Saudi, an ISIS That Has Made It!

[Aramagedon]

Video: Inside Saudi Arabia: Butchery, Slavery & History Of Revolt // Empire_File005 - People & Blogs - VideosFan

Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia. In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other. This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.

Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that arose in the 18th century, hopes to restore a fantasized caliphate centered on a desert, a sacred book, and two holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Born in massacre and blood, it manifests itself in a surreal relationship with women, a prohibition against non-Muslims treading on sacred territory, and ferocious religious laws. That translates into an obsessive hatred of imagery and representation and therefore art, but also of the body, nakedness and freedom. Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.

The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.

One might counter: Isn’t Saudi Arabia itself a possible target of Daesh? Yes, but to focus on that would be to overlook the strength of the ties between the reigning family and the clergy that accounts for its stability — and also, increasingly, for its precariousness. The Saudi royals are caught in a perfect trap: Weakened by succession laws that encourage turnover, they cling to ancestral ties between king and preacher. The Saudi clergy produces Islamism, which both threatens the country and gives legitimacy to the regime.

Saudis behind 60% of Iraq bombings: Saudi paper | Electronic Resistance

One has to live in the Muslim world to understand the immense transformative influence of religious television channels on society by accessing its weak links: households, women, rural areas. Islamist culture is widespread in many countries — Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania. There are thousands of Islamist newspapers and clergies that impose a unitary vision of the world, tradition and clothing on the public space, on the wording of the government’s laws and on the rituals of a society they deem to be contaminated.

It is worth reading certain Islamist newspapers to see their reactions to the attacks in Paris. The West is cast as a land of “infidels.” The attacks were the result of the onslaught against Islam. Muslims and Arabs have become the enemies of the secular and the Jews. The Palestinian question is invoked along with the rape of Iraq and the memory of colonial trauma, and packaged into a messianic discourse meant to seduce the masses. Such talk spreads in the social spaces below, while up above, political leaders send their condolences to France and denounce a crime against humanity. This totally schizophrenic situation parallels the West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia.

All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies’ thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause. Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?

Is curing the disease therefore a simple matter? Hardly. Saudi Arabia remains an ally of the West in the many chess games playing out in the Middle East. It is preferred to Iran, that gray Daesh. And there’s the trap. Denial creates the illusion of equilibrium. Jihadism is denounced as the scourge of the century but no consideration is given to what created it or supports it. This may allow saving face, but not saving lives.

Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.

The attacks in Paris have exposed this contradiction again, but as happened after 9/11, it risks being erased from our analyses and our consciences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-isis-that-has-made-it.html

 

[Aramagedon]

Is It Time To Make Saudi Arabia Pay For Underwriting International Terrorism?


Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/08/2015 19:52 -0500

Needless to say, we weren’t surprised.

“Now clearly there are no smoking guns here, but it's worth noting that when it comes to radicalization, no one does it quite like the Saudis,” we said, the day after the attacks once the media revealed that Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia to marry Malik.

We continued: “Although we would urge caution when it comes to drawing conclusions around the sectarian divide, we'd be remiss if we didn't note that ISIS, al-Qaeda, and many of the other groups the public generally identifies with extremism, are Sunni and Saudi Arabia (where Farook allegedly found his wife) promotes puritanical Wahhabism.”

That echoes the sentiments of Kamel Daoud, a columnist for Quotidien d’Oran, and the author of “The Meursault Investigation” who, in a New York Times Op-ed published earlier this month, called Saudi Arabia “an ISIS that made it.” Here’s an excerpt:

Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things. The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia. In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other. This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.

For those who prefer a visual representation, this should help:



It now appears that the world may finally be waking up to what's going on. While it's undoubtedly important to understand the role the Saudis and Qatar have played in funding, arming, and training Sunni extremists across the region, it's perhaps even more critical that public begins to come to terms with the fact that it's the ideology Riyadh pushes that's perhaps more dangerous than anything else. Note that this isn't a comment on Islam or Muslims. It's a comment on the Saudi's brand of puritanical Islam that frankly, is poisonous.

Here with some fresh commentary on all of the above and on why it's time for the US to reevaluate its relationship with Riyadh, is Politico.

