Facing Backlash Brunei Says It Will Not Enforce Gay Sex Death Penalty

Protesters outside the Dorchester hotel in London, owned by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

I continue to see fundamentalist religions of all stripes as a bane on human existence and responsible for far more misery and death than their often pathetic charitable endeavors can ever outweigh. Fundamentalism, be it Christian or Islamic, puts literal interpretations of selective passages from supposed scripture to target those who do not conform or who hold differing faiths,  By both design and default, hatred of others and a division of society are the primary fruits of fundamentalism.  Fortunately, both in the USA and around the world - at least outside of Muslim countries - more and more people are recognizing fundamentalist religion and its message of hate and inhumanity towards others as reprehensible and unacceptable.  This is the lesson the Sultan of Brunei has learned the hard way after implementing "Sharia law" that would subject gays to death by stoning. The backlash to this medieval law has been wide and intense, ranging from boycotts of the top tier hotels owned by the Sultan to nations refusing to have their personnel in Brunei.   A piece in The Guardian looks at the Sultan's announcement that the barbaric law will not be enforced (while an improvement, it needs to be repealed).  Here are article highlights:

Brunei’s Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, has extended a moratorium on the death penalty to incoming legislation on punishments for gay sex, after a global backlash led by celebrities such as George Clooney and Elton John.

The country provoked an outcry when it rolled out its interpretation of Islamic laws, or sharia, on 3 April, punishing sodomy, adultery and rape with death, including by stoning.
Brunei has consistently defended its right to implement the laws, . . . . However, in a rare response to criticism aimed at the oil-rich state, the sultan said on Sunday that the death penalty would not be enforced in the implementation of the sharia penal code order (SPCO).

The vastly wealthy sultan, who once piloted his own 747 airliner to meet the former US president Barack Obama, often faces criticism from activists who view his absolute monarchy as despotic, but it is unusual for him to respond.

The sultan’s office released an official English translation of his speech, which is not common practice.

“Both the common law and the sharia law aim to ensure peace and harmony of the country,” he said. “They are also crucial in protecting the morality and decency of the country as well as the privacy of individuals.”

The law’s implementation, which the UN condemned, prompted celebrities and rights groups to seek a boycott on hotels owned by the sultan, including the Dorchester in London and the Beverley Hills hotel in Los Angeles.

Several multinational companies have since banned staff from using the sultan’s hotels, while some travel companies have stopped promoting Brunei as a tourist destination.

Pulse Massacre Gunman’s Wife Knew of Plot

As USA Today is reporting, the tragic massacre at the Pulse night club could have been prevented had the wife of the gunman, Omar Mateen, had warned authorities of what her husband was planning to do.  Sometimes sins of omission are nearly as bad as sins of commission.  49 lives lost and dozens of other lives forever damaged all because she failed to do the right and moral thing.  Hopefully, her defense attorneys are not successful in alleging that she is innocent and she pays a severe penalty for what she knowingly allowed to happen.  Here are article highlights:

A handwritten statement given to the FBI by the wife of Pulse nightclub gunman Omar Mateen says she saw him prepare for the deadly attack for months and knew that the LGBT nightclub was his target. 

The 12-page statement, quietly released by federal authorities at the end of December in a batch of records in the case, was taken hours after the June 12, 2016 shooting. The attack left 49 dead and dozens of others injured. Noor Salman was questioned for hours, without a lawyer, after authorities learned her husband was the gunman behind the attack. 

She was arrested last year on federal charges of providing material support to a terrorist and tampering with evidence but has pleaded not guilty, claiming she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She said Mateen abused her and claims she did not know of his plot.

But her defense conflicts with the signed statement she gave to the FBI, which details her knowledge of Mateen's planning and his path to carry out an attack on behalf of the Islamic State.

She told agents multiple times she knew his plans and that he was going to attack the Orlando club when he left their home.

She told agents she knew "my fears had come true and he did what he said he was going to do. I was in denial and I could not believe that the father of my child was going to hurt other people."

The statement includes that during a two-year span before the attack. Mateen would browse jihad websites almost everyday and frequently watch beheading videos. He was angry and frustrated about treatment of Muslims in the Middle East and talked about retaliating against Americans.

"He said if he did jihad everybody would know who he is," Salman wrote in the statement.

Salman's attorneys have been fighting against the use of the statement in court, claiming that she was in custody and had not been read her Miranda rights, according to the Orlando Sentinel. 

Prosecutors have said she was not under arrest and that all of her statements were voluntary, though she told agents several stories before writing the statement, which included an apology for lying to the FBI. 

Two days before the shooting, Salman saw Mateen looking at the website for the club. When she saw what he was doing, he said, "this is my target," the statement reads. 

Salman told FBI agents, "I knew that the time to attack the club was close."  The night before the attack, he left the house and looked "pumped up," she wrote in the statement, adding he told her, "This is the one day."

"I knew when he left the house he was going to Orlando to attack the Pulse nightclub," she wrote.

The larger issue, of course, is that pastors and mullahs are allowed to spew hatred towards others under the guise of "deeply held religious beliefs."  Worse yet, the organizations they represent typically enjoy tax exempt status, so every taxpayer is indirectly underwriting their messages of hate.   Personally, I believe that is time for churches and mosques to lose all tax exempt status. 

Trump Regime Votes Against UN Resolution Condemning Death Penalty for Gays

You are not reading the title of this post incorrectly.  Since his inauguration, Der Trumpenführer and his fellow extremist, Mike Pence, having been waging war against the LGBT community, particularly those who are transgender.  Now, that war is seemingly going international and seeking to reverse U.S. positions put in place under the Obama administration.  It goes without saying that the Christofascists who comprise Trump's core base (along with white supremacists) are thrilled.  As are Islamic extremists and the brutal leaders of Saudi Arabia, America's false ally which is the principal financier of Islamic extremism worldwide. The Washington Blade looks at this disturbing development.  Here are highlights:

The U.S. on Sept. 29 voted against a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution that condemns the death penalty for those found guilty of committing consensual same-sex sexual acts.

The resolution — which Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia and Switzerland introduced — passed by a 27-13 vote margin.

Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and the U.K. supported the resolution. Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined the U.S. in opposing it.

