps I should say especially) by the intelligent and educated. And Islamism in Europe can count on the financial support of, or sustenance by, the Saudi, or Wahhabi, state. Even if there was no direct link between the action of Salman Abedi and the Saudi or Wahhabi state, the latter has spent untold millions in spreading its version of rigorism in the world, on creating the atmosphere in which it flourishes and without which it would not survive. It would not be surprising to learn that some of Abedi’s associates, if not Abedi himself, had lived a life of dissipation until converted to that vicious rigorism, having discovered that dissipation was not the way to a fulfilled life.
I was in Paris when Abedi killed at least 22 people. Three days before, I had read a report in Le Figaro that there was an area of the center of Paris in which women now feared to walk because of harassment by Muslim men who treat them as if they were prostitutes, driving them from the streets. I spent the day after Abedi killed 22 people with Muslim friends from Egypt, good people who are as far from committing terrorism as I. Wahhabism must be confronted.
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