Fareed Zakaria began and ended his show on CNN this morning with his take on Saudi Arabia, namely its role in global terrorism and the Manchester Bombing. I like Fareed when he talks about history and economics, not so much when he gives a dissertation on terrorism. I wouldn’t say he’s pro-terrorist, but he does come up with an awful lot of excuses for them.
In response to a poem read in honor of the Manchester victims Fareed ended his show with this: “Following the senseless bombing of a venue that celebrates creativity and the arts, it is often these exact things that lift our souls in moments of despair.”
He was speaking of the poem, of course, and the uplifting spirit of the words therein. But it did sound a bit like, ‘Hey in face of terrorism my response has always been to curl up with a good book. Take my mind off things – go to a museum for some culture.’
My response to terrorism is more direct and to the point; You can never be too rich or do too much against terrorism I always say. But Fareed likes to blame-shift when it comes to radical Islamic terrorism; it’s always some country’s foreign policy, Pakistan, another country’s lack of domestic policy, or Saudi Arabia.
Which is where he began his show, a critique of Saudi Arabia; that bastion of terror as he would have you believe. Now I’m all for Saudi bashing; I’m not what you would call a big fan. But to call Saudi Arabia the “center of terrorism,” is not entirely accurate – without some serious drilling-down.
To say that the Saudi government itself “exports terrorism” is like blaming Massachusetts for exporting crazy liberalist thought. It’s not the fault of the Mass. State Legislature or government, but the fault of Massachusetts’ college professors and teachers.
Saudi Arabia certainly does export terrorists, per se, because the unemployment rate among able-bodied men is over 35% 2 and the Saudis want to keep terrorism and terrorists far away from the kingdom.
“Central to the spread of terrorism is Saudi Arabia’s five decades long relationship with a narrow, puritanical and intolerant version of Islam.” 3 Certainly Fareed is talking about Wahhabism, but it should be noted the rulers of Saudi Arabia aren’t really that religious. They are more interested in shopping, buying islands, adding to their harems, and checking oil futures than strict religious adherence to Islam.
But they do put on a good showing for the populace they rule over, and it is true that the Imams and Wahhabists have more control over the masses than the wealthy governing class. To keep everyone happy Wahhabism is tolerated. The Imams lay off the ruling class and in turn the government has a hands-off approach to quelling radical speech, giving the imams a carte blanc within their own borders. This is why terrorists are exported all over Europe and the Middle East – they find it hard to operate in their country of origin.
Fareed points out the fact that Saudi nationals make up the majority of ISIS fighters and fill the ranks of other terrorist groups; but this isn’t merely because of the Saudi governments ‘funding activities.’ More to blame is the fact that the second leading export to oil is unemployed Muslim men whose only obtainable job is a jihad somewhere outside of Saudi Arabia. (And the Saudi royals would like to keep it that way, thank you very much.)
Saudi money plays a part in global terrorism. For one, there are a lot (a whole lot) of young wealthy Saudis with money to burn equal the the GNP of some third-world nations; and some of this cash ends up in the hands of ne’er do wells through charities, some foundations to be sure. But half the people involved are siphoning off funds for terrorists.
The BND recently estimated that charities, mosques, schools, and imams across Germany are funded with Saudi-money4. Carol Gall of the New York Times wrote, “Saudi-trained imams have propagated the supremacy of Sharia law as well as ideas of violent jihad.” Yes, and they do – but try and do anything about that in the Western world and a band of marchers will shut down your airports; so it would seem we are at the point of moot and impasse.
As far as reforming Saudi Arabia the ruling class is not ready to break with religion and this is self-preservation – because terrorist acts are ‘exported’ away from their own country and done unto others.
Speaking in front of Saudi leaders this week President Trump heaped blame on Iran for funding and supporting terrorism around the globe. Fareed called this, “wildly inaccurate,” and that Iran is “just a destabilizing bad actor.” He ended with, “the Saudi’s played Trump.” And another line Fareed couldn’t resist was that Trump was making Saudi Arabia great again, not America.
This snarky rhetoric gets us no closer to a solution, and further confuses people as to the causes and aims of terrorist groups, how it is funded and why, and who actually is to blame. And most of the blame should be aimed at those who are blowing themselves up. Saudi Arabia could be doing a lot more to defeat terrorism, but, they are a part of the US-led coalition against ISIS and really are guilty of keeping terrorism out of their country for the most part while the rest of the world bickers over who is to blame here. Less blame; more action.
- Tony Walsh, poem: This is the Place.
