Not quite as simple as that

Submitted by Chris G. (United States), Jul 4, 2007 at 21:55

While your solution certainly sounds appealing in its simplicity, its not quite that simple. Yes the former head of the Washington D.C. Islamic Center was an idiot, but at the same time there are a ton of non-Muslim Americans who buy into all that conspiracy theory crap. Why? Because our government has done a piss-poor job of refuting those conspiracies in an aggressive manner. While I don't know much about the D.C. Islamic Center, I doubt they are much of a problem other then an occasional stupid comment made by their Imams.

You are also right in pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia which is indeed the primary funding source of countless wahhabi (they prefer to be called Salafi) organizations and propaganda all over the world. They also aggressively denounce more moderate traditional Muslim scholars who try and speak out against extremism. For example with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf (a prominent moderate American scholar) they went as far as publishing books of attributed to him where they have him saying all kinds of idiotic things in really bad Arabic (he speaks and writes fluent Arabic).

Yes, we have laws that allow for the freedom of speech and freedom of religion including in religious propaganda. However there are no laws to my knowledge that ban our law enforcement from intercepting shipments of propaganda material or the blocking of the worst propaganda on the internet.
Part of me is against the internet idea, because once that happens, they'll likely start blocking all kinds of other stuff that is harmless. In addition I depend on a lot of that for my own research on Islamic extremists. Otherwise I'd have to go meet them face to face which would likely end in me being murdered.

There is also the danger of the government blocking political propaganda of rival political groups within our own country. That's when you start getting serious "Big Brother" problems. An alternative is to aggressively counter Wahhabi propaganda with traditional Islamic based counter-propaganda with interpretations of Islam emphasizing mercy, forgiveness, and tolerance. That is essentially what my research is about. This is something that our government simply is not doing but that needs to be done quickly if we are to stop the spread of extremist Islamic ideologies like Al-Qaeda and the Qutb'ist ideologies of the Islamic Brotherhood.
We also have to make sure to quickly deport extremist Imams in this country who are brought in here to lead mosques by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan primarily.

Finally, probably most importantly is that we need to quit our dependency on MIddle East Oil by very aggressively pursuing biodiesel technology as well as other alternative fuel sources. This should be our top priority. Why is it not? Can you say "Oil Lobbyists?" If the powerful Jewish and Israeli lobbyists want to do ONE GOOD THING for America it will be to fight against powerful Oil Corporations or at least convince them to shift their investments over to bio-diesel production. The oil industry's powerful influence and ties to the Bush administration is the only thing stopping us from getting off the Middle Eastern oil tits. There are also other idiotic obstacles such as the ban on industrial hemp even though it has less then 1% THC (impossible to get high off of) and would only screw up drug marijuana by diluting THC if the illegal stuff was hidden in a field because the industrial hemp pollen would dilute and ruin the marijuana drug plants. That stuff can be used for bio-diesel and biodegradable plastics along with all kinds of oils, fabrics, and other wonderful products.

So we can continue to throw money at the Saudis (and the extremist groups they fund) and support massive oil companies or we can develop progressive bio-diesel programs to help American Farmers, help the environment with cleaner fuels, and even encourage Americans with large backyards to grow bio-diesel crops which they can drop off at processing plants in order to get fuel discounts. All we are missing is the political will-power and the large grass roots movement to do this.
Once we get off the Saudi oil tits, then we will have SERIOUS bargaining power. If they want us to buy their oil, then they must make reforms and quit funding all these extremists. Its called basic market economics.
When demand is low, the buyer can call the shots. If we worked with other major economic powers like China to do likewise (which they can with their massive agricultural resources), I think we'd be in good shape as long as we approach the problem from many different angles rather then trying to fix it just with one solution.

Oh... and if China decided not to follow the bio-diesel route.... then I say we allow China to take care of the mess in the Middle East Chinese style. The American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan will look like Disneyland in comparison to a Chinese occupation.

Chris G.

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