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FRIEND OR FOE?
Our Unfriendly ‘Ally:’ Saudi Arabia’s Doctrine of Death
By Dale Hurd
CBN News Sr. Reporter
August 19, 2002
Saudi religious money has only one string attached: you must teach wahhabism, the same doctrine taught to a very famous Saudi named Osama bin Laden.
CBN.com – Americans have gotten used to thinking of Saudi Arabia as our friend and ally in the war on terrorism. But there is a growing body of evidence that it is neither friend nor ally. And the relationship is unraveling.
The London Times reports that the Saudis still have not handed over to the United States any valuable intelligence about Al Qaeda. And the kingdom has banned the U.S. from using Saudi airbases to attack Iraq.
Now Americans are suing the Saudis for having a role in 9-11, even as Saudi Islamic teaching remains at the center of Muslim terrorism.
Missionary Martin Burnham was killed, in part, because of official Saudi religious teaching; so was Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl; so were 5,000
Indonesian Christians; and so were the victims of September 11th. Their deaths were all inspired by official Saudi Islamic doctrine.
Washington and Riyadh made a show of reaffirming their friendship after a presentation to Pentagon planners that said Saudi Arabia is in fact America's enemy
in the war on terror. Whether the report is accurate, Saudi Arabia is certainly no friend of Christians, Jews, or liberty.
Analyst Doug Bandow said, "I think the Saudi human rights record is about the worst in the Middle East. I mean, if you were a Christian or you were a woman
you would probably prefer to be in Iraq than in Saudi Arabia. Yet we embrace the Saudis. It's a terrible record. There's no political freedom. There's no economic liberty. If you want to
practice Christianity, you know if you want to live a life with any sort of freedom, that's not a place you can be."
Saudi dissident Ali Ahmed's family is persecuted in Saudi Arabia because his relatives are Shia Muslim, the wrong kind in Sunni Saudi Arabia. He has testified
before Congress on a land where women are property, converts to Christianity are executed, and people are taught to hate.
Ali said, "What they teach that Jew — I’m not talking about Israel here — I'm just talking about Jew, period, is the most disgusting
creature on earth, you know, you should hate that person with a passion. [And] the cross is a sign of evil."
Here are the words of Sheik Said al Brake at one of Saudi Arabia's largest mosques:
- "Muslim brothers in Palestine, do not have any mercy or compassion on the Jews, their blood, their money, their skin. Their women are yours to take,
legally. Allah made them yours. People should know that Jews are backed by the Christians, and the battle that we are going through is not with Jews only, but also with those who believe that Allah
is part of the Trinity, and those who said Jesus is the son of Allah, and those who said that Allah is Jesus, the son of Mary."
- Another well known Saudi cleric has publicly prayed for Allah to "terminate" the Jews, whom he described as "the scum of humanity... the rats
of the world... pigs and monkeys."
Historian Michael Ledeen said, "That's a Saudi doctrine, the official doctrine of the Saudi state. Then they export this doctrine, not only to the
terrorists, but they've built thousands of mosques and religious schools all over the western world, over a thousand in the United States alone, which have the same textbooks, translated into
English, the same doctrine, the same nutty ideas — kill a Christian go to heaven, kill a Jew go to heaven, kill an Israeli, kill an American and go straight to paradise. This is Saudi money, Saudi
text, Saudi doctrine."
The doctrine is known as wahhabism, and it flows out of Saudi Arabia, first in the form of money, to nations like Nigeria, where wahhabi influence is increasing.
It also goes to the Philippines and Indonesia, where a jihad continues against Christians. And it exists in the United States, where Saudi money has built mosques and schools.
Saudi religious money has only one string attached: you must teach wahhabism, the same doctrine taught to a very famous Saudi named Osama bin Laden. There are said
to be 7,000 wahhabi academies around the world.
Ali Ahmed read to us from Arabic wahhabi textbooks used in Saudi academies here in the United States. "The question is can you love Christians and Jews? And
the answer is no, you can't," the book said.
Christians from Asia and Africa who live in Saudi Arabia are at special risk of disappearing forever in a Saudi jail. Dennis Moreno, a Filipino, was held for four
months in a cramped Saudi jail without being charged. His offense was worshipping with other Christians in his home.
"Suddenly, the warden of the deportation camps comes in and says, ‘We are going to discipline those who speak against Islam,’" Moreno said.
Moreno says he saw three Christians from the Third World whipped 80 times with a steel cable.
As the list of Saudi human rights abuses is increasingly brought to light in Washington, the Saudi press has begun lashing back, especially at Christians. It warns
Saudis against what it calls dangerous "Christian extremism" in the United States, a reference to evangelicals, because of their support for Israel.
The Saudi press does print the views of some Americans. It is particularly fond of American white supremacists.
CBN News asked the Saudi Embassy in Washington for an interview. They told our producer in Arabic, "CBN and Pat Robertson? Don't waste our time."
During the Cold War, America fought Soviet-backed forces all over the world, including Korea, Vietnam, and Central America. We called the Soviet Union our
adversary. Today Americans and Christians and Jews are being tortured and killed the world over by Islamic terrorists who are inspired and bankrolled by the Saudis, yet the U.S. government considers
Saudi Arabia, our friend.
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