SAUDI ARABIA - THE BEHEADING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
By Mike Evans
The execution-style murder of Paul Johnson has been condemned by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The OIC chief, Abd al-Wahid Bilqaziz labeled Mr. Johnson’s death as a “barbaric act”, and went on to reassure the world in general and the American public in particular that “Islam recommends the protection of foreigners…and prohibits the killing of innocent people.” How magnanimous of Mr. Bilqaziz!
Apparently in an attempt to assuage world outrage, Saudi security launched a search for the body of the beheaded American. Why has that outrage not extended to the hundreds, perhaps thousands, who have been beheaded and tossed into unmarked graves over the past 30 years?
According to Amnesty International, more than half of those beheaded between 1990 and 1999 were foreign nationals, and some were Christian missionaries. Why has the Saudi government not returned those bodies to their loved ones for proper burial?
In Saudi Arabia, heads roll for sodomy, armed robbery, murder, and for being a Christian. Some Christians were beheaded after having been falsely accused of drugs or other crimes reportedly as benign as leading a Bible study or offering prayers. Saudis that convert to Christianity, or “desert Islam”, are subject to the death penalty, as well.
Those condemned to death are taken to a public square, blindfolded after midday prayers; hands tied behind their backs, and forced to kneel facing Mecca. The police clear the square of all traffic and lay a blue plastic sheet, 16-feet square on the ground. The executioner swings the sword two or three times before jabbing the poor soul in the back to force him to raise his head. More than 100 people have been beheaded in Saudi since 9/11, and the vast majority were not members of al-Qaeda!
We are told that the militants and extremists who committed the horrendous murder of Paul Johnson have been killed. Why are murderers, who have no regard for the sanctity of human life, called “militants”? Why not label them exactly as what they are: Terrorists? And, if these so-called militants and extremists are going to be hunted down and killed or arrested, what awaits the entire House of Saud?
I, too, am outraged, not only by the beheading of Paul Johnson, but by the Saudi PR-machine that has hypocritically expressed its disgust over this barbarism. It is, indeed, the theater of the absurd and a festival of hypocrisy.
In 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, I preached the gospel in the center of Dhahran. U.S. military police grabbed me and screamed, “Are you nuts? They will cut your head off, you fool!” Days later, I shared Christ with General Khalid. He looked at me and asked, “Are you trying to convert me? We cut off heads for that.”
Any thinking person knows that the House of Saud is the principal financier of the terrorists on whom President Bush has declared war. They export more than oil. About twenty-five percent of all those in the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are Saudi nationals. No country in the world has spent more to export bigotry and hatred than Saudi Arabia.
Islam is portrayed as a religion of tolerance. How ignorant can we be? Women cannot drive cars in Saudi Arabia, girls are still circumcised, political parties and trade unions are outlawed, the Church and State are one in Saudi Arabia. Do not hold your breath while searching for a Christian church or Jewish synagogue in that country; you will suffocate. Television is censored to the degree that if Mickey Mouse gives Minnie Mouse a peck on the cheek, poor Mickey will be banished from the kingdom!
Several years ago, I interviewed a U.S. Aramco employee. He told me he was tortured for having a video of “The Love Boat” in his suitcase. He was accused of possessing pornography. While in jail, he feared he might be beheaded.
The Holy Grail of understanding is that there is nothing tolerant about Saudi Arabia. Shariah (Islamic law) shows no tolerance. No, it is no coincidence that 15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked America on 9/11 were Saudi Arabian. All were Wahabists, as is the Taliban, and the majority of the population of Saudi. If democracy comes to tolerant Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden would be elected in a landslide.
We have been assured that Saddam Hussein was not involved in 9/11; on the other hand, we know with certainty that Saudi nationals were. For the House of Saud to try to distance itself from Islamic fundamentalism would be tantamount to Osama trying to distance himself from terrorism.
The same can be said of al Qaeda. The general Muslim population thinks the evil empire of communism was not defeated by Ronald Reagan and the crusaders, but rather, it was Osama bin Laden and Islam that caused the Soviet house of cards to crumble in Afghanistan. They also believe there is just one “evil empire” in the world, and that Iraq will be to America what Afghanistan was to the Soviets.
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