125,000 Saudi students, financed by the Saudi king, are attending American universities.

On November 18, five days after Islamists murdered 130 people in Paris, the Southern Utah University student newspaper SUU News published an article by SUU Provost Bradley J. Cook entitled “We must be an open-minded campus,” in which Provost Cook dismissed concerns about any security risk caused by SUU students from the Middle East, cautioned the community not to be bigots against Muslims, reported past instances of Arab students having been assaulted, and called for compassion toward our international students “in this time of a tragedy.”

The core of Cook’s argument is this passage:

Islam is a diverse religion of over a billion people with vast differences of opinion depending on where you are in the world. Islam is not a monolithic religion. There are some extremists within it, for sure, but we have to be very careful not to paint the entire religion as a terrorist culture.

In a separate blog entry about Islam, which I will publish in a few days, I will address Provost’s Cook’s argument about the diversity of belief among believers in Islam around the world. But in this entry, I will be more specific than Provost Cook was about the issue in Cedar City, the home of SUU. According to enrollment statistics of “International Students by Country of Origin” published by SUU, in 2014 SUU had 160 students from Saudi Arabia, one student from the United Arab Emirates, and no students from any other country in the Middle East or from any other country with a predominantly Muslim population. In his article in SUU News, Provost Cook writes, “Since 2005, over 100,000 Saudi’s have studied in the U.S. (expenses paid entirely by the Saudi government),” seeming to imply that the Saudi government is paying entirely for the Saudi students at SUU.

In dismissing any security risk posed by these students, Provost Cook appeals to his own authority:

I come from a relatively informed position, having three degrees related to Middle East studies, a decade of living in various countries in that region (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates) and having authored books and articles on various topics relating to the Arab and Islamic world.

And the essence of the defense of these countries by Provost Cook is an appeal to his own emotion:

Having lived in the Middle East for many years, my family and I did not once feel intimidated or threatened in anyway by our Muslim hosts for being Americans and non-Muslims. We felt completely safe and protected as guests in these countries.

But let us examine facts about the Saudi government, which selected 160 individuals in 2014 to attend SUU and reside in Cedar City. The following passages are from a document, published by the United States Department of State, entitled Saudi Arabia 2014 Human Rights Report :

Page 1:
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a monarchy ruled by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who is both head of state and head of government. The government bases its legitimacy on its interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) and the 1992 Basic Law, which specifies that the rulers of the country shall be male descendants of the founder King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud. The Basic Law sets out the system of governance, rights of citizens, and powers and duties of the government, and it provides that the Koran and Sunna (the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) serve as the country’s constitution.
…
The most important human rights problems reported included citizens’ lack of the ability and legal means to change their government; pervasive restrictions on universal rights such as freedom of expression, including on the internet, and freedom of assembly, association, movement, and religion; and a lack of equal rights for women, children, and noncitizen workers.

Pages 20–21:
The law forbids apostasy and blasphemy, which legally can carry the death penalty, although there have not been any recent instances of death sentences for these crimes. Statements authorities construed as constituting defamation of the king, monarchy, governing system, or the al-Saud family resulted in criminal charges for several Saudis advocating government reform.

Page 21:
In December 2013 the Buraydah Criminal Court sentenced Umar al-Sa’id, a member of ACPRA, to 300 lashes and four years in prison for calling for a constitutional monarchy and criticizing the country’s human rights record; however, authorities subsequently reversed his sentence and ordered that he be retried before the SCC. As of year’s end, al-Sa’id remained at Buraydah prison in al-Qassim Province.

Page 22:
The Press and Publications Law, which extends explicitly to internet communications, governs printed materials; printing presses; bookstores; the import, rental, and sale of films; television and radio; and foreign media offices and their correspondents. In 2011 a royal decree amended the law to strengthen penalties and created a special commission to judge violations. The decree bans publishing anything “contradicting sharia; inciting disruption; serving foreign interests that contradict national interests; and damaging the reputation of the Grand Mufti, members of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, or senior government officials.” The Ministry of Culture and Information may permanently close “whenever necessary” any means of communication–defined as any means of expressing any viewpoint that is meant for circulation–that it deems is engaged in a prohibited activity as set forth in the 2011 royal decree.