The resolution specifically condemns “the imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations” and expresses “serious concern that the application of the death penalty for adultery is disproportionately imposed on women.” It also notes “poor and economically vulnerable persons and foreign nationals are disproportionately subjected to the death penalty, that laws carrying the death penalty are used against persons exercising their rights to freedom of expression, thought, conscience, religion, and peaceful assembly and association, and that persons belonging to religious or ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented among those sentenced to the death penalty.” Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan are among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual activity remains punishable by death. The so-called Islamic State has executed dozens of men in Iraq, Syria and Libya who were accused of committing sodomy.

“It is unconscionable to think that there are hundreds of millions of people living in states where somebody may be executed simply because of whom they love” said ILGA Executive Director Renato Sabbadini in a press release, referring to the resolution. “This is a monumental moment where the international community has publicly highlighted that these horrific laws simply must end.”

Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia in May. He made no mention that consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death in the kingdom in a speech he gave in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

Trump has also not publicly commented on the ongoing crackdown against LGBT Chechens.

The U.S. and 24 other countries in 2014 voted for a resolution against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted. The body in 2011 narrowly approved a resolution in support of LGBT rights that South Africa introduced.

This is what my "friends" who voted for Trump are supporting whether they want to be honest with themselves or not.  Disgusting!

Why is the America So Committed to Terror Financier Saudi Arabia?

I have lamented many times the United States' continued cow towing to Saudi Arabia despite the documented facts that (1) the vast majority of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, (ii) Saudi Arabia is a principal sponsor of spreading Wahhabism and Islamic extremism across the globe, and (iii) Saudi Arabia is one of the worse human rights abusers on the planet.  The Saudis simply put are NOT America's friends or even receptive to western values - or, I would argue, human decency.  Yet America prostitutes itself to this false ally and extremist nation.  A piece in History News Network seeks to answer this question.  The answer to a large extent boils down to one word: oil.   All other considerations more or less are thrown on the trash heap.  Sadly, the Saudis have played America like a fine violin, much to America's and western civilization's loss.  Here are article highlights:

Every year or so the oil-rich Arab kingdom of Saudi Arabia makes American headlines for generally the same reasons. American leaders have made some kind of weapons deal with the Saudi royal family, have praised the monarchy for its commitment to fighting terrorism, or have met with Saudi oil executives to assure that crude and petroleum are flowing unhindered in Asia and Europe. Along with these news items are widespread condemnations of the U.S.-Saudi relationship and reminders that the ultra-fundamentalist Saudi regime is responsible for some of the most outrageous human rights violations on the planet.

American presidents speak frequently of the need to stand up for democracy and religious freedom in the face of radical Islamist tyranny, so why do they insist on backing a dictatorship that will not even allow for Christian churches to be built on Saudi soil? The answer to the question is both simple and complex. The simple answer is the most obvious, and is the primary reason Saudi Arabia is the wealthy powerhouse that it is – oil.

But the more complex answer lies in the relationship between the two countries throughout four distinct periods of conflict – the Second World War, the Cold War, the 1991 Gulf War, and the War on Terror. The Saudis managed to placate the U.S. in each of these four global crises, granting oil concessions and military cooperation while pursuing a regional foreign policy often at odds with American goals and implementing increasingly draconian policies at home. The U.S. has viewed the alliance as valuable enough to overlook Saudi Arabia’s anti-Israel foreign policy and its espousal of Islamic fundamentalist ideology.

When the U.S. entered the Second World War, it did not view Saudi Arabia as an indispensable partner. The kingdom, barely a decade old, had a better relationship with the British, who still had a sizable amount of influence in the Middle East at the time. But the U.S.-Saudi relationship changed significantly over the course of the war as the Americans came to view Saudi oil as, in the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of State Cordell Hull, “one or the world’s greatest prizes.”  . . . . access to oil came to define the U.S.-Saudi relationship during World War 2, and would continue to do so.

During the Cold War, the U.S.-Saudi relationship strengthened, as both countries viewed the Soviet Union as a threat to Persian Gulf oil.  . . . . By the end of Reagan’s presidency, the Middle East had descended into serious sectarian warfare and the U.S. was heavily involved in the region.

But the relationship between Washington and Riyadh survived. In fact, it enjoyed perhaps its most fruitful period in the early 1990s, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Saudi neighbor and ally Kuwait and threatened to control a large percentage of the Gulf’s oil. The Saudi monarchy made a major concession, allowing the U.S. to station hundreds of thousands of troops on its soil in order to fight off the Iraqi advance. The effort was successful, but the presence of American troops on Saudi soil (considered holy land) enraged fundamentalist Muslims throughout the region (including Saudi jihadist Osama bin Laden) and forced the regime to confront what had been lurking in the darkest corners of the country for a couple of decades – Sunni radicalism.

When Osama bin Laden sent his al-Qaeda fanatics to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the U.S.-Saudi relationship faced its most serious challenge to date. The fact that a majority of the hijackers were Saudi posed a serious problem for the alliance, and raised the question of just how much of a role the royal family played in financing the atrocities. This question has still not been answered to the satisfaction of most Americans, and the Saudi regime does little to assuage suspicions that it fully supports radical Islamist ideology. Despite all of the setbacks and the questions, however, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia remain steadfast partners. Why? Because the Saudis once again have proven to the U.S. that they are willing to support it in its major foreign policy objective while guaranteeing a steady flow of oil to large swaths of Asia and Europe. Though the Saudis enforce a strict brand of sharia law at home, frequently behead or imprison those who break this law, and espouse an extreme Islamist ideology, they have remained a loyal ally in the American fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. And, though the U.S. relies less on Mideast oil than it once did, it recognizes that a stable and oil-producing Saudi Arabia is vital to the stability of the region.
 All of these factors considered, it is crucial that American leaders ask a couple of big questions. First, is maintaining the U.S.-Saudi relationship in its current condition worth all of the other headaches that accompany it?
 And second, if the relationship is worth preserving in its current state, is it worth getting further involved in Saudi Arabia’s proxy war against Iran? Iran is ruled by an equally rigid Islamic dictatorship that has financed terror abroad, but its citizens have generally expressed more of an openness to making amends with the Americans after years of hostility.
 It is uncertain as to how well this strategy will pay off, but history has proven that one thing remains certain – the Saudis will continue to enjoy a significant amount of American support as long as they supply oil to American allies and assist the U.S. in at least one major foreign policy objective.

