When ISIS released a video which showed Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh being burned alive, it shocked the entire planet. The evil that it takes to do such a thing is on a level that is almost unspeakable. In the western world, we have a very hard time understanding what would motivate anyone to take a life in such a manner. But in the Middle East, this brand of tyranny has been percolating for a very, very long time. The brand of Islam that ISIS seeks to impose on the areas of Iraq and Syria that it has conquered has been practiced in Saudi Arabia for centuries. Just like ISIS, Saudi Arabia also publicly flogs those that “insult Islam”. Just like ISIS, Saudi Arabia also beheads those that commit serious violations of sharia law. And it is no secret that the Saudis have been pouring billions upon billions of dollars into organizations that promote jihad all over the globe. But because they have a quarter of the world’s oil reserves and they pretend to be our friends, we don’t say anything. They may be more subtle than ISIS, but ultimately they have the same goal as ISIS. When it is all said and done, the Saudis and ISIS both agree that Islam will ultimately rule the world one day. The only disagreement is about how to get there.
Approximately one out of every seven people in the world is Muslim. And the heart of the Muslim world can be found in Saudi Arabia. When ISIS militants publicly flog and behead people for not submitting to sharia law, they are just copying what Saudi Arabia has been doing for centuries. For example, a Saudi blogger was just recently sentenced to 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam“. And on average there is a beheading in Saudi Arabia every four days.
So where is the outrage?
Is it only wrong when ISIS does it?
Lately, ISIS beheadings have not been achieving as much shock value in the media, so they have upped the ante. The following is how the Jerusalem Post described the brutal execution of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS…
Beaten, caged, and burned alive, Muath al-Kasaesbeh, a Jordanian pilot engaged in a global mission against Islamic State, is the latest victim of the brutal terrorist network.
A video released online on Tuesday showed his murder from several angles. He is seen, apparently soaked in an accelerant. A line of fire approaches a barred pen, encircles the prisoner, and consumes him.
Jordan’s armed forces confirmed Kasaesbeh’s death to his family, vowing to avenge him with “strong, earth-shaking and decisive” action.
So precisely how did Jordan choose to respond?
They hung two ISIS jihadists.
One of them was a woman.
And if Islam ever did rule the world, this is the kind of “justice” that would prevail everywhere.
In the western world, we have been so trained to accept that the Saudis are our “friends” that we never really stop to consider their nightmarish violations of human rights.
For instance, did you know that there is no minimum age for marriage in Saudi Arabia? Old men often marry extremely young girls with the full backing of the religious authorities…
Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s top religious authority in the ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam, has ruled it’s acceptable for men to marry girls so young the West would deem it nothing short of pedophilia and rape.
Despite the Saudi justice ministry’s failed efforts to date to set 15 as a minimum age to marry a girl in the kingdom, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz declared there is nothing prohibiting Muslim men from marrying girls even younger.
As Grand Mufti, Abdulaziz is president of the Supreme Council of Ulema (Islamic scholars) and chairman of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing Fatwas, which means he speaks authoritatively in Islamic teachings.
So is pedophilia okay in Saudi Arabia just because they are our “friends”?
Why is hardly anyone denouncing this?
And you can forget about “religious freedom” in Saudi Arabia.
Not a single church exists in the country, and now there are reports that anyone caught smuggling in a Bible could be beheaded…
Unconfirmed reports of a new decree imposing the death penalty on anyone caught smuggling Bibles into Saudi Arabia has many Christian ministries and support groups on edge.
Practicing any religion other than Islam has long been illegal in the desert kingdom, and that includes rules against foreigners bringing in any type of religious material that does not conform to the royal family’s strict Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam. Foreign nationals living in Saudi Arabia are often detained for purely religious reasons, sometimes resulting in deportation.
But applying capital punishment, which in Saudi Arabia often means death by beheading, to Bible smugglers would signal a new level of persecution even for the Saudis.
Very few nations on the face of the planet have such a level of tyranny.
Instead of being our “friends”, we should be loudly condemning these blatant violations of basic human rights.
It is time that we face the truth and admit that Saudi Arabia is one of the most evil nations on the entire globe. The fact that they have so much oil should not change anything.
And you know what? People are starting to raise some legitimate questions about where ISIS is getting their money. What would we do if it could be proven that the Saudis are actually funding them? The following excerpt comes from a recent article in the Telegraph…
Deciding who is funding Isis – and who should take the heat for its survival – depends upon the degree to which the world believes that the “Islamic State” is self-financing. Western governments have detailed the production of oil wells in Isis territory and the vast amounts of cash supposedly stolen from Mosul banks after Isis took over, but smuggling fuel and ransacking vaults can hardly sustain an Islamist “nation” which controls an area larger than the UK.
Millions of dollars must be arriving in Isis hands from outside Iraq and Syria, and the question must be asked: if it doesn’t come from within Saudi Arabia – or Qatar – who on earth is providing the wherewithal? Iceland? Peru?
So could it be possible that the Saudis are actually arming and funding ISIS from behind the scenes?
It is hard to say.
What we do know is that the new king of Saudi Arabia has been funding jihadist movements around the world for a very, very long time…
However, throughout his public career in government, Salman has embraced radical Muslim clerics and has been tied to the funding of radical groups in Afghanistan, as well as an organization found to be plotting attacks against America, according to various reports and information provided by David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
In 2001, an international raid of the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, which Salman founded in 1993, unearthed evidence of terrorist plots against America, according to separate exposés written by Dore Gold, an Israeli diplomat, and Robert Baer, a former CIA officer.
Salman is further accused by Baer of having “personally approved all important appointments and spending” at the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a controversial Saudi charity that was hit with sanctions following the attacks of September 11, 2001, for purportedly providing material support to al Qaeda.
But of course we shouldn’t just be pointing fingers at Saudi Arabia. In my previous article entitled “Is Barack Obama Actually Trying To Help ISIS Take Over Syria?“, I discussed evidence that seems to indicate that the Obama administration may be attempting to use ISIS and other radical jihadist groups to try to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria.
And it is certainly odd that so many of the “moderate” groups that we fund and train over there end up joining forces with ISIS. In fact, we just witnessed yet another example of this…
Before it even begins, the U.S. training and equipping of Syrian opposition forces to fight the Sunni army ISIS appears to have become more difficult with the decision by a U.S.-backed Syrian rebel group to join an Islamist coalition closely associated with ISIS and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra Front.
The Hazzm Movement, associated with the Free Syrian Army, is a secular Syrian insurgent group backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. It was one of the last of the non-jihadist opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria.
Its leadership has decided to join the Islamist coalition of the Levant Front fighting around the key Syrian city of Aleppo, according to Arab news sources, including NOW Lebanon.
The turn of events comes even though Hazzm was viewed by one former Defense Department intelligence officer as a “model candidate for greater U.S. and allied support, including lethal military assistance.”
So if ISIS is really “the enemy”, then why do so many of the things that we do end up helping them?
The struggles that are taking place over in the Middle East are exceedingly complicated.
But in the end, it is very important that we keep one thing in mind.
Whether it is the Saudis or whether it is ISIS or whether it is somebody else, virtually all adherents of radical Islam believe that Islam will ultimately rule the entire world.
And at this point, approximately one out of every seven people on the planet already live under such tyranny to one degree or another.
Unless you actually want your children and your grandchildren to live under such a system, this should trouble you.
Our forefathers intended for our nation to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, and we should be denouncing tyranny in all of its forms – even if it is not “politically correct” to do so.