Pages 22–23:
The Ministry of Culture and Information must approve the appointment of all senior editors and has authority to remove them. The government provides guidelines to newspapers regarding controversial issues. A 1982 media policy statement urges journalists to uphold Islam, oppose atheism, promote Arab interests, and preserve cultural heritage.

Page 26:
The government censored public artistic expression, prohibited cinemas, and restricted public musical or theatrical performances apart from those considered folkloric and special events approved by the government.

Page 26–27:
On July 3, the SCC of Appeals confirmed a lower court sentence against Mekhlef al-Shammary, a Saudi activist from Khobar in the Eastern Province who organized a weekly salon that brought together academics and Shia and Sunni religious figures to discuss reconciliation efforts in the kingdom. In June 2013 the SCC sentenced al-Shammary to a five-year prison term for “stirring up dissent” against the government. Additionally, the court sentenced al-Shammary to a 10-year international travel ban. On November 3, the Khobar Criminal Court sentenced al-Shammary to two years in prison and 200 lashes on a second set of charges that include hosting reformists for private dinners and gatherings at his home. Al-Shammary ceased publishing human rights commentary on his social media accounts following the confirmation of the first sentence.

Page 27:

On October 28, local and regional press reported a court sentenced a Saudi man to two years in prison and 500 lashes for hosting a mixed-gender concert. Authorities sentenced five male attendees to eight months in prison and 99 lashes. Authorities also detained 15 women; it is unclear if authorities punished them.

In December local press reported police arrested a women who dressed in men’s clothing to be able to attend a soccer match (women are banned from soccer stadiums, except for FIFA-sponsored events because FIFA rules mandate entry of men and women).

Pages 30–31:
There are severe restrictions on foreign travel, including for women and members of minority groups. No one may leave the country without an exit visa and a passport. Women under the age of 45, minors (men younger than 21), and other dependents or foreign citizen workers under sponsorship require a male guardian’s consent to travel abroad. A noncitizen wife needs permission from her husband to travel unless both partners sign a prenuptial agreement permitting the noncitizen wife to travel without the husband’s permission. Government entities and male family members can “blacklist” women and minor children, prohibiting their travel. The male guardian is legally able in custody disputes to prevent even adult children from leaving the country.

Page 34:
The law does not provide citizens the ability to change their government peacefully and establishes an absolute monarchy led by the Al Saud family as the political system.

Page 41:
Rape is a criminal offense under sharia with a wide range of penalties from flogging to execution. The government enforced the law based on its interpretation of sharia, and courts punished victims as well as perpetrators for illegal “mixing of genders,” even when there was no conviction for rape. Consequently, due to the legal and social penalties, authorities brought few cases to trial. The law does not recognize spousal rape as a crime.

Pages 41–42:
Independent estimates supported by officials working at the Ministry of Social Affairs indicated the incidence of female spousal abuse ranged widely, from 16 to 50 percent of all wives.

Page 43:
The country’s interpretation of sharia prohibits women from marrying non-Muslims, but men may marry Christians and Jews. Women require government permission to marry noncitizens.
…
The guardianship system requires that every woman have a close male relative as her “guardian” with the legal authority to approve her travel outside of the country. A guardian also has authority to approve some types of business licenses and study at a university or college. Women can make their own determinations concerning hospital care.

Page 44:
The law requires women usually to sit in separate, specially designated family sections. They frequently cannot consume food in restaurants that do not have such sections. Women risk arrest for riding in a private vehicle driven by a male who is not an employee (such as a hired chauffeur or taxi driver) or a close male relative. Cultural norms enforced by state institutions require women to wear an abaya (a loose-fitting, full-length black cloak) in public.

Women also faced discrimination in courts, where the testimony of one man equals that of two women.

Page 47:
There were no known Jewish citizens.

Page 49:
Under sharia as interpreted in the country, consensual same-sex sexual conduct is punishable by death or flogging, depending on the perceived seriousness of the case. It is illegal for men “to behave like women” or to wear women’s clothes, and vice versa.
…
In April local authorities and the CPVPV raided a concert in a rest house in Jeddah and arrested 35 gay men, some of whom were dressed in women’s clothing. In July the Medina Criminal Court sentenced a 24-year old man to three years in prison and 450 lashes for soliciting sex with other men using Twitter.

Clearly, the Saudi government is a barbaric and oppressive regime. Let us now examine the nature of the threat that this regime poses to America.

Cook writes,

Since 2005, over 100,000 Saudi’s have studied in the U.S. (expenses paid entirely by the Saudi government), with no incidents of terror from these students.

