Saudi Arabia Fights Al-Qaeda with Social Reasonability

If there was one country that could be expected to be described as socially responsible, at least by Western standards, let alone as actively discouraging radical Islamic Fundamentalism, Saudi Arabia would certainly not be it. Because of its funding of Madrasahs and Mosques that hold to the Wahhabi ideology of Islam, which then act as centers for indoctrinating future members of Al-Qaeda and other radical groups, Saudi Arabia is thought to be a major contributor to Islamic terrorism throughout the world. While this may very well be an accurate perception of reality, the Saudi Arabian government, according to an article in the June 2007 publication of The Atlantic titled “Get out of Jihad Free,” has begun to at least fight terrorism and Al-Qaeda within the confines of its own boarders.

Rather than filling up their prisons the Saudis have instead started a social program which aims at deprogramming would be terrorists who, after being arrested, are given the choice of either going to prison or enrolling in the program. Once enrolled the prisoner is released to the care of his family and put through a process that is described as “an intensive religious, psychological, and familial counseling regime….”

There are several encouraging things about this program. One is that for a theocratic monarchy that has been known to use violence and oppression to solve many of its internal problems this is a remarkably rational response to a situation that more than being a threat to the security of the West, threatens to further destabilize the Middle East. The Saudis seem to recognize that part of the problem of solving terrorism is that those who tend to sympathize with ideologies that espouse the use of such tactics are themselves not well educated in the religion, and therefore need to be challenged by more learned members of the Muslim community.

Another positive aspect of the program is that it helps to discredit ignorant claims in our own country that Islam is by its very nature violent and therefore evil. Most people are not for example aware that tactics such as suicide bombing came into popular practice only in the 1980’s. Previously when one thought of a suicide bomber the most likely image to come to mind was that of a Japanese pilot flying purposely into a US navel vessel. Indeed prior to the 1980’s suicide for any reason, even within the context of Jihad, was seen as categorically unacceptable in Islam. Commenting on traditional attitudes toward suicide as they apply in particular to Jihad the historian and scholar of classical Islam, Bernard Lewis, claims that “The classical jurists distinguish clearly between facing death at the hands of the enemy and killing oneself by one’s own hand. The one leads to heaven, the other to hell. Some recent fundamentalist jurists and others have blurred or even dismissed this distinction, but their view is by no means unanimously accepted. The suicide bomber is thus taking a considerable risk on theological nicety.” (The Crisis of Islam, page 39)

While the Atlantic article admits that by no means are those who complete the program, “ready to make peace with Israel,” it is good to see the government of a Muslim country looking at itself inwardly and actively addressing hard problems. For to long have the countries of the Middle East avoided such steps by pointing to outside forces as the soul cause of all their ailments. Additionally success in Saudi Arabia could have greater implications for the War on Terror in general. Other such programs exported to Muslim countries throughout the world may be able to substantially hinder the ability of Al-Qaeda to recruit and conduct it’s operations.

Right now there is no doubt a large pool of potential fighters for Al-Qaeda to recruit for their world wide Jihad. Although at present there seems to be a focus on conducting operations primarily within the Middle East, many of the Jihadists fighting are from other parts of the globe. A current example of this is the recent fighting taking place in Nahr el-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in Northern Lebanon. Although the militant group Fatah Islam, the group currently fighting with the Lebanese army, is comprised of many Palestinian’s, as well as fighters from other Arab states including Saudi Arabia, other members have been reported to be from as far away as Bangladesh.

Thus the necessity to see violent ideologies defeated in countries outside of Saudi Arabia and the greater Middle East is perfectly clear. As president Bush has said many times he is taking the fight to the enemy so that they don’t bring it home to us. However much one may agree or disagree with that sentiment it may be one that the Saudis have a need to embrace. As an increasing number of foreign fighters are enlisted to fight in Jihad it simply will not be enough to try and fight terrorism within the confines of their own boarders because eventually terrorists will come to them from outside. Fortunately for Saudi Arabia it is equipped more than any other country, (although Iran is probably a close and seemingly unwilling second), to conduct such a fight so long as it remains an ideological one.