False Ally, Saudi Arabia Facing Scrutiny from Congress

Despite the statements of President Obama and others that Saudi Arabia is an important ally, I, as noted in many prior posts, see Saudi Arabia as a leading, if not number one, financial supporter of  Islamic extremism and the terror that seems to go hand in hand with Islamic fundamentalism and Wahhabi strain of Islam in particular. Add to this Saudi Arabia' horrific human rights violations and the nation should be anathema to America and its founding principles.  Thankfully, members of Congress form both parties seem to be waking up to the reality that with a "friend" like Saudi Arabia, one doesn't need enemies.  The Washington Post looks at the much deserved Congressional scrutiny now facing America's false ally.  Here are excerpts:

A series of bills before Congress this month is the surest sign yet that Saudi Arabia can no longer claim the privileged status it has held largely unchallenged for decades in Washington.

As the fight over terrorism escalates, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are taking aim at the longtime U.S. ally with a double-header of legislative rebukes to the Kingdom over its alleged ties to extremists and military campaigns in Yemen. The first came Wednesday, when the Senate voted on a resolution to restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia until it stops targeting civilians in Yemen. Congress is also preparing to override an expected presidential veto this week of a bill to let the families of Sept. 11 victims sue Saudi Arabia over alleged ties to the terrorists who carried out the attack.

While the two measures will not both get through Congress – there is wide support for the Sept. 11 bill, but senators voted down Wednesday’s attempt to stop the arms sale – experts say the current scrutiny of the U.S.-Saudi relationship is unprecedented.

“We haven’t seen this much anti-Saudi activity on the Hill in a quarter of a century,” said Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Institution’s Intelligence Project and an expert on Saudi Arabia. “Criticism of Saudi Arabia has come out of the closet, and I don’t think it’s going to go back in.”

Though the Kingdom remains a critical ally in the global fight against terror, Western leaders have publicly criticized it for financially and politically promoting an Islamic fundamentalist worldview espoused by many extremist groups. International human rights groups, meanwhile, have openly condemned Saudi Arabia for violating the laws of war in Yemen with “logistical, tactical, and intelligence support” from the United States.

Saudi Arabia has a serious image problem it must confront. . . . Nowhere is that trend clearer than in the Sept. 11 victims’ bill, which would give courts the right to waive claims to foreign sovereign immunity in cases involving terrorist acts on U.S. soil.

Riyadh launched a formidable campaign to kill the bill with Saudi Arabia spending in excess of $3 million this year on lobbying contracts, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act documents. . . . s Congress prepares to soon override an expected veto of the bill, Saudi Arabia has launched a last-minute lobbying blitz.

Representatives of the government and its allies have been frequenting lawmakers’ offices to plead for help.

According to a recent study published in the Guardian, one in three Saudi-led raids in Yemen hit civilians. . . . . Recently, images and videos from Yemen have suggested that Saudi Arabia is using U.S.-produced white phosphorus in Yemen as well.

Yet the measure’s authors say the arms sales are part of a greater, problematic trend that the United States is allowing Saudi Arabia to get away, literally, with murder.

“We have largely turned the other way and allowed for the Saudis to create a version of Islam which has become the building blocks for the very groups that we are fighting today. And we have plead with them, we have asked them to stop, and the evidence suggests they have not,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said during an event at the Center for the National Interest this week. 

[E]xperts said criticizing Saudi Arabia has become “almost fashionable” and congressional scrutiny of the alliance is only likely to grow more intense.

“I think the era in which you could get $110 billion worth of arms through the Congress with virtually no debate on the Hill is over,” he said. “And if there’s an ugly settlement over 9/11, and the Yemen war continues, that debate will get tougher and tougher for the Saudis to win.”

As noted before, a top American national security goal should be to expand alternate energy sources and a sharp decline in dependence on oil.  If America and Europe can reach self-sufficiency, then Saudi Arabia's ability to engage in economic blackmail will be gone as will its ability to fund terrorism.  Americans need to wake up to the reality that the Saudis and the toxic religion they support are our enemy.

Saudi "Allies" Continue to Fund Islamic Extremism

For me, one of the most maddening things in America's foreign policy is the continued alliance with Saudi Arabia even as that nation and its wealthy citizens remain the number one financiers of Islamic extremism world-wide.  The right fumes about Iran, but in terms of helping to finance extremists in nations around the world, Saudi Arabia leaves Iran in the dust.  A very lengthy piece in the New York Times looks at Saudi Arabia's disturbing track record of funding extremism in Europe and elsewhere.  There need to be severe consequences to Saudi Arabia and soon.  Here are article highlights (please read the entire piece):

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don’t agree on much, but Saudi Arabia may be an exception. She has deplored Saudi Arabia’s support for “radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism.” He has called the Saudis “the world’s biggest funders of terrorism.”

The first American diplomat to serve as envoy to Muslim communities around the world visited 80 countries and concluded that the Saudi influence was destroying tolerant Islamic traditions. “If the Saudis do not cease what they are doing,” the official, Farah Pandith, wrote last year, “there must be diplomatic, cultural and economic consequences.”

And hardly a week passes without a television pundit or a newspaper columnist blaming Saudi Arabia for jihadist violence. On HBO, Bill Maher calls Saudi teachings “medieval,” adding an epithet. In The Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria writes that the Saudis have “created a monster in the world of Islam.”

The idea has become a commonplace: that Saudi Arabia’s export of the rigid, bigoted, patriarchal, fundamentalist strain of Islam known as Wahhabism has fueled global extremism and contributed to terrorism. As the Islamic State projects its menacing calls for violence into the West, directing or inspiring terrorist attacks in country after country, an old debate over Saudi influence on Islam has taken on new relevance.

In the realm of extremist Islam, the Saudis are “both the arsonists and the firefighters,” said William McCants, a Brookings Institution scholar. “They promote a very toxic form of Islam that draws sharp lines between a small number of true believers and everyone else, Muslim and non-Muslim,” he said, providing ideological fodder for violent jihadists.

