Holy Warriors

Before boarding his flight to Crawford to meet with President Bush Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah presided over the arrest of 40 Pakistani Christians on Friday. Their crime? The Pakistanis were caught praying in a private home in the capital Riyadh in violation of the state’s strictly enforced religious law that bans all non-Muslim worship.

As the State Department has determined, there is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia and everyone there, Muslim or not, must obey the rules of the extreme sharia of the kingdom’s established religion, the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. The Saudi state indoctrinates its nationals from an early age in the Wahhabi ideology of zero tolerance for the “other.” Government textbooks and publications teach that it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews and warn against imitating, befriending, or helping them in any way, or taking part in their festivities and celebrations. The state teaches a Nazi-like hatred for Jews, treats the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact, and avows that the Muslim’s duty is to eliminate the state of Israel...

So- exactly what got decided at this meeting, besides a lot of kissing and hand-holding?


President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah emerged from their meeting here Monday with no agreement that would lower gasoline prices in the near term, although Saudi Arabia reiterated plans to increase oil production capacity in coming years in an effort to meeting fast-growing world demand...

...the two nations issued a joint statement in which they pledged continued cooperation in the war on terrorism, promised to work together toward a peaceful settlement between the Palestinians and Israel and expressed support for the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. The statement also praised the steps being taken toward democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia and announced the formation of a joint committee, to be headed by the U.S. secretary of state and the Saudi foreign minister, aimed at increasing educational, business and cultural exchanges between the two nations. The agreement also cited U.S. appreciation for the Saudi pledge to increase oil production.