Sunday, November 06, 2005

French riots: Is there a Saudi connection?

This comes from AP, via Drudge:

Ten nights of urban unrest that brought thousands of arson attacks on cars, nursery schools and other targets from the Mediterranean to the German border reached Paris where at least 28 cars were burned overnight in the French capital, government officials said Sunday.

Police found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a southern suburb of the city, with more than 100 bottles, gallons of fuel and hoods for hiding rioters' faces, a senior Justice Ministry official said Sunday.

Six youths, all aged under 18, were arrested in the raid Saturday night on a building in Evry south of Paris where the gasoline bombs were being put together, Jean-Marie Huet, the ministry's director of criminal affairs and pardons, told The Associated Press.

The discovery, Huet said, shows that gasoline bombs being used by rioters "are not being improvised by kids in their bathrooms."

Unless this report is a hoax, and I have no reason to believe it is, the riots in France cannot be blamed solely on the various societal reasons--which yes, do figure into this mess--but one can easily imagine outside inspiration being a guiding force for the rioters. Those 100 molotov cocktails probably were not assembled in the last ten days.

Okay, let me be blunt: At some point, the French authorities have to take a look and investigate if Saudi funded "charities" have any role within the Islamic culture-within-a-culture of France.

Are Franco-Muslim clerics directed or funded by the Saudis? Those madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan that helped put the Taliban in power in Afghanistan: They were financed by the government of Saudi Arabia, as has been well-documented elsewhere.

Besides Qu'ran memorization, what was taught at those schools was the extremist and violent Wahhabi sect of Islam, the state creed of Saudi Arabia.

Wahhabism is the impetus behind the spread of Islamism.

From the November 7, 2005 National Review, Alex Alexiev writes:

In the West itself, Islamic extremism has made huge strides and dominates the burgeoning Muslim diaspora communities in many European cities. Under Islamist control, they are being transformed into separatist anti-societies that reject Western civilization and its norms. Many are increasingly willing to engage in violence against their fellow citizens. Fully 13 percent of British Muslims, according to a 2004 Home Office survey, approve of terrorist, and 1 percent--a staggering 16,000 people--"engaged in terrorist activity at home or abroad, or supported such activity." Earlier German studies indicate that a quarter of Muslim school students are ready to use violence on behalf of Islam.

What's amazing about Alexiev's article is that it was written before October 27, when the riots began in France.

It goes on...

The basic facts of Saudi sponsorship or radical Islam are too well known to require much rehearsal here. According to Riyadh's own admission, the kingdom has spent no less that an average of $2.5 billion a year to support "Islamic activities." This has allowed it to build and control 210 Islamic Centers, 1,500 mosques, 2,000 schools, and 200 colleges in non-Muslim countries alone. As a result, there is hardly a Western city today that does not have an Islamist-controlled institution of one kind or another spewing hatred against the West and Muslims who refuse to submit to radical Islam. It is this infrastructure of extremist mosques, madrassas, "charities," and foundations that was, and continues to be the real incubator of fanaticism worldwide and a foe vastly more potent than al-Qaeda.

If the Saudis--or their "charities" have anything beyond an oblique role in the ongoing carnage in France, then the time has arrived, in my opinion, to label Saudi Arabia an adversary, no, make that an enemy of Western civilization and nations such as France and the United States.

Nations have a right---no, a duty--to protect their citizens from enemies that wish to harm or destroy them.

If for instance, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was discovered to be behind a similar outbreak of violence in the United States, it would be considered an act of war.

Even if the French riots are found to be spontaneous, the Saudis need to be told what is acceptable and not acceptable in the ways of Islam proselytizing.

If the Saudis don't change? Well, a lot of things can happen--all of them unpleasant.

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