Yet at the same time, “they’re our partners in counterterrorism,” said Mr. McCants, one of three dozen academics, government officials and experts on Islam from multiple countries interviewed for this article.

Saudi leaders seek good relations with the West and see jihadist violence as a menace that could endanger their rule, especially now that the Islamic State is staging attacks in the kingdom — 25 in the last eight months, by the government’s count. But they are also driven by their rivalry with Iran, and they depend for legitimacy on a clerical establishment dedicated to a reactionary set of beliefs. Those conflicting goals can play out in a bafflingly inconsistent manner.

[T]he most important effect of Saudi proselytizing might have been to slow the evolution of Islam, blocking its natural accommodation to a diverse and globalized world. “If there was going to be an Islamic reformation in the 20th century, the Saudis probably prevented it by pumping out literalism,” he said.

The reach of the Saudis has been stunning, touching nearly every country with a Muslim population, from the Gothenburg Mosque in Sweden to the King Faisal Mosque in Chad, from the King Fahad Mosque in Los Angeles to the Seoul Central Mosque in South Korea. Support has come from the Saudi government; the royal family; Saudi charities; and Saudi-sponsored organizations including the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the International Islamic Relief Organization, providing the hardware of impressive edifices and the software of preaching and teaching.

There is a broad consensus that the Saudi ideological juggernaut has disrupted local Islamic traditions in dozens of countries — the result of lavish spending on religious outreach for half a century, estimated in the tens of billions of dollars.

In many countries, Wahhabist preaching has encouraged a harshly judgmental religion, contributing to majority support in some polls in Egypt, Pakistan and other countries for stoning for adultery and execution for anyone trying to leave Islam. . . . . Among Muslim immigrant communities in Europe, the Saudi influence seems to be just one factor driving radicalization, and not the most significant. In divided countries like Pakistan and Nigeria, the flood of Saudi money, and the ideology it promotes, have exacerbated divisions over religion that regularly prove lethal.

And for a small minority in many countries, the exclusionary Saudi version of Sunni Islam, with its denigration of Jews and Christians, as well as of Muslims of Shiite, Sufi and other traditions, may have made some people vulnerable to the lure of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other violent jihadist groups. “There’s only so much dehumanizing of the other that you can be exposed to — and exposed to as the word of God — without becoming susceptible to recruitment,” said David Andrew Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington who tracks Saudi influence.

Exhibit A may be Saudi Arabia itself, which produced not only Osama bin Laden, but also 15 of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11, 2001; sent more suicide bombers than any other country to Iraq after the 2003 invasion; and has supplied more foreign fighters to the Islamic State, 2,500, than any country other than Tunisia.

One American former official who has begun to speak out is Ms. Pandith, the State Department’s first special representative to Muslim communities worldwide. From 2009 to 2014, she visited Muslims in 80 countries and concluded that Saudi influence was pernicious and universal.

“In each place I visited, the Wahhabi influence was an insidious presence,” she wrote in The New York Times last year. She said the United States should “disrupt the training of extremist imams,” “reject free Saudi textbooks and translations that are filled with hate,” and “prevent the Saudis from demolishing local Muslim religious and cultural sites that are evidence of the diversity of Islam.” She plans to address the subject in a book scheduled for publication next year.

When will America recognize Saudi Arabia for what it truly is: an enemy of America and American principles.  It needs to be treated as an enemy starting immediately.

Radical Islamists and the American Far Right: Cousins of the Terrorist Kind

I have long maintained that both American right wing extremism and Islamic terrorism ultimately stem from largely the same source: religion.  Religion and modernity that threaten the simplistic house of cards fantasy worlds that both American born Christian extremists - be they KKK members or members of "patriot groups" - and fundamentalist Muslims live in.  To both groups, those who are different or who reject their beliefs are mortal enemies.  While the violence of Islamic extremists gets far more media coverage, the reality is that "real American" and "godly Christian" extremists pose a real risk to the general public and the LGBT community since religion labels us as "other" in the minds of the weak minded and mentally challenged.  An essay I came across looks at the parallels between the two extremist/would be terrorist groups.  Here are excerpts:

The gay community in Los Angeles, seemingly, got very lucky last weekend. Especially compared to their counterparts in Orlando. A 21-year-old Indiana man with a car full of guns and bomb-making chemicals was arrested by Santa Monica police Saturday. He told police he was going to the Los Angeles gay-pride parade later that day, but didn’t say what he had in mind.

In the car was an astonishing arsenal: a loaded AR-15 assault rifle rigged to allow 60 shots to be fired without pausing, two other loaded rifles, a stun gun, a hunting knife, loads of ammunition, and a trunkful of chemicals mixed and ready to explode as a car bomb. It soon emerged that the man – James Wesley Howell of Charlestown – had a history of violent confrontations and gun-related criminal charges, and was fleeing charges of child molestation when he left Indiana. The situation spoke ominously of an imminent domestic-terrorism attack – especially in light of the massacre that had occurred at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando late Saturday. However, since none of his arsenal was used and no violence committed, Howell was only charged with a variety of felonies related to bomb and gun possession. The parade went off without notable incident, though anti-gay protesters were present and visible. The outcome stood in stark contrast to what occurred that same evening at Pulse, . . . The Orlando massacre sparked an Islamophobic backlash, with some radicalscalling for the immediate deportation of all Muslims from the United States and arming U.S. citizens in response. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump used the occasion to declare himself “right” for his earlier declarations about Muslims, and doubled down by reiterating his earlier call for Muslims to be banned from entering the United States. He also suggested that President Obama might be secretly conspiring on behalf of the terrorists. In the meantime, reporting on the potential terrorist attack on the Los Angeles gay-pride event was subdued, since whatever Howell had been planning was diverted when police pulled him over in a traffic stop and found the arsenal. It was further complicated by the eventual discovery that Howell was himself bisexual, and his friends and family indicated he had no known animus toward gays and lesbians.  In a similar vein, it soon emerged that Mateen had actually frequented Pulse and had advertised on gay hookup forums, . . .
 The ongoing questions about the motivations of both Mateen and Howell made murky at best any public understanding of the two incidents – which were seemingly unconnected, especially when it came to the specific motives and backgrounds of the actors involved. One seemed clearly inspired by Islamist anti-western rhetoric, while the other seemed at most fueled by the typical far-right-wing loathing of gays with an added twist of self-loathing. Yet they were in fact deeply connected by the simple reality that both represented acts of domestic terrorism directed at LGBT targets, and both occurred on the same evening, separated only by a few hours. And coming to terms with these acts – both in a realistic sense and with the hope of taking action that actually prevents them from bubbling up in the first place – requires understanding them as closely related, two aspects of the same vicious and hateful coin: right-wing extremism. The murders, and the near-miss, this weekend were not, of course, the first time that gay and lesbian establishments have been the targets of terrorist acts. Indeed, this sort of violence is hauntingly familiar to anyone who has tracked the history of hate crimes and other vicious acts that have been the horrifying reality for most members of the LGBT community for the past half-century and longer.  Until recent years, the violence has emanated primarily from two sources: hate groups, particularly neo-Nazi and skinhead groups as well as various Klan organizations, all of whom have placed the LGBT community as one of their most loathed targets; and far-right evangelical Christians, particularly those who claim that the Bible demands the death penalty for homosexuality, and the radicals who act on those beliefs.

Prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, most Americans readily thought of radicals like Rudolph and his far-right cohort, Timothy McVeigh, as the terrorists they clearly were. After 9/11, however, the picture became increasingly muddled, as public and law-enforcement officials, as well as the media, increasingly focused on the image of terrorism as emanating solely from turbaned, Arabic-speaking radicals inspired by extreme Islamic fundamentalism, or Islamism, as it’s popularly known. It’s also worth recalling that the American far right – particularly the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who are among the most vicious homophobes most often associated with hate crimes and terrorist anti-LGBT violence – openly celebrated those Islamist attacks on Americans back in 2001, just as they recently celebrated the Orlando massacre. (Wrote Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer: “From the bottom of my heart, and on behalf of all neo-Nazi White supremacists, I want to offer a sincere ‘thank you’ to Omar.") That is because even though the nominal wellsprings of their ideology may differ widely – i.e., either white-supremacist/neo-Nazi ideology or far-right Christianist ideology, or extreme Islamic fundamentalism – the cores of their respective appeals, as well as the psychological profiles of the people they attract as followers, is remarkably similar in nature as well as outcomes. They have the same enemies, and the same targets, because they think and behave in remarkably similar ways.

In the end, both a religious and cultural variations of right-wing extremism. And what they share in common is much more substantial than the differences of their nominal religions. As Joshua Holland recently observed, in an ironic kind of twist, the absolutism associated with the most fanatical expressions of their respective religions, which in turn induces them to denounce “unbelievers” of other faiths, is something they all share: “The details differ, but the defining characteristic of all right-wing religionists is an abiding contempt for religious pluralism. They deny the legitimacy of other faiths. All conservative religious traditions are hostile toward gays and lesbians and those who reject traditional gender roles. Most embrace religious nationalism and reject multiculturalism.” They also share a fundamentalist approach to their belief systems, insisting on the inerrancy whatever their founding scriptures might be – in the case of Islamists, the Koran; of extremist Christians, the Bible; of far-right “Patriot” militiamen, the Constitution of the United States; of neo-Nazis, Hitler’s Mein Kampf as well as a handful of other works that have scriptural import for them. . . . . They all insist that only their interpretation is the correct one. [F]undamentalism is natural byproduct of modern life, representing the needs of the people who are left behind by modernity – economically, culturally, socially, and spiritually. This applies equally to other kinds of fundamentalism, such as the bizarre interpretation of American law and the nature of government that arises in the worldview of right-wing American “constitutionalists.” The terrorists who are produced by these belief systems are all deeply alienated from modern society, and their violence is always directed at the goal of returning society to its “traditional” values.

To fundamentalists and other right-wing True Believers, multiculturalism is an abomination, since the notion of the legitimacy of other religions or belief systems is nonexistent for them. It’s their way or the highway – though only the most nakedly racist among them admit that their hostility to multiculturalism naturally defaults back to a race-based system of white supremacy. In the end, this means that, for the radicals inclined to act out their beliefs violently, the targets of their hatred and violence often are the same. Right-wing extremists almost universally direct their terrorism at the representatives of modernism and multiculturalism in their own minds: democratic institutions and governments, liberals, LGBT folk, various racial and ethnic minorities (especially Jews). [R]adical Islam is a kind of right-wing extremism, and has much more in common with American Klansmen and “Patriots” than any of them are willing to acknowledge. . . . . This is important to place in the larger context of domestic terrorism: As a study I have recently completed of American domestic terrorism between 2008 and the present (to be published later this summer through the Center for Investigative Reporting) demonstrates, American right-wing extremists committed acts of terrorism in the United States at more than twice the rate of domestic Islamist extremists in that time period, with more than double the casualties. 

These recent events have all underscored not just the importance of coming to terms with domestic terrorism of all kinds, but of recognizing that Islamist and American right-wing extremist terrorism are very closely related, and often target the very same vulnerable people – as well as understanding that, over those past eight years, American right-wing extremist terrorists (nearly all of whom are white) have been even more dramatically increasing the levels of lethal violence in the country. To understand terrorism, we first have to shed our great national blind spot regarding who commits it – namely, the racial one.

Serial Killing in the Name of God

I nearly did a post based on a spoof in Patheos that pretended that Iceland had declared Christianity to be a public health hazard.  Sadly, while I believe the premise of the spoof piece to be true, the scope is too limited.  It should apply to all religion, or certainly the conservative variety.  As a piece in The Daily Beast reports, in Bangladesh, Islamic fundamentalists are on a killing spree murdering free thinkers, the educated and, naturally those who are LGBT and/or support LGBT rights.  Anyone who threatens compliance with their interpretation of the ravings of a man who would nowadays likely be declared to be mentally ill and certainly not be revered.  Modern knowledge and intellect are the enemies of not just American Christofascists, but their similarly hate and fear filled cousins who cling to Islam and prefer a revival of a Medieval mindset rather than let go of the myths they cling to.  Here are article highlights:

There really is no other way to put this. Free thinkers in Bangladesh are being serially hacked to death in their homes. An infamous hit list appeared in 2013 naming 84 “atheist bloggers.” By the end of 2015 there had been seven such murder sacross the country, and, tragically, this past week alone claimed three more victims.

