BNP ANTI-JIHAD BULLETIN
JANUARY 15, 2007

British National Party
www.bnp.org.uk






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@...





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 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
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 days
when 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 are some 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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