Don’t Circle the Wagons

If you got most of your history of the American West from cowboys and Indian movies, or from left-wing hate America first literature, then you should read P.J. Hill’s article, “Don’t Circle the Wagons” in Books & Culture, March/April 2007, page 10. Hill reviews the book, Indians and Emigrants: Encounters on the Overland Trails, and debunks the notion that there was a lot of conflict between the Indians and the settlers because they came from very different cultures. He also debunks the myth that today there must be clashes of cultures as well. On the contrary, history shows that two widely different cultures can coexist amiably if they want to.

Contrary to modern myths, “Indians and settlers interacted rather peacefully for a long period of time.” The prairie became a vast cooperative meeting ground where commerce and exchange were carried out for mutual profit. Much of the land was settled in a peaceful manner and wagon trains heading to Oregon or California were rarely attacked by Indians. Both sides saw incredible opportunities for potential gain through repeated peaceful interaction. Indians even settled along the trail to act as middle men in this exchange system.

While there was some misunderstanding between the two cultures, most of the misunderstanding came from the side of the settlers, not the Indians. There were a few skirmishes, and these “stories” were repeated numerous times, until they became well-embedded in the consciousness of those heading west. As a result, many settlers expected to be attacked, and so they began to treat all Indians with suspicion and fear. And even though there were very few attacks and Indians willingly offered themselves as guides, even putting their own lives in danger to help and rescue settlers, the fear grew.

From 1840 to 1860, only 362 emigrants were killed by Indians, a mere 18 deaths per year. By contrast, 426 Indians were killed by whites. Yet these were small skirmishes, usually as the result of the settlers misunderstanding the intentions of the Indians. There were few major incidents or organized plans of attack. Instead, there were only eight “massacres” between 1840 and 1870.


I like Hill’s conclusion: “We ought not to be too quick to assume that people of very different backgrounds will always find their interactions laden with conflict.”

As Christians, we need to be leaders in reducing fear and promoting peaceful interaction between groups with different backgrounds and worldviews. Fear leads to mistrust and misunderstandings, resulting in conflict. Love conquers fear and leads to trust, understanding and cooperation.


You can read the article at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/002/3.10.html

Love’s Kingdom

While listening to Hatred’s Kingdom by Dore Gold, I was struck by the similarities between Saudi Wahhabi Muslims and the Pharisees of the New Testament. Extremist Muslims desire purity and righteousness and pursue it with a passion unequalled in the world today. This zeal is very similar to the zeal the Apostle Paul had:

“If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.” (Philippians 3:4-6).

Paul was the most righteous and zealous Jew of his day. No one could claim to be any more righteous than he, and his zeal for God was unmatched by any of his contemporaries. He was so zealous that he killed Christians, hunting them down in order to kill them. Yet Paul had a stunning revelation that caused him to realize that what he thought was the ultimate gain was actually the ultimate loss in God’s eyes. He was blinded by his own zeal and self-righteousness. He couldn’t see the truth until God dramatically broke through to him.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were very religious; praying, fasting, giving alms, and maintaining their purity. However, they had no love. They hated Jesus and sought to kill him, finally succeeding by having him crucified. They were intolerant of “sinners” and saw themselves as better than them. They loved to be seen praying and fasting, taking every opportunity to display their righteousness and piety yet they refused to lift a finger to help the poor and needy. They looked down on women and despised Gentiles, refusing to let them into their houses or to enter a Gentile’s house. Jesus had his harshest words for them:

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:12-13)

“If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” (Matthew 12:7)

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” (Matthew 23:23)

Like the Pharisees, the radical Islamists have neglected mercy and love in their pursuit of righteousness and piety. Yet righteousness without love is a sham. John clearly teaches in his first epistle that to claim to know God but not love your brother is a lie:

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. (1 John 2:9-11)

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. (1 John 3:14-15)

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20)

Now, a Muslim may say that he loves his brother. Yet, loving those who are like you, are kind to you, and agree with you is easy. It is when you love those who hate you, persecute you, are different from you and don’t agree with you that you demonstrate your true character. If you do not love these people, then your love for your “brother” is a sham. Jesus said:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:43-47)

Righteousness and love must mark the true believer. One without the other is deficient. They are two sides of the same coin. God is light and God is love. He is holy and righteous and demands holiness and righteousness of his people. However, he is also love and he demands love of his people as well. God’s love and holiness work together. God is both just and the one who justifies:

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:25-26)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

God’s holiness demands that sin be punished but God’s love provided the means for that sin to be cleansed and removed. The Pharisees saw, and extremist Muslims see, God as only holy and righteous, demanding righteousness and punishing sin, leaving no room for forgiveness, mercy and love. This produces a harsh, legalistic, self-righteousness that is intolerant, inflexible, uncaring, unmerciful and rigid.