Rezaul Karim Siddique, a professor of English at Rajshahi University in the country’s northwest, was set upon outside his house as he left for work. Siddique founded a literary magazine called Kamolgandhar and wanted to start a music school in his village as a way to involve his students in extra-curricular activities. But instead he died where he fell, succumbing to severe wounds after he was hacked in the back of the neck by cowards on a passing motorbike.

Only two days later, U.S. embassy employee Xulhaz Mannan, who was one of Bangladesh’s top gay-rights activists and editor of the country’s only LGBT magazine,Roopbaan, was murdered by machete in his home. His friend, another gay rights activist Tanay Mojumdar was also killed. Xulhaz and Tanay were behind the annual “Rainbow Rally,” held April 14 on the Bengali New Year.

The so-called “Islamic State in Bangladesh” has claimed responsibilityfor the killing of Professor Siddique. Its media mouthpiece, called Amaq, stated ISIS fighters “assassinated a university professor for calling to atheism in the city of Rajshahi in Bangladesh.”

And despite the Bangladeshi government’s rejection of this claim, ISIS English-language magazine Dabiq carried an interview earlier this month with their purported leader in Bangladesh, Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, who claimed that the country had become its base of operations in South Asia.

Whether or not ISIS was behind this attack is secondary. The effect is the same. Jihadist terrorists are systematically hunting down leading free thinkers in Bangladesh—one by one—and hacking them to death.

It is “open season” on atheists in Bangladesh.

And though Professor Siddique’s daughter, Rizwana Hasin, has said that her father was not in fact an atheist, among jihadists that definition is incredibly broad.

Anyone who advocates liberal secularism, free inquiry, arts and culture, is considered an “atheist” or “apostate.” Anyone who “supports” or “sides” with atheists, supports freedom of religion as well as from religion, and anyone who maintains the primacy of free speech, including and especially the human right to “blaspheme,” is deemed an atheist, whether they declare themselves to be or not.

So beleaguered is this minority that you can be put to death for atheism in no less than 13 countries around the world. In 39 countries the law mandates a prison sentence for blasphemy, and six of these are Western countries.

Saudi Arabia [America's false ally] has even declared being an atheist a terrorist offense. Nobel Prize Nominee and Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience Raif Badawi still languishes in jail there “accused” of atheism.

Meanwhile Bangladesh’s best-known blogger, Imran Sarker—who led major secular protests in Dhaka against Islamist leaders in 2013—said that he had received a death threat on Sunday from a U.K. number saying he would be killed “very soon.”

By visibly killing off dissenters in such a public way, extremists seek to scare us all into silence. The targeting starts with atheists and “blasphemers,” but almost always moves on to the sexually diverse, liberals, secularists, and minority sects—Muslim or otherwise—that rely on such pluralism to flourish.

The killers’ aim is to elicit our fearful compliance, like Charb’s super-surveillance camera. Those who murder in the name of the Master of the Universe lay claim to what came before life, what comes during life and what is to come after life.

No totalitarianism can be more total than that claimed in God’s name. This is why no resistance is more urgent than that waged to protect the right to our own individual conscience. For ISIS, we are all atheists.

Make no mistake, there are right wing Christians who would be only to happy to engage in similar bloodshed - e.g., "preachers" who call for the execution of gays.  Moreover, if one knows history, Christianity has left a huge trail of blood of those murdered for being "heretics" or non-believer.  Religion is a curse on mankind.  

Why the Brussels Attack Could Backfire for ISIS

While the extremists of ISIS want to depict their atrocities and genocide as a battle to protect Islam from the western world - and by extension, modernity, which threatens its Medieval religious dogma - some believes it attacks on the West, most recently in Brussels, could backfire.  Indeed, while ISIS wants a war of civilizations for recruitment purposes, if it gets its wish and the West unifies and becomes more willing to use military force, ISIS losses in the Middle East could well increase.  A piece in Slate looks at how ISIS may be unwittingly sowing the seeds for its ultimate destruction. Here are excerpts:

On the surface, the gains of an international attack like Brussels outweigh the risks. For a highly ideological group like ISIS, the Belgian deaths strike a blow to the West, fulfilling the group’s mission of taking the battle to the enemies of Islam. And such attacks counter the considerable losses the Islamic State has taken in Iraq and Syria.

Such battlefield losses move the Islamic State ever further from “consolidating and expanding” the dystopian state it hopes to build. Since declaring a caliphate in 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and other ISIS leaders have trumpeted their creation of a state. And by taking over an area the size of Great Britain, they’ve achieved more than any other modern jihadi group. Military losses make a mockery of this claim and strengthen the appeal of its al-Qaida rival, which has criticized the declaration as premature. As the state shrinks rather than expands, ISIS must show its followers it is fighting.

Indeed, spectacular and bloody attacks like Brussels can win the group recruits in both Europe and the Arab world. A small but significant portion of European Muslims feel alienated and bitter toward their home countries, and the recriminations and stepped-up security after each attack make this problem worse. More than 5,000 European Muslims have traveled to Syria to fight with ISIS and other jihadis. 

Going international, however, often works out poorly for terrorist groups. Algerian terrorists in the 1990s found that attacks in France backfired, leading a once-skeptical West to favor the Algerian regime and increase France’s support for the government the terrorists were fighting. ISIS may discover similar problems. For one, the more global the threat, the more likely it is to grab the attention of the United States and its potent military and intelligence services. Jihadis not affiliated with al-Qaida criticized Osama Bin Laden after 9/11 because it led to U.S. intervention into what had once been local struggles and also greatly expanded aid to governments in the Middle East. As the jihadi strategist Abu Musab al-Suri lamented, the 9/11 attacks cast “jihadists into a fiery furnace … A hellfire which consumed most of their leaders, fighters, and bases.” 

The Obama administration has moved cautiously in Iraq and Syria so far, but each attack in the West increases, or at least sustains, pressure on U.S. leaders to step up. It also makes it more likely that the West will target Islamic State provinces in places like Libya and Sinai, even when the group is not currently targeting Europe or the United States: Better to hit them hard than wait too long will be the thinking. 