The Shotgun Solution

Several months ago I moved to the Washington DC/Baltimore area from California. Well ok that is not entirely true. In-between moving to Maryland from California I made a six and a half month pit stop in Texas. However, with the exception of a few great people I met there, and far less cool things I did there, I prefer to try and block the overall experience from memory.

If there is one thing that is true of all three places however, it is that public transportation cannot be readably relied upon to get around. True in certain areas of California, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, there are fairly good transit systems in place. And the Metro system in Washington D.C. is not bad either. But if you want to be able to get from one major area to the next on even a semi-regular basis you ultimately you need a car.

Having lived in California most of my life, I have often heard that California drivers are among the worst in the country. Never having lived anywhere else as a driver I had no sense of how true or untrue that really was. Now that I do live somewhere else where I drive regularly I can say that if California drivers are among the worst than without question the drivers out here are simply the worst.

If people drove in California the way many people do on the Beltway they would be shot. Indeed, there may very well be a connection between the fact that Washington D.C. has one of the highest murder rates in the nation and the fact that people out here have no sense of common decency on the road. It also helps to explain why traffic on the beltway is ranked among the worst in the country as well.

One thing that I can’t seem to get my head around is the thought process that leads someone to believe that by weaving in out of traffic, never getting any farther than maybe a car length ahead of where they were, they will somehow get to their destination faster. I am not certain how exactly to get the notion that such driving only makes traffic worse across to people, but I have at least one idea.

Back when carriages were not horseless and people traveled by wagon there were two positions a person might take if they were sitting on the outside. One was the driver. He held the reins to instruct the horses on whether or not to stop, go, decrees, and increase speed… Then there was the the second guy, who took the position of “shotgun”, where he sat next to the driver of the carriage with a shotgun in hand. His job was to defend against bandits and pissed off Native Americans. The message was clear; if you come to this carriage with ill intent you are likely to get your fucking head blown off.

I would like to see this old and forgotten tradition of defensive driving be allowed to return to the highways of the Beltway. With a shotgun-armed friend at my side while driving through traffic, I believe I could send a very clear message to many drivers. If you act like a dumb ass on the road, thereby adding to the problem of traffic, your presence on said road will be terminated. Permanently! In theory, if people think that they are likely to get shot for their aggressive behavior, their sense of self preservation will kick in, they will chill the fuck out, and just maybe everyone will get to their destinations in a more timely manner.

No One is Moving Out but the Married

Amos Oz, Israel’s most celebrated native literary figure, has pointed out that when it comes to the conflict between Arabs and Jews it is to much to expect everyone to “make love, not war,” as so many idealists would claim is the solution. Instead he said, what is needed is for Palestinians and Israelis to “make peace not war.” About this peace, he says,

“I don’t expect a sudden burst of mutual love between Israel and Palestine,” and that, “Unfortunately I don’t expect anything like this. I don’t expect a honeymoon either. If anything, I expect a just divorce between Israel and Palestine. And divorces are never happy, even when they are very just. Especially this particular divorce, which is going to be a very particular divorce, because the two divorcing parents are definitely staying in the same apartment. No one is moving out.”

But what then of love? Perhaps peace between nations is the more pragmatic and desirable expectation, but does this mean love need be forgotten entirely, and forsaken.
I do not think that Amos Oz personally means for this to be the case, and the “peace” that he talks about certainly has not yet come to be. But it seems today in Israel that indeed love has been forsaken to such a degree that when it is found it cannot be met with peace.

According to a recent BBC report, this is exactly the case for one young married couple. Jasmine Avisar, an Israeli Jewish woman, and Osama Zaatar, a Muslim Palestinian man met and fell in love in Jerusalem. According to the report they have been stopped in everyway possible from making a life together. Israel, because of its strict security policies, will not let Osma into the unoccupied territories to live with his wife. Consequently they have moved to a West Bank neighborhood. However the Arab community there does not accept them either, and Osama has received threats and is told that he is a traitor. Whether it be a Muslim Palestinian community, or the Jewish Israeli State, their love, which ideally could stand as a symbol for peace, is seemingly impossible in this land of “Divorce.” For that reason Jasmine and Osama have decided to leave the country all together and move to Europe, where they hope to find, in regards to their unlikely marriage, communal and state neutrality if nothing else.