The danger today is to go to the other extreme and see God as only love. This has resulted in a wimpy, feel-good, morally lax Christianity without any backbone. “If it feels good, do it”, and “Don’t judge me” are some of the mottos these antinomian Christians like to quote.

However, the key is to hold on to both God’s holiness and God’s love and seek to live a life characterized by both. Paul says that the law is summed up in love:

Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:10)

The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)

We need to have a loving righteousness, a righteousness motivated and expressed through love. Anything less is not genuine faith. We must be careful that we as Christians don’t become like the extremist Muslims and seek righteousness apart from love. We must also be careful not to seek love apart from righteousness. We need to be lights to this dark world by loving righteously. The best answer we can give in response to the hatred of Wahhabi Islamic extremists is to demonstrate a radical righteous love to all.

Hatred’s Kingdom

Written by Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.

Wahhabism has been the major influence on global terrorism. It started in Saudi Arabia in the mid 1700’s and evolved into the leading religious influence in the Kingdom. It struck a deal with the Saud family, and they government and the clerics have had a symbiotic relationship ever since. Wahhabi schools and mosques are funded by the government and their teachings are authorized by ruling family. The government of Saudi Arabia sends and supports Wahhabi teachers throughout the world, including in the US. In the 1980’s Wahhabism became even more radical and began teaching that Christians are polytheists, therefore must be killed. Clerics preach that Muslims must destroy the idols of the West: Capitalism, Freedom, Secularism, Crusaderism. They even changed their doctrine to teach that the women and children of polytheists must be killed. This teaching is the religious foundation for Osama bin Laden and his global terrorism crusade.

Osama bin Laden was raised in Saudi schools filled with anti-American hatred and went to a Saudi university run by Wahhabis. He was personally trained by a leading Wahhabi teacher. Bin Laden spoke in support of Wahhabi teachings and clearly indicated that he was religiously motivated to attack the West, especially America. He was also funded by Saudi Arabi through charities. When he went to Afghanistan h took over the resistance to USSR. After the war, Afghanistan became his base for Al Queda.

Afghanistan
Saudi Arabia was the major supporter of the Islamic resistance in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were also supported by the Saudi government. The Taliban was radically transformed by Wahhabi doctrine after bin Laden took over. Before the 1980’s the Taliban was a moderate Islamic government but it was transformed into one of the most extreme and repressive governments within a decade by bin Laden.

Saudi Arabia is the most rigid fundamentalist Islamic nation in the world. Wahhabi clerics constantly preach hatred of any US presence, corporate and military, on Saudi soil. They want to cleanse holy nation of all corruption and corrupting influences, and view terrorism as a legitimate means to accomplish this end. These extremists want to spread this cleansing to other secular Islamic nations. They hate secular Islamic states, such as Jordan, because they see this as a corruption of Islam. And through terrorism, they want to spread this cleansing to the whole world

Many Russian states were influenced by Wahhabi teaching. There are 20 million Muslims in Russia. 21 of Russia’s states have a majority Muslim population. One of Russia’s most difficult problems is dealing with extremist Islamic groups within these states and Russia itself. Saudi clerics praised both Hamas bombings and Chechnya bombings by Islamic radicals. The destruction of the Soviet Union was a primary goal of Saudi clerics.

Many Saudi fighters in Afghanistan went to Bosnia to fight the Serbs, taking their Wahhabi teachings with them. These Saudi fighters were brutal, more inhumane than the Bosnian Muslims, beheading Serbs and dismembering them. They also brought their Wahhabi teaching to Pakistan. Saudi Arabia raised $100 million dollars to support Islamic fundamentalist fighters in Bosnia. The Wahhabi Saudi Muslims sought to cleanse Bosnian Muslims and turn them into fanatics like themselves.

