The Price of Oil

With the price of gasoline flirting with $3 a gallon, it’s time to think seriously about energy independence for America. We need this not only for our economy, but for our national security.

Among those who benefit from the current skyrocketing prices are the oil-producing Arab nations so prominent in spreading an ideology of hate worldwide. The prime offender in this regard is that prominent “ally” of the United States: Saudi Arabia.

We’ve known for years about the hate spewed out of mosques in Saudi Arabia. Now we know they are exporting their bilge here. It’s the kind of Wahhabi-style ideology that motivated the 9/11 hijackers, most of whom were Saudis. It’s worth remembering that Osama bin Laden is a Saudi who has become the worldwide champion of this kind of vicious propaganda.

According to an 89-page report released last January by Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, “Saudi-connected resources and publications on extremist ideology remain common reading and educational material in some of America’s main mosques.”

Who pays for these mosques and their hateful literature? Saudi Arabia. Where do they get the money? At the pump.

The report, Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques, is based on research at a dozen mosques or Islamic centers in Los Angeles, Oakland, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Washington, and New York. Researchers uncovered a vast corpus of hate literature—about 200 books—promoting hatred of Jews, Christians, and American society in general. Because most of these writings are in Arabic or other tongues unfamiliar to most Americans, they have been little noticed in our free and tolerant society.

But not any more. According to Freedom House, the Saudi materials:

· “assert that it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews and warn against imitating, befriending, or helping them in any way, or taking part in their festivities and celebrations”;

· “promote contempt for the United States because it is ruled by legislated civil law rather than by totalitarian Wahhabi-style Islamic law. They condemn democracy as un-Islamic”;

· “stress that when Muslims are in the lands of the unbelievers, they must behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines. Either they are there to acquire new knowledge and make money to be later employed in the jihad against the infidels, or they are there to proselytize the infidels until at least some convert to Islam. Any other reason for lingering among the unbelievers in their lands is illegitimate, and unless a Muslim leaves as quickly as possible, he or she is not a true Muslim and so too must be condemned.”

Thankfully, such beliefs are not monolithic in the American Muslim community. In fact, in July U.S. Islamic leaders issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against terrorism. According to press reports, the document received the endorsement of 120 Muslim leaders and organizations. Issued by the Fiqh Council of North America, a judicial body, the fatwa was blunt.

“Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives,” the council said. “There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians’ life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram—or forbidden—and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not martyrs.”

That’s a good first step. Another would be to ask the Saudis to declare which side they are on. If the United States is driven from the Middle East, it’s a safe assumption that the Islamists would not be kind to the decadent Saudi royal family.

The price of gas makes the case, in more ways than one, for American energy independence.