* * *

From "Saudi Arabia Is Underwriting Terrorism. Let’s Start Making It Pay," by Charles Kenny as originally published in Politico

We don’t know yet what happened to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik during her many years living in Saudi Arabia, or what her U.S.-born husband and accomplice, Syed Farook, might have experienced during his two recent visits to the country. But it isn’t news that Saudi Arabia, a supposed U.S. ally, has a long record of promoting religious extremism at home and exporting it abroad. According to a Reuters report, relatives of the Pakistani-born Malik say she and her father appeared to have become more radicalized during years they spent in Saudi Arabia. Between 1,500 and 2,500 Saudis have joined the fighting in Iraq and Syria in part thanks to the close relationship between the ideology of the Islamic State and of Saudi Wahabism. In the last month alone, Saudi Arabia has declared its intent to behead 50 people across the country and has threatened legal action against any who suggest beheading is “ISIS-like.”

For years since 9/11, U.S. and Western officials have mostly looked the other way at all this ideological support for extremism: Saudi oil was just too important to the global economy, even though many of these Saudi petro-dollars were underwriting repression at home and the growth of Salafist fundamentalism abroad. But today, two things have changed: first, the global cost of Saudi-backed extremism has continued to climb—with the rise of ISIS and Boko Haram, the bombings in Beirut and Paris and the shootings in San Bernardino.

The other factor that has changed is that there is no longer as much economic justification for America to kowtow to the Saudi regime. With Saudi Arabian dominance of the global oil market declining, and the United States moving itself closer to energy independence—and the deal to halt Iranian nuclear weapons technology moving ahead, neutralizing for the moment at least the threat of a Mideast arms race—there has never been a better time to reconsider America’s close relationship with the House of Saud.

It’s long past time, in other words, to make Saudi Arabia pay for its ideological support of extremism. The United States should be pressuring Saudi Arabia to reform and—if necessary—move on to targeted sanctions modeled on those the United States has applied to Russia, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia, of course, denies that it is involved in underwriting extremism; it maintains, on the contrary, that it is part of the coalition against Islamic State and it has been a victim of extremist terror attacks. But the record of Saudi Arabia’s global support for extremists suggests it should be on the shortlist for inclusion on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, at the least.

This support for radicalism abroad should come as little surprise given that Islamic State is an ideological cousin of Saudi Arabia’s own state-sponsored extremist Wahhabi sect—which the country has spent more than $10 billion to promote worldwide through charitable organizations like the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. The country will continue to export extremism as long as it practices the same policies at home.

In fact, the country’s domestic human rights abuses are enough reason to impose sanctions alone. Venezuela is under U.S. sanctions at the moment for “erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations.” It might be shorter to list the human rights Saudi Arabia upholds than those it abuses.

Beyond the floggings and beheadings meted out to those who dare suggest reform, Saudi Arabia’s record on women is a sick form of gender apartheid. They are banned from obtaining a passport, marrying, traveling or going to college without the approval of their husband or other male guardian.

Yet we haven’t really even started this discussion about Saudi Arabia in America. Indeed, the United States is still deeply implicated in Saudi Arabia’s abuses. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. exported $934 million in arms to Saudi Arabia from 2005 to 2009. From 2010 to 2014, it exported $2.4 billion more. This month, it approved another billion-dollar shipment. The U.S. provides training, shares intelligence and gives logistics support to Saudi Arabia’s military. And President Barack Obama rushed to Riyadh to pay obeisance to the country’s new king, Salman, early in 2015, only days after the death of his predecessor, Abdullah.

* * *

In short, if the US wants to dial back the "crazy", Washington should consider the fact that despite incessant Ayatollah trolling, an admittedly insane judicial system, and valid charges that the Quds have, at times, engaged in acts that can only be described as "terrorism", the world would benefit from a little more of this...

... and a whole hell of a lot less of this...

Is It Time To Make Saudi Arabia Pay For Underwriting International Terrorism? | Zero Hedge

 

[Aurangzeb29]

Funny Iranian propaganda, did you write that up yourself or did the Russians help you write it ?

Why dont you post Iranian Punishments next to the Saudi ones so we can all compare.

Talk about 'the pot calling the kettle black'