Since 1960 Wahhabi Islam has been taught in the US. Half of the mosques in the US were built by Saudi money. Al Qaeda recruited through these US mosques. Terrorism, martyrdom, and hatred for the West, Christians, and Jews is taught in these US mosques. Radical Islam in South East Asia has also been supported by Saudi Arabia in the same way.

Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars to Iraq to support its war against Iran. Saudi Arabia was more afraid of Iran than Iraq, though both posed a great threat to its security. Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 it was clear that Iraq was going to invade Saudi Arabia next. Yet, in the 1980’s revolutionary Iran was a greater threat to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia agreed to US troops on its soil in order to protect it from Iraq. The first Gulf War was fought not only to free Kuwait but to protect Saudi Arabia. Yet most Saudis were angry that US troops were allowed on its holy soil. The government had to face a huge political and religious backlash even after the majority of the US troops left. The fact that some US troops were left in Saudi Arabia caused tremendous turmoil in the nation. Many Islamic clerics claimed that the real threat to Saudi Arabia was the US, not Iraq. The US Air Force used Saudi air bases to patrol the no-fly zones in Iraq which had been set up to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. When President Clinton asked for permission to base more troops in Saudi Arabia, he was firmly denied. The religious and political climate had changed since the first Gulf War so much that it was impossible for the Saudi government to allow more US troops on its soil. At this time there was a great outcry to drive the US out of the Gulf region, especially Saudi Arabia.

It was in this climate that Osama bin Laden became increasingly irate over the US presence in Saudi Arabia. He had even offered the use of his Afghan rebels to protect the Kingdom in place of the US military before the first Gulf War. During the 1990’s bin Laden formed an alliance with the leader of Hezbollah, which was responsible for the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Bin Laden moved to Sudan and began his anti-American operations. In 1993 he took his terrorism to the West by bombing the World Trade Center. Because he spoke out harshly against the Saudi government and its compromises with the West, his Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1994. He decried the governments poor defense strategy, its wasting of oil revenue and the use of foreign troops to protect the Kingdom. In 1995 he planned the bombing of the Saudi National Guard barracks, killing 7 Americans.

Bin Laden’s concern was not with Israel per se, but only with the fact that the West backed Israel. His primary concern was the presence of US troops on Saudi soil. The Islamic extremists claimed to have been responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union through their victory in Afghanistan and warned that the United States was next.

In 1996, bin Laden bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans, 1 Saudi, and wounding 372 others. The Saudi government blocked the FBI from conduction a thorough investigation because they were afraid they would discover evidence linking leading governmet and royal family members to terrorist organizations within Saudi Arabia. Saudi Hezbollah was responsible for the bombing, and many of its members were Saudi citizens supported by the government.

In 1999 bin Laden made his declaration of war against the West. In addition, he ceased all terrorist activity within Saudi Arabia after making a deal with the government. He also called on all Muslims to stop fighting each other and unite against the West. He then took his terrorist campaign to Africa, Yemen, and then to the US.

In 1995 the Saudi government began to make regular payments to Osama bin Laden. Two Saudi princes also began to support him regularly. The Saudi government clearly supported terrorism, and made a deal with bin Laden to keep his attacks outside of the Kingdom, even if it meant attacking the US directly. In 1998 bin Laden bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, using Saudi citizens to carry out the attacks. On October 12, 2000 the attack on the USS Cole, killing 17 US sailors and wounding hundreds of others, was carried out by Saudi citizens using a rubber boat owned by a prominent Saudi businessman. A wealthy Saudi merchant family gave the financial support for the bombing.

Before the second Gulf War, Al Qaeda had a formidable presence in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden used Saudi Arabia as a base to launch terrorist attacks with full knowledge of the government. 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks were Saudi citizens. Most of them had never fought in Afghanistan or anywhere else, but were trained in Saudi Arabia.

There was a distinctive shift in Wahhabi teaching starting in the 1980’s. Saudi Clerics began teaching and preaching that Americans, Christians and Jews should be killed and wiped off the face of the earth. This was also taught in the schools and universities. Saudi textbooks for grade school and high school students were filled with hate-filled invective against the West. For twenty years a whole generation was brainwashed with hatred and murder. In this atmosphere of hate it was easy to recruit young men to become terrorists and suicide bombers.

