Friday, May 11, 2007

Peter Hearty reviews The Islamist

From Peter Hearty at the National Secular Society (UK)

The road from potential Jihadist to gentle Sufi has been a long one for Ed Husain. It has taken him to Syria, with its ancient cultural traditions, to Saudi Arabia where he experienced the hypocrisy, xenophobia and archaeological vandalism of the Wahhabi regime. Some may be disappointed that Ed Husain still seeks enlightenment through mysticism, revelation and authority, but I do not. His voice will carry far more weight as a pious Muslim than any number of Ibn Warraqs (for all that I admire him) ever will.

Nigeria Faces Growing Hurdles

From Douglas Farah of the Counterterroism Blog

The almost-daily kidnappings of foreign oil workers (though most are let go in a matter of days) and destruction of the oil pipelines and the ensuing ecological damage, are among the most visible challenges to the new government. There is also the growing militancy of the Taliban in Nigeria, in the north, the Saudi-funded mosque-building and wahhabi outreach efforts, and the spread southward of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (former GSPC).

Immigration and multiculturalism

From Alexander Moens at Reformatorisch Dagblad

Now consider two problems with the current patterns of immigration. First, for the last twenty years radical Wahhabi Islam has greatly increased its influence in Saudi Arabia and other Sunni areas in the Middle East. As the author Dore Gold in his masterful book Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism illustrates beyond doubt, the combination of Wahhabi teaching and global Saudi ’charitable’ foundations has spread a politically violent ideology from Morocco via the Middle East and Pakistan all Middle East and Pakistan all the way to the Philippines. This militant politico-religious vanguard is now abusing immigration and Muslim immigrant communities to try and undermine Western civilization. The evidence coming from the bombers in Madrid and London, and the imminent attackers in Toronto make this plain.

Symposium: Saudi Witch Hunts

From Jamie Glazov at FrontPage Magazine

John R. Bradley: According to news reports and additional research by Western human rights groups, on Feb. 2 Saudi secret police commandos stormed the Jeddah villa of reformist lawyer Esam Basrawi, where he was meeting with a group of five associates widely known for their advocacy on issues of social and political reform in Saudi Arabia. The police arrested all six men in addition to Basrawi's personal assistant. Another associate was arrested in his car in Jeddah, and two others in Medina. The secret police handcuffed those in the villa and transported them to a new mabahith prison about 30 kilometers northeast of Jeddah near Esfan. The Saudi regime promptly accused all those arrested of having links to terrorism, and specifically of channeling funds to Iraqi insurgents. However, nobody but Saudi government apologists takes this explanation seriously -- and even they haven't been very vocal in their condemnation.

How the CIA Failed America

From Richard N. Perle at the Washington Post

But the greatest intelligence failure of the past two decades was the CIA's failure to understand and sound an alarm at the rise of jihadist fundamentalism. It is Wahhabi extremism and the call to holy war against infidels that gave us the perpetrators of Sept. 11 and much of the terrorism that has followed. In his attempts to blame others for CIA shortcomings, Tenet cannot say, "I told the president that our Saudi allies were financing thousands of mosques and schools around the world where a hateful doctrine of holy war and violence was being inculcated in young potential terrorists." Fatefully, the CIA failed to make our leaders aware of the rise of Islamist extremism and the immense danger it posed to the United States.

Al Qaedism, Again

From Victor Davis Hanson at the National Review

A nut in New Jersey can feel as close to a Wahhabi megaphone in Jeddah as a Bedouin just a desert away. Fiery sermons of hate-filled imams on the West Bank (now they employ Mickey Mouse as a prop), or videos of Americans losing limbs in Iraq, or sit-coms from Iran depicting Satanic Americans and Jews, are as cheaply disseminated as they are cheaply produced. To the degree that capital for such Goebbels-like hatred is required — opening radical mosques, printing propaganda, funding madrassas — we should remember that, with recent oil-price spikes, there are annually another $500 billion floating around the Middle East from Shiite Iran to the Sunni Gulf monarchies.