Radical Islam in America: the media, prisons, the military, and academia are four key areas where the Saudi government and its Wahhabi ideology have gained tremendous influence in the U.S

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 2005 by Stephen Schwartz

WHEN THE HORROR of Sept. 11 first occurred, Americans experienced a great deal of confusion and were subject to much speculation about the motives for such terrorism. It was natural for many of us to assume that we were attacked because of who we are: because we are wealthy, a dominant power in the world, and represent ideas that are in conflict with those of radical Islam. Many also figured--wrongly, I think--that it had mostly to do with the Middle East and Israel. Yet, a very interesting fact emerged--of the 19 suicide terrorists, 15 were subjects of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This is important because these were not poor people from refugee camps on the West Bank or in Gaza, or individuals who had grown up feeling some grievance against Israel and the U.S. because they lived in difficult conditions. These were not people from the crowded and disrupted communities of Egypt or Pakistan, or those who had experienced anti-Islamic violence in the last 20 years and therefore had turned against the U.S. These individuals had grown up in the country that Americans often think of as their most solid and dependable ally in the Arab world.

Why would Saudis be involved in this? What does it mean that Osama bin Laden is a Saudi? Why are so many members of Al-Qaeda Saudis? Why is it that Al-Qaeda essentially is a Saudi political movement? How come 25% of those detained in Guantanamo are Saudis? How is it that a country the U.S. has favored, delivered an enormous amount of wealth to through the purchase of oil, protected militarily, and whose young people have been educated in America for many years is so connected to the attacks of Sept. 11?

Wahhabism in the U.S.

The ideology of Saudi hardliners is, unfortunately for Westerners, of great relevance, even inside the U.S. One doctrine of Islam dominates in Saudi Arabia--Wahhabism, which is the most extreme, violent, separatist, and expansionistic form of Islam in existence today. It not only lashes out at the West, but seeks to take over and impose a rigid conformity on the entire Muslim world.

What then of America? Islam was new in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. Then, because of changes in the immigration laws, the American Muslim community suddenly became much larger. Most Muslims who came here were not Arabs. The plurality have been from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. As Islam emerged as a major religion in the U.S., it--unlike other American sects--did not have an establishment. A disparate group of Muslims arrived and established mosques in various places. They represented different ethnic groups and lacked any structure to bring them together and unite them. That situation did not last long, however, because the Saudis decided to create an American Islamic establishment based on the radical doctrines of Wahhabism. In order to bring this about, they created a system of organizations that would speak for American Muslims to the government and the media and through the educational system and the mosques.

One can learn a lot about how the Saudi-backed Wahhabi establishment in the U.S. works by looking at how it came to speak for all of Islam in the American media. It did this by creating a set of organizations. One of the most prominent is called the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). This group allegedly was set up to be a kind of a Muslim version of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. That is, its stated goal was to protect Muslims against prejudice and stereotypes.

I was working in the newsroom of the San Francisco Chronicle at the time, and I was struck by CAIR's approach with our reporters and editors. They did not come to the newspaper offices and say, "We're Muslims: we're here now: this is our holy book; this is the life of out prophet Muhammad; these are the holidays we observe: this is what we believe in and we'd like you to report these things accurately." Rather, they said. "We are a minority and we surfer from discrimination. We surfer from hurtful stereotypes. We know that you are good liberal reporters and that you want to avoid inflicting these stereotypes on us. So, whenever you do a story on Islam, you should call us first and make sure it is correct." Of course, that meant "'correct" according to Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism.

There are other such groups. One of them is called the Islamic Society of North America. It is controlled directly from Saudi Arabia, and openly owns 250 of the 1,200 main mosques in the U.S. This, though, is just the tip of the iceberg. My research suggests that a full 80% of American mosques are under the control of the Saudi government and Wahhabism. This does not mean that 80% of American Muslims are supporters of Wahhabism--only that their mosques are controlled by the Saudi Wahhabis. There is a wide range of such organizations. Many we do not hear much about, including some of the worst. For example, the Islamic Circle of North America, which acts as a kind of extremist militia, has a very bad reputation for threatening, intimidating, and enforcing conformity in the Pakistani Muslim community.