This statement is inaccurate. As a 2011 editorial in Investor’s Business Daily notes,

The Saudi charged in a plot to bomb U.S. targets entered the country under the same student visa deal we knocked President Bush for brokering with Saudi King Abdullah.
…
The FBI last week arrested the 20-year-old Saudi college student in Lubbock, Texas, for allegedly plotting to bomb the ex-president’s Dallas home, as well as nuclear plants and several other sites.

But acts of terror already attempted or committed are not the only measure of the threat to America. On September 10, 2001, it was not yet known that 19 terrorists, 15 of whom were Saudis, would murder three thousand people on American soil. The Trojan Horse was lovely, until it was not. It is a virtual certainty that many jihadists are training and waiting for the command to attack from within America, while others—such as the America-hating Islamic state of Iran—are seeking ways to attack using weapons of mass destruction. Americans have had to spend trillions of dollars worth of time and money to protect America from such attacks, yet most of us realize that many Americans will die in the future if we do nothing but try to intercept and thwart the plots of specific terrorists.

Perhaps even greater threats are the other forms of jihad that Saudi Arabia is known to be waging. In his 2010 book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, former U.S. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney writes (2010, 18–19),

In the minds of the jihadists, there is only one legitimate government and it is waiting to be unleashed: a caliphate with global reach and power.
…
Theirs is a strategy based on conquest and compulsion. Because it has no singular or coordinated leadership—and because its objectives are both grandiose and fragmented—attempts to execute this strategy are pursued by a number of tactical means. Some, like the Wahhabis [who are allied with the Saudi government], focus on the virtual brainwashing of young people to help spread radicalism throughout the world of Islam. Others, like Hamas, recruit and train suicide bombers. Some endeavor to mollify and pacify the West, lulling these nations into complacency and inaction. Lebanese American scholar and NBC commentator Dr. Walid Phares argues in his book, Future Jihad, that the massive Saudi investment in Islamic study centers in Western universities is designed to do precisely that.

That is, Saudi Arabia leads two of the three tactics of jihad—the tactics other than overt terrorism, which Saudi Arabia also participates in. And both of these tactics involve Saudi students in American universities.

To see how Saudi students are brainwashed throughout childhood before arriving in American universities, consider these excerpts from a 2011 report by the Hudson Institute entitled Ten Years On: Saudi Arabia’s Textbooks Still Promote Religious Violence.

These passages are from the Summary:

Pages 7–8:

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s textbooks have a significance that many others do not. Most of the 9/11 terrorists, as well as Osama bin Laden himself, were born and educated in Saudi Arabia. As revealed in an American diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, as recently as December 2009 American government officials believed that Saudi donors remained among the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups such as al Qaeda.
…
[T]he encouragement of violence and extremism remains an integral part of Saudi Arabia’s national textbooks, particularly those on religion. Five million Saudi students are exposed to them in Saudi classrooms each year. Moreover, as the controlling authority of the two holiest shrines of Islam, Saudi Arabia is able to disseminate its religious materials among the millions of Muslims making the hajj each year. Hence, these teachings can have a wide and deep influence.

Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth also enables it to disseminate its textbooks far and wide. They are posted on the Saudi Education Ministry’s website and are shipped and distributed free by a vast Saudi-sponsored Sunni infrastructure to many Muslim schools, mosques and libraries throughout the world. For example, apart from other schools the Saudi religious curriculum is followed by most of the 19 international academies founded in major world cities by the Saudi government, each of which is chaired by the local Saudi ambassador. In his book The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright asserts that, while Saudis constitute only 1 percent of the world’s Muslims, they pay “90 per cent of the expenses of the entire faith, overriding other traditions of Islam.” Former Treasury Department General Counsel David Aufhauser and other analysts in testimony to Congress, have cited the statistic that, on an annual basis, Saudi Arabia spends three times as much in exporting its Salafi ideology, also called “Wahhabism,” as did the Soviets in propagating Communism during the height of the Cold War.

Muslims in many countries have reported that over the past twenty to thirty years, local Islamic traditions have been transformed and radicalized under growing Saudi Wahhabi influence.

That is, the Saudi government is a major part of the cause for the rise of militant Islam throughout the world, including in the United States.