This illustrates that the situation between Palestinians and Israelis is more awkward than even Amos Oz acknowledges. “No one is moving out,” unless of course they decide to embrace marriage instead of divorce. Then they must move out.

Let me tell you about the anti-Christ

I am not a Christian, and do not believe that Jesus died for my sins. However I am not totally against the idea that one day some false god will appear, somehow trick us, and bring about the end of everything. In fact I have come to believe that it may have already begun to happen. To explain this let me tell you about the anit-Christ.

Every day I eat lunch in a sort of common area at my work where they have two televisions. One is always set on ESPN and the other is always set on CNN. Normally I choose to sit closest to the CNN side so I can catch up on the soap opera of world events. As it is CNN already has somewhat of mind altering effect on me, but in the past few day's things have gotten so ridiculous that I have no doubt now that I am headed toward some kind of more serious form of brain damage. That is because ever since Anna Nichole Smith died world events have stopped. In fact it has marked the end of history all together. All prior inconsistencies have been rectified, leaving nothing to be done but stare fixated at the gray dawn of absurdity delivered to us by the omnipotent benevolence of 24-hour news.

After all, a great artist of our time has died, and the whole world surely needs time to reflect on the paradoxically sad and momentous implications of this event. And of course the first order of business should be to consume ourselves with thoughts of her bastard daughter and the discovery of her true father so that they may teach us the proper way of perpetually pushing boulders up and down hills in darkness forever.

Indeed, perhaps the only real question concerning truth that will be left after the discovery of the baby’s father will be whom we should be grateful to for all of this. Some may wish to thank the 24-hour news networks seeing them as the deliverers of truth to us. However I think that would be folly. For they only give us what they know we want. So I think it would be proper to thank ourselves for wanting the right things. There are many possibilities for distraction in life and we should be commended for creating a society that finds clarity in the fog of cultural warfare that surrounds us. For example, some people, (that is the weak minded distracted type who try and make culture very complicated,) often mention obscurities, in an attempt to depress us and bring us down. They may tell us that in other parts of the world people are suffering from diseases that are either treatable or curable. They claim that "unfortunately" those "people" can’t get the help they need because despite all of the money that is being spent, there are not enough qualified doctors and nurses to administer the drugs. As a result, according to Laurie Garrett, writing for the 2007 January-February edition of Foreign Affairs, in her essay, “The Challenge of Global Health”, places such as Guinea-Bissau have a large enough supply of ARV’s, (AIDS medication) for the population but instead “the drugs are cooking in a hot dockside warehouse.” Additionally they tell us about problems in our own country. For them nothing can be good.

Thankfully the good people, (that is those of us who bow down to suck from the tit of a golden calf idle that tells us what we want to hear,) can safely avoid all of that and ascend to a higher plain of being. In this plain we do not say, as the Buddhists do, “Om” as a sort of quit inner reflection. We gaze nowhere, stupefied, with an ignorant sense of calm and say, as if questioning while simultaneously forming a thought, “Ummmmmm?” Given this, perhaps it would be wise to conclude that it is good that Anna Nichole is dead. For has her death not brought about the realization of all our desires?

Unfortunatly this may be true for some. As for myself I do not think it would be right for me to be happy that someone is dead. But I think it is ok to say that I don’t care. Nor do I think it is wrong to say, with justified arrogance, that anyone who does care is not as good as me. The death of Anna Nichole Smith is the most irrelevant thing to happen in a long time and paying attention to it will only help cause the further deterioration of civilization. If it is so irrelevant why I am talking about it? Well, I am hoping that I can at least save myself. To do so I have attempted here to extract all of the useless information in my brain related to this story, condemning it to the electronic landfill, which is this blog, thereby expressing myself fully, and finally making possible the return of my soul to a state of disillusionment that I find to be more emotionally manageable.