The attacks also lead to further security crackdowns on jihadi networks in Europe. Such losses do more than hinder the Islamic State’s ability to do future terrorist attacks. The group relies heavily on foreign fighters for its military operations, and crackdowns on its European network reduce an important source of suicide bombers and other operatives.

Because of these likely Western responses, the Islamic State’s international attacks risk substituting tactical gain for strategic loss. Attacks in the West will set back the Islamic State’s state-building imperative, in particular. Strikes in Brussels or other Western cities will hurt the Islamic State’s enemies and excite its followers but will not lead the group to victory.

Five Dangerous Saudi Imperial Projects the West has Ignored

With Iran seemingly complying with the terms of the Nuclear containment Agreement and releasing Americans held often without cause, Tehran almost appears to be courting America's favor.  Republicans, of course are outraged and would prefer to bomb Iran.  Meanwhile, as noted in prior post, America's potential larger enemy in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, is continued to be treated as an ally and its human rights abuses and exporting of Islamic extremism goes sadly ignored.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at dangerous projects backed by Saudi Arabia and/or Saudi funding.  We need to open are eyes quickly - Saudi Arabia is no friend or ally.  Here are article highlights:

Horrified by the news that Saudi Arabia would set a record for beheadings in 2015 while continuing to fund radical Islamic groups across the world, I wrote a column last October arguing that it was time for the United States to reconsider its 70-year relationship with the kingdom in Riyadh. After the piece was posted, one of the friends I heard from was Terence Ward, author of the internationally praised memoir, Searching for Hassan.

As tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have rapidly escalated this month over Riyadh's execution of a high-profile Shiite cleric, Terry reached out with a thoughtful perspective on Saudi Arabia and the West. I print it here in full: 

Since 2001, Western leaders have discretely avoided the naked truth--today's Islamic terrorism is deeply rooted in the Saudi Wahhabi faith. First with al-Qaeda's Twin Tower attack and now with the Paris blitz by ISIS, the West's rush for revenge ignores those roots yet again.

Both Al-Qaeda and ISIS needed failed states to create their base: first in Afghanistan, then in northern Iraq and eastern Syria. But to flourish, they needed funding and ideology: all imported from Saudi Arabia.

To be blunt, where is decapitation a public sport? Only in Riyadh and Raqqa. Growing up in Saudi Arabia, I used to witness crowds gather on Friday in "chop-chop square" to watch the medieval spectacle. The recent 47 beheadings remind us again of this uniquely Saudi custom. Now, it has now been exported to Syria where YouTube clips inform the world. But they share more than executions. Few know that as Syrian and Iraqi towns fell to ISIS, Saudi textbooks replaced what was on classroom desks before. So, if any Western leaders seriously want to end the radicalization of young Muslims, they must look no further than the father of the radical faith followed by both terror groups--it lies in the Saudi religious industrial complex. Wahhabism. In Saudi Arabia there is no church, synagogue nor Hindu temple. Wahhabism is not a religion of tolerance. The chilling fact is that in three decades, the Saudis have launched five imperial projects--all sources of today's jihadists.

The first project in Pakistan began when General Zia ul-Haq, after seizing power in 1977, imposed Shari'a law and then gave carte blanche to create countless Saudi-funded Wahhabi madrasas--Islamic schools--across the country to indoctrinate young children and fill the gap of a collapsed education system. Targeting refugee camps of vulnerable Afghans fleeing the Soviet invasion, the Wahhabi movement found its base.

The second project in Afghanistan was born in these Pakistan's refugee camps when a new generation came of age calling themselves "the students" or "Taliban." In 1994, Mullah Omar and 50 madrasa students launched out from Quetta as a fighting force crossing the border, seizing Kandahar, and then taking Kabul in 1996. By 1997, Saudi employees were traveling for free as tourists on government-paid holidays to visit the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with their families so they could witness the "true Islam." Mullah Omar was invited on Haj by the Saudi monarch in 1998. He then ordered the Bamiyan Buddhas blown apart in March 2001, in keeping with the iconoclast Saudi vision. The free tourist trips from Riyadh and Al-Hasa ended abruptly on September 11 that same year.

The third project was al-Qaeda's global jihad financed by Wahhabi funders that began with financing foreign fighters in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and climaxed with the Twin Towers attack. It's enough to remember that 15 of 19 hijackers as well as its founder Bin Laden, all hailed from Saudi Arabia.

The fourth imperial project is termed ISIS, ISIL or DAESH. Its mother was America's Iraq invasion. Its father was Saudi Arabia's eager Wahhabi funders and a defiant ideology that capitalized on the Sunni humiliation in Iraq and Syria (NYT op-ed by Kamel Daoud). Now, the Sunni-Shiite conflagration is tearing apart both countries and the region is ablaze with four civil wars. Of course, Saudis argue this was all started to combat Iran's imperial ambitions but the truth is that only Sunnis have mastered their macabre monopoly on suicide bombings. This is the terror that was exported to Paris.

The fifth imperial project lies in Western Europe--in all madrasas funded with Saudi money and staffed with Wahhabi-trained imams from Paris to Brussels, Antwerp and Rotterdam, from Marseilles to Birmingham. Thousands of mosques and schools have trained a new generation of young Muslims in the rigid and intolerant faith imported from Riyadh, without any local government supervision. And now these seeds planted by Saudi Arabia are bearing fruit under a newly re-named Salafist banner. This Salafi term has been cleverly promoted to disguise any connection to Wahhabism or the Saudi origins, and it has worked. International journalists now use solely the word Salafi as if describing a widespread conservative current in Islam today.

Over forty years ago, Belgium's King Baudoin cut a deal with Saudi Arabia's King Faisal. In exchange for cheap oil, Baudoin gave the Saudis a 99-year lease on the former Oriental Pavilion for the Grande Mosque. At the same time, the Belgians allowed their Saudi friends to train Muslim imams to preach to the growing numbers of Maghrebi immigrants coming into the country. This gave the House of Saud carte blanche to spread the message of Wahhabism in rigid religious schools, setting up tension between the more moderate and largely Moroccan tradition and the Saudi-financed mosques. Now there are 77 mosques in Brussels alone.