Page 11:

Blood libel is used to advance Saudi politics. Israel is described as having “no benefit in the human world except sucking its (Arab countries) blood, bringing to life a parasitic perverted structure, giving from its waste, so that it retains in its veins some blood to suck and live on.”

The Saudi educational system for grades 1 through 12 rejects critical thinking and independent reasoning. Under the Saudi Education Ministry’s method of rote learning, these dogmatic teachings are tantamount to indoctrination. This starts in first grade and intensifies in number and virulence in middle school and high school. By occupying much of the school day, the Wahhabi religion courses crowd out ones on math, science and the humanities, leaving students poorly prepared for work in the modern world and vulnerable to the messages of terrorist recruiters.

Here are some sample passages that the Hudson Institute study quotes from Saudi government-published textbooks:

Page 14:

“The apostate has two punishments; worldly and in the hereafter.
Punishment in this life: Death if he does not repent.”
Jurisprudence, Tenth Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. 1430-1431; 2010-2011, p. 82.

Page 15:

“The punishment of homosexuality is death…. Ibn Qudamah said: “The companions (of the Prophet) agreed unanimously on killing. Some of the Companions argued that he (a homosexual) is to be burned with fire. It has been said that he should be stoned, or thrown from a high place. Other things have also been said.”
Jurisprudence, Tenth Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. 1431-1432; 2010-2011, pp. 100-101.

“In Islamic law, (jihad) has two uses:
1. specific usage: which means: Exerting effort in fighting unbelievers and tyrants.”
Hadith and Islamic Culture: Management, Social, Natural, and Technical Sciences Section, Twelfth Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. 1431-1432; 2010-2011, p. 71.

“In the general usage, Jihad is divided into the following categories:…Wrestling with the unbelievers by calling them (to the faith) and fighting them.”
Hadith and Islamic Culture: Management, Social, Natural, and Technical Sciences Section, Twelfth Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. 1431-1432; 2010-2011, p. 72.

Pages 15–16:
“As was cited in Ibn Abbas, and was said: The Apes are the people of the Sabbath, the Jews; and the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the Christians.”
Monotheism, Eight Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. 1431-1432; 2010-2011, p. 42.

Page 17:
“Lesson goals: The student notes some of the Jews’ condemnable qualities.”
Monotheism, Eight Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. 1431-1432; 2010-2011, p. 42.

Page 22:
“The Jews’ nature is treachery, betrayal and breaking covenants.”
The Prophet’s Life and the History of the Rashidun Caliphate, Seventh Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. p. 91.

Page 24:

“The temptation of the sons of Israel remains in women for they have attempted in this era to corrupt women and get them out of their houses and make them a means for seduction and corruption.”
Hadith, Eighth Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. p. 36.

“Nowadays, as have gathered on the Arab and Islamic nation, the powers of evil, atheism and tyranny targeting the Islamic creed, the whole nation lives in a Jihad against international Zionism manifested by the State of Jewish gangs’ called Israel established on the land of Palestine wrongfully and in transgression.”
Islamic History, Eighth Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. p. 105.

Page 25:
“The punishment for a magician is death because witchcraft is a great sin and due to the evils it brings on society.”
Monotheism, Eight Grade, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Education. p. 54.

This is the kind of indoctrination, from early childhood to young adulthood, that all Saudi students receive. Then the Saudi government selects, from among these students, the ones who get to study on scholarship in America. What kind of students do you think the Saudi government selects? Do the Saudis select students who condemn the Saudi government, or the ones who have expressed some modicum of doubt, who have wondered out loud that perhaps the Saudi government should not kill someone who marries a Christian and chooses to convert to Christianity, or that perhaps Jews are not really Apes, and Christians are not really swine? Or will the Saudi government select the students who are the most complete and loyal submitters (that is, Muslims), the ones who must therefore believe that America—the land of the free, the land of independent thinkers—is the most evil nation in history.

Apologists may argue that Saudi Arabia is an ally to America in fighting terrorism. But Saudi Arabia is merely a gang in power that wants to prevent other gangs from threatening that power. A recent New York Times op-ed, entitled “Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It,” argues that Saudi Arabia is what Daesh—a.k.a. ISIL or ISIS—would be like if Daesh were to conquer a whole country. The op-ed states,

Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that arose in the 18th century, hopes to restore a fantasized caliphate centered on a desert, a sacred book, and two holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Born in massacre and blood, it manifests itself in a surreal relationship with women, a prohibition against non-Muslims treading on sacred territory, and ferocious religious laws. That translates into an obsessive hatred of imagery and representation and therefore art, but also of the body, nakedness and freedom. Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.

