With one Middle Eastern nation under its belt and another slowly on the way down, America has nothing but grief and a dried-up tyrant to show for its two foreign wars of the past four years. WMD’s are MIA, and a much-anticipated drop in gas prices has never materialized; it’s all we can do to keep insurgents from setting those oil fields ablaze. (On the plus side, opium production in Afghanistan is at record highs.) As a certain prominent Democrat put it, we’ve been fighting “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time”. This is not to say that we should not be fighting a war. But as Uncle Sam casts a belligerent eye over the Middle East, searching for the lion’s den of terrorism, his gaze would fall squarely on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, our President, ever the animal lover, is quite chummy with the leaders of the pride. So the lesser beasts of the Middle East have drawn the lion’s share of our military force, while fundamentalism festers in the Arabian dessert. Our attempts to curtail terrorism in Afghanistan have given rise to an impotent government and a patchwork of warlords and opium barons controlling the countryside. The only terrorists we’ve killed in Iraq are the ones who came in after we had already “won” the war. Our war on terror has so far only provided fodder for hate speech by radical Islamic clerics. These men are the real source of the hatred that begets terrorism. In no place are they given greater exposure than in Saudi Arabia, the epicenter of the radical shockwaves that have shaken the foundations of a peaceful religion. The wealth of the Saudi royal family buys a whole lot more than opulent palaces and mountains of stock in American companies; it pays the salaries of clerics who beseech God for the success of terrorists, who preach about the corruption of the West and the evils of Judaism. It buys TV stations, newspapers, and Internet news outlets, where these clerics are given an audience of millions. When the Saudis pay these fundamentalist clerics to preach discord and poison, then give them prominent coverage in the state-run media, it can only be accurately described as the state sponsorship of terrorism. Imagine the U.S. government sponsoring and marketing a lunatic televangelist who calls for the destruction of abortion clinics. Beyond being a loudspeaker for terrorism, the Saudi government is among the world’s most heinous violators of human rights. Cruel and unusual punishment is anything but unusual for Saudis. The innocently named Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice would be better described as fundamentalist Islamic Gestapo. These religious police are omniscient and vicious. Crimes that would earn someone a community service sentence in the U.S. will get you tortured in Saudi Arabia. Public lashings are the standard procedure for offenses such as street drag racing, possessing alcohol, speaking ill of an authority figure, or standing in front a girls’ school. Not even children are exempt for these floggings. Women who are raped are flogged and imprisoned for adultery. Homosexuality is punished by death. The list goes on and on. Our president has claimed that freedom is on the march, but freedom has overstepped the place where it is most sorely needed. Saudi investors have close to a trillion dollars invested in the American stock exchanges, and their government-owned oil company is the world’s largest corporation. This economic stranglehold on America is why we have yet to forcefully denounce the Saudi government (though the Bushes’ friendship with the royal family might very well play into it.) The time has come for America to take a real stand against terror. America can achieve a viable future without petroleum, but the safety of all people remains in jeopardy so long as terror is given an incubator. The current Saudi regime can cry crocodile tears and speak of cooperation all they want, but if they continue to condone and nurture terrorism, then they themselves have no future. Severe economic sanctions would be the first step in curtailing the crimes of Saudi Arabia. This will no doubt result in temporary economic hardships here at home, but Americans must be willing to sacrifice if we are truly committed to fighting terror and preserving freedom. Free nations of the world should join us in this boycott of Saudi oil, for together we can preserve our collective economy as we tell the Saudi government that enough is enough. If the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would still persevere in their crimes against humanity, then military intervention would be our last and only resort. If we were willing to invade two sovereign nations in the name of freedom, we must demonstrate the constitution to take our war on terror and oppression as far as is necessary.