In the 1980’s Saudi Arabia became a haven for radical extremists who had been kicked out of their own countries. These radical Islamists became teachers in Saudi schools and universities. The Muslim Brotherhood was supported by the Saudi government and when its members fled Egypt, Saudi Arabia welcomed them with open arms. Along with Saudi Wahhabi clerics, these extremists formed the backbone of all Saudi education. Every child educated in Saudi Arabia was force-fed radical Islam, hatred for the West, and the necessity of Jihad against America.

Saudi Arabia publicly spoke out against terrorism, yet they poured billions of dollars into these schools and terrorist organizations. Immediately after 9/11 the Saudi government flatly denied that any Saudi citizens had been involved in the attacks. It wasn’t until the evidence was undeniable that they changed their position to saying that the attackers were fringe elements. While telling the world that they regretted the attacks on the US, internally they praised the attacks and called for more. In fact, it took the Saudi two weeks before severing ties with the Taliban and two months before moving to freeze bin Laden’s assets.

After the 9/11 attacks, Saudi Arabia spent tens of millions of dollars on an extensive public relations campaign in the US to convince Americans that Saudi Arabia was a friend of the US. But at the same time, internally they were praising the attacks and even supporting the Palestinian Intifada. The Saudi government gave money to the families of the suicide bombers in Israel, giving more incentive for young Palestinians to blow themselves up. In a poll taken of Saudi men between 25 and 41, 97% supported Osama bin Laden and his cause. After 9/11 the political and religious situation in Saudi Arabia has not changed. The Saudi government has been working hard to convince the world that it stands for peace while at the same time funding terrorism all around the world.

Much of the support for terrorist groups comes from Islamic charities. While these charities do some humanitarian good, most of the money is funneled to extremist groups. The heads of these charities are Saudi government officials and royal family members. Several are official branches of the Saudi government. Any claim of the Saudi government that they don’t know where the money is going is clearly false. In fact, documents seized in raids on terrorist organizations have produced spreadsheets with Saudi government logos clearly listing all the funding given to terrorists, families of suicide bombers, and weapons and bomb materials.

Saudi Arabia talked about peace in Palestine while supporting suicide bombers. Now they are talking about peace around the world while still supporting global terrorist organizations. Saudi schools and mosques around the world still preach hatred and murder, and these schools and mosques are built and supported by Saudi government funds. It will take more than a war in Afghanistan and Iraq to bring an end to global terrorism. These are merely the outward manifestations of an internal problem. Until the culture of hatred is changed and the teaching of murder is stopped, global terrorism will be a problem. Terrorism is no longer local in scope and limited in its focus, but it has become international in its scope and catastrophic in its effects. It no longer is used to achieve limited political objectives but is bent on total destruction of its opponents. The terrorists will not rest until the West is destroyed, Israel wiped off the map and Christians either subjected to radical Islam or killed. America’s war on terror has overlooked the source of terrorism, the ideology and religious ideas that drive terrorism. It is deeply ingrained hatred that motivates terrorism, not economic or political injustices. The problem is not Islam but Saudi Arabian Wahhabi Islam. Without the support of the Saudi government and the funds generated by oil revenue, Wahhabism would have remained a small lunatic fringe group. Wahhabism developed an anti-Western hatred system and the Saudi government provided the vehicle to deliver that hatred to the rest of the world. The key is to stop the state funding of terrorism and get governments to bring an end to hate-filled teaching through international agreements.

Other books I have read that give additional information and different perspectives on this issue are:

Sleeping with the Devil, by Robert Baer, former senior CIA operative in the Middle East.

Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror, by Richard Minitar.

Inside the Kingdom, by Carmen bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s sister-in-law, gives a personal description of what living under the oppressive Saudi regime is like, as well as the inside story of Osama bin Laden’s rise to power.

Terrorist, by John Updike, is a fascinating novel by a great author, giving the personal story of a young Muslim man growing up in America and his pursuit of radical Islam.

My FBI, by Louis J. Freeh, former head of the FBI, has a great personal description of how the FBI had to fight with the Saudi government to investigate the Khobar tower bombing.