The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.

Provost Cook writes,

The U.S. and Saudi governments have been hyper-vigilant in vetting these students from an immigration and security standpoint.

What can U.S. intelligence agencies reasonably be expected to know about teenagers who have lived in Saudi Arabia their whole lives? Moreover, under the Obama administration, U.S. intelligence agents trying to vet individuals entering America have been forbidden to investigate issues related to Islam, forbidden even to ask individuals about associations with Islamic organizations, on the grounds that such investigation would be religious persecution.

Therefore, we really are relying on the vetting by the Saudi government. But the Saudi government is the worst of the worst, along with the governments of Iran and North Korea. We should expect, therefore, that individuals vetted by the Saudi government will be the worst of the worst, as if they had been vetted in 1935 by Hitler’s own inner circle.

Saudi students at SUU might not commit violent acts now, because one tactic of the Saudis is, in the words of Mitt Romney, “to endeavor to mollify and pacify the West, lulling these nations into complacency and inaction.” But some of these students might indeed commit violent acts, because they almost certainly believe the evil, West-hating, Christian-hating, Jew-hating ideas they have been taught all their lives.

A public university, a socially active community, and a tourist destination are full of rich targets for terrorists. The best defense against terrorists is the well-armed local populace—the very people whom Cook is concerned might be “bigots”—along with a policy that resists the importation of agents financed by a foreign enemy.

Many local residents are well aware of—and prepared for—dangers that face contemporary America, dangers caused by policies of our federal government that are contrary to or nation’s founding principles. Local communities in Utah make preparations that will enable the communities to survive even if large sections of our nation do not survive, even if there is widespread civil breakdown. One of the strengths of Cedar City and the surrounding community, compared to many other parts of the country, is that the good guys outnumber and out-gun the bad guys by a wide margin. That strength must not be lost. It is imprudent for a town with only a few thousand men, albeit very courageous and capable, to add to its population 160 military-age individuals, most of them men, who are loyal to a foreign enemy that actively seeks to destroy America and all Western values.

Even if there is never a civil breakdown in America, and even if the Saudi students never commit overt acts of violence, they are still part of the “vast industry” working for worldwide governance by Islamic law—sharia, as exemplified by the teachings in Saudi textbooks quoted above—which demands worldwide obedience, which in turn entails the overthrow of America and all other non-Islamic states. Some Saudi students, upon graduation from American universities, will go back to Saudi Arabia and work in providing technology for this “vast industry.” Others will produce propaganda for this industry. And Southern Utah University will have aided in that effort.

Of course, the United States has a much bigger problem than the 160 Saudi students at SUU. According to Arab News,

Mohammed bin Abdullah Al-Isa, the Saudi cultural attaché in the United States, said that according to statistics in 2015, there are 125,513 male and female students on scholarships.

To illustrate that “The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking,” consider this one of many public documents in which the Saudi government, along with the other 56 Islamic governments that are members of an organization now called the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), openly states its ultimate goal. The famous Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, Aug. 5, 1990, contains these statements:

Keenly aware of the place of mankind in Islam as vicegerent of Allah on Earth;
…
Agrees to issue the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam that will serve as a general guidance for Member States in the Field of human rights.
…
Believing that fundamental rights and freedoms according to Islam are an integral part of the Islamic religion and that no one shall have the right as a matter of principle to abolish them either in whole or in part or to violate or ignore them in as much as they are binding divine commands, which are contained in the Revealed Books of Allah and which were sent through the last of His Prophets to complete the preceding divine messages and that safeguarding those fundamental rights and freedoms is an act of worship whereas the neglect or violation thereof is an abominable sin, and that the safeguarding of those fundamental rights and freedom is an individual responsibility of every person and a collective responsibility of the entire Ummah;

Do hereby and on the basis of the above-mentioned principles declare as follows:
…
Safety from bodily harm is a guaranteed right. It is the duty of the state to safeguard it, and it is prohibited to breach it without a Shari’ah-prescribed reason.

Keep in mind that “a Shari’ah-prescribed reason” includes apostasy or being a Jew or Christian or homosexual, or a man and woman dancing or playing music together, etc.

