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n2doc

(47,953 posts) Tue May 24, 2016, 02:24 PM May 2016

It's Time to Stop the Saudis

When will we admit that many of our Gulf "allies" are spreading violent extremism worldwide?
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE

Back in 1999, the last time we had a President Clinton, the United States and NATO intervened in Kosovo to prevent the slaughter of civilians in yet another of the brutal civil wars that resulted from the dissolution of what used to be Yugoslavia. The intervention was vigorous enough to draw criticism from, among other organizations, Amnesty International, but it had the desired effect. The slaughter was of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, most of whom were Muslims, a community that, until all hell broke loose, generally lived in harmony with its Christian neighbors.

I mention all this because, as The New York Times reports, our great good friends, the Saudis, and their affiliated statelets around the Persian Gulf, are doing their best to start the bloodletting all over again.

The mosque is one of scores built here with Saudi government money and blamed for spreading Wahhabism—the conservative ideology dominant in Saudi Arabia—in the 17 years since an American-led intervention wrested tiny Kosovo from Serbian oppression. Since then—much of that time under the watch of American officials—Saudi money and influence have transformed this once-tolerant Muslim society at the hem of Europe into a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists. Kosovo now finds itself, like the rest of Europe, fending off the threat of radical Islam. Over the last two years, the police have identified 314 Kosovars—including two suicide bombers, 44 women and 28 children—who have gone abroad to join the Islamic State, the highest number per capita in Europe. They were radicalized and recruited, Kosovo investigators say, by a corps of extremist clerics and secretive associations funded by Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab gulf states using an obscure, labyrinthine network of donations from charities, private individuals and government ministries.

Absent western intervention, Kosovo wouldn't exist today. That doesn't matter to the purveyors of hate and death. If someone can tell me what benefits—besides cheap oil and the feeling that it can always get worse—the world gains from the continued existence of the governments in the Gulf states, I'd be keen to know.

Any influence over them that might come from us arming these governments is clearly nil. They are authoritarian theocracies, bribing murderers to kill people all around the world so they won't kill anyone back home. These countries are a blight, and their rulers, largely plutocratic criminals. These are our allies in the fight against terror.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a45149/kosovo-extremist-islam-saudi-arabia/

9 replies

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It's Time to Stop the Saudis (Original Post) n2doc May 2016 OP

It's time to embargo Saudi funding of terrorists, and to arrest the leading financiers. leveymg May 2016 #1

I think the assets of known terrorist groups are already being frozen. Bad Dog May 2016 #2

That identification and freezing of assets is confined to tier-one terrorists, not their bankers, leveymg May 2016 #3

It's not happening for a reason. Bad Dog May 2016 #4

You would be right. And Compartmentalized TS operations against the Russians and their allies leveymg May 2016 #5

There's always the need for Saudi money Bad Dog May 2016 #6

also need for saudi oil to grease the wheels of industry Amishman May 2016 #8

And there lies the problem. Bad Dog May 2016 #9

This is what we get lancer78 May 2016 #7

leveymg

(36,418 posts)

1. It's time to embargo Saudi funding of terrorists, and to arrest the leading financiers.

Reply to n2doc (Original post)

Tue May 24, 2016, 02:35 PM

May 2016

If Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf States won't cooperate in prosecuting and breaking up Jihadi support networks, we should freeze their assets in the west, and proceed to arrest the leading figures where ever they may be, and no matter how wealthy.

Bad Dog

(2,025 posts)

2. I think the assets of known terrorist groups are already being frozen.

Reply to leveymg (Reply #1)

Tue May 24, 2016, 04:18 PM

May 2016

The article was more about the pernicious spread of Wahabbist Islam, which although not an advocate of terrorism in itself, shares a lot of the ideals of jihadists. This brand is being given a lot of money to spread its tentacles throughout the Mosques world wide. It's something that needs to be resisted.

leveymg

(36,418 posts)

3. That identification and freezing of assets is confined to tier-one terrorists, not their bankers,

Reply to Bad Dog (Reply #2)

Tue May 24, 2016, 04:45 PM

May 2016

and never state sponsors in Sunni states. CIA and Treasury Finsec had AQ's financial network "mapped out" in 1997 after a key figure defected, but they never took any action against any but a tiny number of individual contributors, "religious" organizations, and smaller banks, even after 9/11. We continue to ignore the moneyed actors who keep ISIS going, because they are the same groups.