Post by Said1 on Oct 27, 2005 12:56:40 GMT -5
COMMENTARY
Our Saudi foes
FRANK J. GAFFNEY JR.
By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
October 25, 2005
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to focus long-overdue attention on the single most important factor in the future course of the War for the Free World: Which side is Saudi Arabia on? Unfortunately, the press of other business has caused this most timely of hearings to be postponed.
The reason this question deserves urgent attention should be obvious: Since November 2001, there has been a roughly three-fold increase in the price of a barrel of oil, from $18 to as much as $70. As a result, Saudi Arabia -- which currently exports about 10 million barrels per day -- receives an extra half-billion dollars every day from oil-consuming nations.
If even a fraction of that $500 million in found-money -- to say nothing of the other resources of the Saudi kingdom -- is being put in the service of our Islamofascist enemies, we are likely to face an even more serious problem in the future than we do today.
As today's Judiciary Committee hearing would surely have demonstrated, it is a safe bet that a significant portion of the Saudis' petro-windfall will be put in the hands of Islamist totalitarians bent on our destruction. That is not simply because Saudi Arabia has long had ties to Islamofascist terrorists, however.
Worse yet, the Saudis are themselves the wellspring of Sunni Islamofascism. To paraphrase Pogo, we have met the enemy and it is Saudi Arabia.
This is, to say the least, inconvenient. Saudi Arabia is the biggest single supplier to this country of oil, a commodity without which America's society cannot currently function. State Department Arabists, oil executives, some retired generals and hired public relations guns endlessly claim that the Saudis are, moreover, our indispensable allies in the war on terror, in securing Mideast peace and in keeping the price of oil from going even higher.
Had the hearing not been cancelled, senators would have received powerful evidence of the Saudis' true colors. From former Clinton CIA Director James Woolsey and a member of the International Religious Freedom Commission, Nina Shea, they would have heard the breathtaking results of a study performed earlier this year by Freedom House. It indisputably demonstrated that the Saudi government has been directly responsible for putting materials rife with jihadist propaganda and incitement in American mosques.
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