The Declaration continues:

Parents and those in such like capacity have the right to choose the type of education they desire for their children, provided they take into consideration the interest and future of the children in accordance with ethical values and the principles of the Shari’ah.
…
Every man shall have the right, within the framework of the Shari’ah, to free movement and to select his place of residence whether within or outside his country and if persecuted, is entitled to seek asylum in another country. The country of refuge shall be obliged to provide protection to the asylum-seeker until his safety has been attained, unless asylum is motivated by committing an act regarded by the Shari’ah as a crime.
…
Everyone shall have the right to enjoy the fruits of his scientific, literary, artistic or technical labour of which he is the author; and he shall have the right to the protection of his moral and material interests stemming therefrom, provided it is not contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.
…
There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Shari’ah.
…
Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah.
…
Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari’ah.
…
All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.
…
The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration.

At this point in writing this blog post, I googled “Islam” and “Monty Python.” The document quoted above, this famous “Cairo Declaration on Human Rights,” which attempts to mimic other declarations of human rights, is every bit as ridiculous as a dictator holding an election in which he is the only candidate allowed to run. According to Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states, everyone should be totally and absolutely free—as long as he follows Islam.

Sadly, my googling of “Islam” and “Monty Python” turned up this 2013 statement by Monty Python star Michael Palin:

We all saw what happened to Salman Rushdie and none of us want to get into all that. It’s a pity but that’s the way it is. There are people out there without a sense of humour and they’re heavily armed.

The Cairo Declaration also illustrates the abject dishonesty of the Islamic states and their operatives. They brazenly claim to support ‘freedom’, ‘rights’, ‘reason’, ‘science’, and ‘art’, by brazenly changing the meaning of these words to conform them to their barbaric ‘religion’.

Yet Western leaders, along with Western academicians, grant respect and legitimacy to Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states. President Obama apologizes to Muslims for America. When Americans in Benghazi are murdered, and the U.S. government attributes the murders to a response to an anti-Muslim video, Obama replies by stating, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” The Obama administration tries to make a treaty, granting unbelievable legitimacy and concessions, with Iran. The U.S. Attorney General last week makes vague threats against those who use “anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

And the Provost of Southern Utah University, writing in the student newspaper in the aftermath of the mass murder of Parisians by those who in effect were just following Saudi law, praises Saudi Arabia while warning Americans not to be bigots.

Evidently, the Saudi plan is working.

Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states have for years been announcing this plan to the world. In 2005, the OIC’s Islamic Summit Conference, held in Saudi Arabia, issued a Ten-Year Programme of Action that included this section:

VII. Combating Islamophobia

1. Emphasize the responsibility of the international community, including all governments, to ensure respect for all religions and combat their defamation.
…
3. Endeavor to have the United Nations adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia, and call upon all States to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments.

In other words, if Saudi Arabia gets its way, this blog entry of mine will become illegal to publish, and I will receive “deterrent punishments” from the U.S. government for publishing it.

Fueled by untold billions of dollars in oil wealth “nationalized”—that is, robbed—from Western corporations, The Saudi jihad keeps growing like a terminal cancer. According to Arab News, in 2007 there were 10,000 Saudi students in the U.S. Now there are 125,513 financed by the Saudi king. And this past July, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal—who last week called for Donald Trump to withdraw from the U.S. presidential race after Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S.—pledged $32 billion to the following cause, according to Investor’s Business Daily:

Alwaleed says he will model his endowment on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, only with a twist: Much of his philanthropic work will help “foster cultural understanding” of Islam in America and the West.

That means promoting the kingdom’s brand of Islam, while censoring criticism of Islam.

Published reports and books reveal Alwaleed already has pledged millions to radical Muslim Brotherhood front groups that have a secret plan to Islamize America and spread Shariah law throughout the West.

My only quibble with Investor’s Business Daily is that the plan is not so secret.

In his article in SUU News, Provost Cook writes,

A decade ago, President George W. Bush and King Abdullah launched a massive international scholarship program for Saudi students to not only get a good education, but also to promote greater U.S.-Saudi understanding – in turn helping combat extremism.

But what kind of U.S.-Saudi understanding do SUU students gain from the Saudi program and from Provost Cook?

