It was an occasion for tears and celebration as the Knights of Martyrdom proclaimed on video: “Our brother Turki fell during the rays of dawn, covered in blood after he was hit by the bullets of the infidels, following in the path of his brother.” The flowery language could not disguise the brutal truth that a Saudi family had lost two sons fighting for Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The elder brother, Khaled, had been a deputy commander of a crack jihadist “special forces” unit. After his “glorious” death, Turki took his place.
“He was deeply affected by the martyrdom of his brother,” the Knights said. “He became more ambitious and more passionate about defending the land of Islam and dying as a martyr, like his brother.”
Turki’s fervent wish was granted earlier this year, but another Saudi national who travelled to Iraq had second thoughts. He was a graduate from a respectable family of teachers and professors who was recruited in a Saudi Arabian mosque and sent to Iraq with $1,000 in travel expenses and the telephone number of a smuggler who could get him across the Syrian border.
The article reasserts what has been known for a number of years. There is a strong sentiment for Islamic fundementalism, particularly the Wahabis, in Saudi society. They are a priomary source of Islamic fundementalist extremism.
Second fact, we are highly dependent upon foreign oil imports and the Saudis culturally dominate the Middle Eastern oil fields, with the possible exception of Iran, which has its own Islamic extremists.
Third, a major supplier of oil to the USA is Venezuela. A country led by an anti-American populist who is rapidly becoming a dictator.
Fourth, an other major supp[lier of oil to the the USA is Mexico, a country that quite conceivably could become ungovernable.
Fifth, the world demand for oil is rapidly growing as is ours.
So, what to do? Well, this doesn’t take a rocket scientist, even a self-serving and self-stroking politician can figure this one out.
We need to DRASTICALLY reduce our dependence on imported oil.
The good news is that this is achievable. We need to develop domestic nuclear power plants on a scale of the WWII Manhatten Project and we need to develop other enrgy sources. We need to change the way in which we use energy. Redesigning our private motor vehicles and over-the-highway logistics would be a good place to start.
AND we need to expand our supply of domestically produced oil and gasoline, opening up areas where we know oil deposits lie in huge quantities (ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico, where Russian and Cuba are going to be drilling soon, anyway) and building new refineries.
There is enough oil under Western Colorado, parts of Wyoming and Utah and on up into Canada estimated to exceed Saudi Arabias known reserves by a tremendous margin. On top of that, the ANWAR reserve in the Arctic is another humongous pool of oil. All that without even looking at offshore drilling. Then, next, there are coal reserves just in Utah that can last for up to 500 years and that isn’t even considering Alaska’s coal reserves for another 1000 or so years. Plus, we have the technology to cleanly and efficiently extract the energy from all these reserves without polluting the atmostphere. Ostrich, pull thy head out of the sand.
It is appropriate to hear that this Turki perished during the Thanksgiving season.