From the 2001 assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban leader in Afghanistan, to the 2004 Madrid train bombings, from the Paris shootings at the magazine Charlie Hebdo, to last year's killings at Brussels' Jewish museum and this summer's foiled shooting spree on a high-speed train, until finally, the Paris massacres, all investigators' lines of inquiry have led to Europe's "ground zero" of terrorism - the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek. This should not be surprising. Only last year, Belgium was riveted by the trial of 46 people who were found guilty of belonging to Sharia4Belgium, a group that recruited volunteers to fight in Syria with ISIS.

The two elements that all five imperial projects share are Saudi financing (private and governmental), and the Wahhabi creed--extremist, fundamentalist, and exclusionist. This creed is surprisingly new to Islam. Only 200 years old, it carries the name of its firebrand founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The Christian equivalent would be a union of two groups: the Jehovah Witness and the Ku Klux Klan. The Wahhabi creed views all other Muslims as deviant heretics, deserving no mercy. Moderate Sunnis, Sufis, Shia, Ismailis, Druze, Yazidis, Alawites, even the whirling dervishes are all enemies, fallen Muslims. Of course, non-Muslims fall under the same umbrella of loathing and apostasy. No common humanity exists. There is no dialogue possible. Their Shariah is the only covenant. Non-believers are expendable.

Make no mistake; the Saudi Wahhabis are on a global mission of conversion. Their dream is to change forever a faith that once was tolerant, when Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived side by side in the cosmopolitan Levant's multi-cultural mélange of dialects and faiths from Alexandria to Beirut, from Damascus to Istanbul.

Yet, in the non-Arabic world of Southeast Asia--in Indonesia with over 190 million Muslim faithful--the mood is different. Islam arrived there with Persian and Gujarati merchants who sailed into tropical ports with their mystical Sufi faith. This is why Islam spread so quickly. Had the merchants offered the rigid Wahhabi message instead, there would have been no buyers.

Now, it is only in Indonesia that a repudiation of the Islamic State has surfaced from Indonesia's NU party that numbers 50 million Muslims. Their recent film of ISIS beheadings features the voice-over of former Indonesian president, Abdurrahman Wahid, singing a Javanese mystical poem:

"Many who memorize the Quran and Hadith love to condemn others as infidels while ignoring their own infidelity to God, their hearts and minds still mired in filth."

This campaign for a liberal, pluralistic Islam comes from a country with a rich Hindu and Buddhist past, where Sunnis and Shias live together in harmony. This Islam stresses nonviolence, inclusiveness and acceptance of other religions. All commentators and pundits who ask for a "Reformation in Islam", need look no further. This Islam exists in Indonesia. And it is the antidote to jihadism.

Few know that for 1,000 years the holy city of Mecca was the center of the Sufi universe, where music, dance and ecstatic prayer celebrated the divine and faithful gathered at shrines of saints. When the Wahhabi-backed House of Saud took full control of Hijaz, Mecca and Medina in 1924, the state of Saudi Arabia was established with Wahhabism as its official religion. In less than 100 years, the Saud family and their Wahhabi benefactors erased that rich, mystic past as well as historical sites like the Prophet's house in Mecca and that of his daughter Fatimeh. The homes of the Prophet's wives' are now parking lots. For all those pilgrims on Haj, Mecca has been cleansed of its multi-cultural history.

Virtually every aspect and corner of modern Islam has now been penetrated by Wahhabi influence, thanks to $200 billion spent over the last 30 years in a strategic campaign to promote Wahhabism around the world. Thousands of madrasas -- funded by Saudis - have indoctrinated countless young minds with their "pure Wahhabi Islam" in Belgium, France, Holland, Germany, Bosnia, Kosovo, and the UK as well as the Arab World. At the moment, the economies of the Middle East and North Africa are not creating job opportunities for tens of millions of young students of both sexes who are the ones most easily vulnerable to be converted and recruited.

In turn, Saudi money has strategically silenced virtually all criticism in the international media. Saudi ownership of the largest Arab media outlets (newspapers, magazines, and TV channels) has been crucial in keeping their imperial projects from being discussed openly in the Arab World. And Saudi and Qatari money has bought the deafening silence of Western politicians. Robust sales of military weaponry and prime real estate in major capitals from Rome to Paris and London, has quieted any visible critics. Quite simply, they are not published. With each passing day, the royal house of Saud plays a dangerous double game - posing as allies of the West, while allowing funding to pour into the terrorist networks. This way they keep criticism from zealous Wahhabi clerics at bay. Sicilians pay for "protection" in Palermo the same way. Ironically, ten years ago, on July 13, 2005, US Treasury undersecretary Stuart Levey pointed out that rich Saudi individuals were a "significant source" of global Islamist terror funding. Today, nothing has changed.

The conclusions are chilling. Until the Saudi religious roots in today's crisis are unearthed and examined in the cold light of day, history will only repeat itself from Raqaa to Paris, from Riyadh to Brussels, from Karachi to San Bernardino. As George Soros reminds us, we also live in an "Age of Fallibility." Our assumptions of reality must be re-assessed each day. Turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's imperial ambitions since 9/11, has led us to this moment of reflection. Meanwhile, Western leaders should take note of the courageous Indonesians who so profoundly denounce ISIS and Wahhabism. There is indeed a grand difference between Muslims.

Unless the Saudis show tolerance and allow churches, temples and synagogues to be built in Arabia (which is highly unlikely), the EU and the US should take a firm position and legally impose a ban on all Saudi funding--public and private--destined for mosques and Muslim schools. American leaders need to openly speak about Wahhabism (just as they did with Baathism) and end the deafening silence purchased by petro-dollars. From Capital Hill to Foggy Bottom, an oft-whispered claim insists that the royal family is the lesser of two evils. This smacks of irony. The House of Saud has always been Wahhabi. Now, the West must wake to the coming storm. And, we all must pray that no conspiracy is afoot within Pakistan's Intelligence Agency--with its own embedded Wahhabi sympathizers--to offer ISIS their ultimate dream: a nuclear weapon that could become the mother of all suicide bombs.

When the Hell are we going to wake up to who the real enemy is?