In Provost Cook’s most recent academic article, “Democracy and Islam: Promises and Perils for the Arab Spring Protests,” Cook and co-author Michael Stathis characterize some Islamic governments with terms such as “corrupt regimes” and “totalitarian regime.” But their description of the Saudi monarchy consists of one word: “conservative.”  [2/19/20016: See this correction: The referenced article does contain further criticism of the Saudi monarchy.] In contrast Cook and Stathis (2012, 180) write the following about America:

Scandinavian countries have successfully coupled liberal democracy with socialist principles to create what is perhaps even a more compassionate democracy than exists in the USA.

In my companion blog entry to this one, I will write about the fundamental, evil premise in common between socialism and Islam: the submission of the individual mind and body to the direction of others.

What are the Saudi students—as well as American students—going to learn about America, and about reforming Saudi Arabia, in an academic program overseen by Provost Cook, who praises socialism over America, admonishes Americans not to be bigots, and proclaims that living in Saudi Arabia is just fine as it is now? [2/19/2016: See the aforementioned correction.]

Let us be precise about what needs to be understood and by whom. Americans need to understand that the American political system, founded on individual rights based on individual reason, is good; and that the Saudi system, founded on forced obedience to a doctrine of renunciation of mind and body, is evil. Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia need to know the same thing and two more things as well: that we Americans know it too, and that we support those who stand for reason and freedom against their depraved king.

If there are any champions for freedom among the Saudi students in America or still stuck in the Saudi hell-hole, then they will benefit far more from my words than from the words of Provost Cook. [2/19/2016: See the aforementioned correction.] For decades beginning in the 1920s, hordes of American businessmen, academicians, and politicians provided aid and friendship to the floundering Soviet Union in the spirit of cooperation and mutual education. These ‘useful idiots’, along with some downright traitors, enabled the oppressive Soviet government to remain in power for generations. They also brought leftist policies to American government and thousands of nuclear bombs pointed at America. We are very lucky not to have lost millions of citizens in a nuclear holocaust. In contrast, President Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” All over the Soviet Union, photos of President Reagan went up in the homes of freedom-loving individuals encouraged by Reagan’s courage. Soon after, the Soviet Union fell. Since then, due to appeasement by recent American presidents, a Soviet-style Russia has returned from the dead, and we have un-won the Cold War.

The ‘useful idiots’ of Vladimir Lenin probably “felt completely safe” in Soviet Russia, as Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden probably “felt completely safe” visiting North Vietnam, and Dennis Rodman probably “felt completely safe” visiting his little buddy Kim Jong-un in North Korea. They probably were indeed safe, so long as they remained ‘useful’, refraining from calling the evil empire what it was.

But history confirms what we all should know to be good policy in dealing with others: Praise and befriend good; condemn and disassociate from evil.

In 2014, according to SUU enrollment statistics, the university had 69 students from South Korea and no students from North Korea. That is as it should be. Imagine if those numbers were reversed; that would be insane, and terribly unjust. Likewise, SUU should be seeking students from countries such as Israel, and telling Middle East dictatorships that inquire, “When your country is free like Israel, we will welcome your students too.”

In his SUU News article, Provost Cook writes,

Muslims world-wide are denouncing this kind of violence done in their name.

Again, let us be more specific than Provost Cook. What have Saudi students at SUU done to denounce the policies, documented above, of the Saudi government? Of course, these students would do no such thing. After all, the Saudi government has been, in the words of Provost Cook, “hyper-vigilant in vetting these students.” But I invite Provost Cook and the Saudi students to prove me wrong. Let us see even one Saudi student at SUU publicly condemn the Saudi policies that execute people for apostasy, blasphemy, homosexuality, mixing of sexes, etc. Let us see one Saudi student condemn the barbaric passages, documented above, in Saudi textbooks. Let us see one Saudi student join me in calling Saudi Arabia an evil empire.

If even one Saudi student does speak out in such a way, he can do much good for the cause of freedom in Saudi Arabia and in America.

Regarding colleges and universities throughout America, the proper course of action should be clear. They should remove all 125,513 students financed by the Saudi government forthwith.

Southern Utah University should earn the honor of being first to act.

Every presidential candidate should be asked his policy regarding this sordid program conceived by President George W. Bush and King Abdullah in 2005. I hope that, by time the next president terminates this program, Southern Utah University will have shown the way.

Of course, what America should do is conquer Saudi Arabia—along with Iran and other Middle-East dictatorships—and confiscate all of the monarchy’s assets, but I have written about that elsewhere.
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See also, It is the Submission that Causes the Violence.