Saudi Arabia, Our Friend And Ally, by Hugh Fitzgerald.
The State Department has just issued its annual report on religious freedom around the world.
Saudi Arabia, to judge by the language of the report, vied with North Korea as the worst offender. … He cited criminal penalties — but did not explain that for some of those “crimes” the penalty is death — for apostasy, atheism, blasphemy, and insulting the Saudi state’s interpretation of Islam, as well as discrimination against, and attacks targeting, Shi’ite Muslims. …
And while limits on the religious freedom of foreigners was mentioned, the report did not go into the details of how, in Saudi Arabia, the observation of Christian worship, no matter if held behind closed doors, is strictly forbidden and severely punished. A few years ago, four Korean women were singing Christmas carols softly in their rooms, far from any Muslims. The matawain, or religious police, who are always on the prowl, overheard them, hauled them away, and they were promptly deported for their caroling sins. They may have been lucky; the usual punishment for singing carols is 1000 lashes, which can prove fatal for some. And before there were the Korean women, there were British nurses, also caught celebrating Christmas behind doors. And that 1000 lashes is also the punishment prescribed for wishing anyone Merry Christmas in the thoroughly Islamic state of Saudi Arabia.
Nor did the State Department report take up the perennial problem of Saudi textbooks which preach hatred of Christians and Jews, about which discussion has been going on for more than a decade, with the Saudis constantly reassuring the Americans that they are making all the necessary changes. In fact, those textbooks continue to include lessons describing the Jews “as the sons of apes and pigs,” and of Infidels as the “most vile” of creatures (which is just a quote from Qur’an 98:6, though the State Department may not realize it). …
Meanwhile, in official Washington, Saudi Arabia is still considered a “friend and ally.”
Even though it … teaches hatred of Jews and Christians in its schools, and continues to spread Salafi Islam, with billions spent … on mosques, madrasas, and imams all over the Muslim world.
But aren’t the SJWs worried about the Saudi’s hate speech? No, not in the slightest.
The more Sunnis and Shi’a go at it, the more each side expends in men, materiel, money, and morale, in fighting with each other in many different theaters — Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, possibly the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan — the less trouble they can make for us, the Infidels. The “proxy war” between Iran and Saudi Arabia that is now going on will be even more useful to the West if it becomes a direct and ferocious conflict, and one which, given the balance of forces in the area, is likely to go on for at least as long as did the Iran-Iraq war. Perhaps there is some downside to such an outcome, but I just can’t figure out what that might be.
hat-tip Stephen Neil
