[det dweller too]

What a mess!
Clearly we need to address this religious based extremism before it pushes us all into a real world war, probably a terminal one. And I think we need to confront the evil, not accomodate it. I worry that we are not up to the task.

[My Identity]

Arab outrage is going off the charts:

SUDAN
- Several hundred thousand people marched denouncing Israel and America
- Two million Christians killed by National Islamic Front
- Calls for 'holy war' against Israel
- Jihad forcing Islam On Christians, Using Rape and Killing

MOROCCO
- hundreds of thousands demonstrate against Israel and America

SAUDI ARABIA
- Wahabbists plus money = world-wide mess

PALESTINE
- Islamic Mufti calls for the murder of Jews and Americans

"We must not stand in the way of the intifada and jihad [holy war].
Rather, we must stand at their side and encourage them."

- Sheikh Akrameh Sabri, Mufti of Jerusalem

"The infidel countries, led by the United States, invented the excuse and justification for their dirty war against Islam and Islamic movements all over the world, following the attack against it. The U.S. used, in its criminal aggression against Afghanistan, the most destructive bombs there are ... Do the Muslims of today know how to realize Allah’s path, and to turn only to Allah? Not to turn to the evil United States, or to Europe so filled with hatred toward Islam and Muslims?"

- Sermon delivered in the Al Aksa Mosque (Temple Mount), PA's Voice of Palestine radio

EGYPT

"The solution to the Israeli terror lies in a proliferation of Fidai [martyrdom] attacks that strike horror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah. The Islamic countries, peoples and rulers alike, must support these martyrdom attacks."

- Sheikh Al-Tayyeb, Egypt’s new "moderate" mufti

"Jihad in the path of Allah is a virtue that binds Muslims at all times, and it is an obligation on everyone who is able to carry it out, and tens of Qur'anic verses narrate the virtue of Jihad in the path of Allah, as well as tens of prophetic Hadiths [traditions]. Jihad to confront the enemy and liberate the pillaged land is an obligation on Muslims in every time and place... This is what our brothers are now doing in occupied Palestine. Their Jihad against the enemy, against oppression, and against the Israeli tyranny is a legitimate and noble Jihad. It is obligatory for the entire [Islamic] nation. to support them in their Jihad."

- Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, Egypt's highest ranking religious official

"Every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to Islamic religious law, and is an Islamic commandment

- Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, Egypt's highest ranking religious official

"fighting the Americans is a divine order."

- Egyptian Islamic Group

"Hitler himself, whom they accuse of Nazism, is in my eyes no more than a modest 'pupil' in the world of murder and bloodshed. He is completely innocent of the charge of frying them in the hell of his false Holocaust!! The entire matter, as many French and British scientists and researchers have proven, is nothing more than a huge Israeli plot aimed at extorting the German government in particular and the European countries in general. But I, personally and in light of this imaginary tale, complain to Hitler, even saying to him from the bottom of my heart, 'If only you had done it, brother, if only it had really happened, so that the world could sigh in relief [without] their evil and sin.'"

- Accursed Forever and Ever
by Fatma Abdallah Mahmoud, in the Egyptian government daily Al-Akhbar

IRAN

"If it be through the death of Sharon or the death of Bush,
please brighten-up our hearts, O Lord,"

- Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's powerful Guardian Council

"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! ... Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies] ... Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! ... Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim."
- Ayatollah Khomeini, responding to apologists for Islam
(Taheri, Amir, Holy Terror, London 1987, pp. 226-7):

NIGERIA
- Sharia Declared In Southern Nigeria For First Time

LEBANON
- Puppet for Syria

SYRIA
Under the iron rule of the Ba'ath party, the security forces smashed the power of the Islamic fundamentalists in the 1970s and 80s. Nevertheless:

"[Jews] are the betrayers and torturers of Jesus and his message of peace"

- Bashar Asad, President of Syria

"It is the Israeli public, and not just the leaders, who are like the Nazis themselves."

- Bashar Asad, President of Syria

"[I] would kill any Jew standing next to me ... if every Arab would do so, no Jews would be left."

- Syrian Defense Minister

- Syria's Assad denies holocaust

---

The above is just a tiny sliver of what is going on in the region.

Can someone explain how Islam isn't the issue here?

Can someone explain how the West isn't on their short list?

Can someone explain how this isn't a clash of civilizations?

[My Identity]

Interesting political analysis, but his economic analysis of Saudi Arabia seems weak:

Today the United States gets one-fifth of its oil imports from Saudi Arabia. So forget all talk of "energy independence"

The US could stop buying Saudi oil tomorrow. To the extent that it is commodity, the Saudis would sell their oil elsewhere, and we would buy it elsewhere. However, because of the geo-political issues, it is (or was) in the US's interest to buy oil from them. We don't economically have to be there. We geo-politically choose to be there.

The rulers have much on their side: the wealth of the realm, its establishment religious class, the armed power of the state.

The wealth is being withdrawn to secret accounts in Sitzerland, squandered on ridiculous, non-economic projects, etc. The state's religious class is being forced to radicalism. And the army is a very, very weak player. Training is abysmal. US-supplied equipment is going to waste.

These radical preachers and zealots who have stepped forth in the last decade can't run a modern, complex economy.

But then, neither has the Saudi ruling class.