Has Saudi Arabia's rigid strain of Islam fueled global extremism? Saudis and Extremism: ‘Both the Arsonists and the Firefighters’ Critics see Saudi Arabia’s export of a rigid strain of Islam as contributing to terrorism, but the kingdom’s influence depends greatly on local conditions. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-islam.html Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don’t agree on much, but Saudi Arabia may be an exception. She has deplored Saudi Arabia’s support for “radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism.” He has called the Saudis “the world’s biggest funders of terrorism.” The first American diplomat to serve as envoy to Muslim communities around the world visited 80 countries and concluded that the Saudi influence was destroying tolerant Islamic traditions. “If the Saudis do not cease what they are doing,” the official, Farah Pandith, wrote last year, “there must be diplomatic, cultural and economic consequences.” And hardly a week passes without a television pundit or a newspaper columnist blaming Saudi Arabia for jihadist violence. On HBO, Bill Maher calls Saudi teachings “medieval,” adding an epithet. In The Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria writes that the Saudis have “created a monster in the world of Islam.” The idea has become a commonplace: that Saudi Arabia’s export of the rigid, bigoted, patriarchal, fundamentalist strain of Islam known as Wahhabism has fueled global extremism and contributed to terrorism. As the Islamic State projects its menacing calls for violence into the West, directing or inspiring terrorist attacks in country after country, an old debate over Saudi influence on Islam has taken on new relevance. Is the world today a more divided, dangerous and violent place because of the cumulative effect of five decades of oil-financed proselytizing from the historical heart of the Muslim world? Or is Saudi Arabia, which has often supported Western-friendly autocrats over Islamists, merely a convenient scapegoat for extremism and terrorism with many complex causes — the United States’s own actions among them? Those questions are deeply contentious, partly because of the contradictory impulses of the Saudi state. In the realm of extremist Islam, the Saudis are “both the arsonists and the firefighters,” said William McCants, a Brookings Institution scholar. “They promote a very toxic form of Islam that draws sharp lines between a small number of true believers and everyone else, Muslim and non-Muslim,” he said, providing ideological fodder for violent jihadists. Yet at the same time, “they’re our partners in counterterrorism,” said Mr. McCants, one of three dozen academics, government officials and experts on Islam from multiple countries interviewed for this article. Saudi leaders seek good relations with the West and see jihadist violence as a menace that could endanger their rule, especially now that the Islamic State is staging attacks in the kingdom — 25 in the last eight months, by the government’s count. But they are also driven by their rivalry with Iran, and they depend for legitimacy on a clerical establishment dedicated to a reactionary set of beliefs. Those conflicting goals can play out in a bafflingly inconsistent manner. Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian terrorism expert who has advised the United States government, said the most important effect of Saudi proselytizing might have been to slow the evolution of Islam, blocking its natural accommodation to a diverse and globalized world. “If there was going to be an Islamic reformation in the 20th century, the Saudis probably prevented it by pumping out literalism,” he said. (More at above url)
Obviously, they want to have things both ways. They pretend to be our allies but have robbed us for 40+ years through OPEC, which we could and should have shut down in the '70's using military force if necessary. They use the money they stole from us to promote terrorism directly and indirectly, then turn around and use the money to buy our protection by cutting in influential pols like the Bushes and Clintons on some of their riches. They treat our soldiers like hired mercenaries, with the approval of both President Bushes, Clinton and Obama. In a perfect world, we could let them be devoured by the monsters they have created, but that ending creates as many problems as it solves. There are many things we can do however. One is to force them to stop funding mosques and schools in this country. They won't let Americans or anyone else bring a Bible into Saudi Arabia, but they can pour millions into funding terrorism here? That's nuts. Two, we should get to the bottom of their involvement in 9/11 and let the chips fall where they may. Trump may just be the person who can do this. Hillary is obviously too conflicted. It does appear that they provided material support to some of the terrorists. At a minimum, the people responsible should be handed over to us for punishment and they should reimburse us and the victims' families for the damage they caused. Any failure to comply should be met with a total cutoff of visas to Saudis. The universities would scream, since they get top dollar for Saudi dolts, but screw them. They have been ripping us off for years as well. The idea that Saudi Arabia is some vital ally of ours and we must kowtow to them is totally backwards. Without our protection, they are toast and they know it. We get this ally BS because they have bought off so many people in our government and through the oil and defense business. They look on us as their bitches, and they have not been wrong. Our own president bowed shamefully to their King. Time to reset the relationship. With our boot on their throat, which is what they understand.
no we can't as a society we do not have neither brains no balls to do what has to be done what we have are just impulses based on prevailing at the moment cultural moods but impulses, as a rule, are short lived and often regretted soon enough to abandon and even reverse the policy impulsively initiated to switch to another one as impulsive as the previous one....
A lot of truth to that. The great mass of people are conditioned and indoctrinated to the prevailing wisdom by the media, etc. There was a massive effort to hush up the Saudi links to 9/11. There are any number of powerful groups who will come after you if you criticize Saudi funding of mosques here. The media are more upset at some televangelists that a foreign regime spreading hate.
it is like that throughout the world, use to be and probably will be It will be remarked that among the special characteristics of crowds there are several -- such as impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgment and of the critical spirit, the exaggeration of the sentiments, and others besides -- which are almost always observed in beings belonging to inferior forms of evolution -- in women, savages, and children, for instance. Le Bon "The Crowd" well this is our elite in action.... what do you want: the media is under control of our elite
but if we go further: from masses to our elite who is calling the shots, we will see that even them are guided by some conflicting ideas i would even say ideals.. and those are paradoxically not the ideas of self-enrichment or even self-preservation as one would expect from the elite of the capitalist societty no, those are the ideas that based on certain values , ideas of the world order, etc etc.. that are unfortunately lag behind the requirements of the moment, of the changing situation... elite can not adapt, they refuse to adapt because it would mean to change theirs values, the ideals, theirs hopes ...