Stop teaching people to hate us

The orders of the day at Captain's Quarters include a timely report on how the U.S. government is speaking out in public to the Saudis for their support of radical Wahabbist Islam within the United States.

Quoting the New York Sun:

WASHINGTON - The American government is demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores.

The flurry of activity comes months after a report from the Center for Religious Freedom discovered that dozens of mosques in major cities across the country, including New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, were distributing documents, bearing the seal of the government of Saudi Arabia, that incite Muslims to acts of violence and promote hatred of Jews and Christians.

Wonder if any of those documents were among those found in the Joel Hinrichs apartment?

Captain Ed puts in his own two cents worth -- but it's obviously gold coin, not copper:

The Saudis spread this kind of propaganda everywhere it goes, although one would think that after 9/11, they might have had the good taste to forego it here, especially considering the importance of maintaining a friendly relationship with one of the countries that makes the House of Saud the richest family in the world.

Not so. The material itself aims straight at the heart of the multiculturalism that allows its dissemination. It calls on Muslims within the US to reject our laws and civil society, and condemns democracy as un-Islamic, for example. It urges them to consider themselves, as Muslims in the US, as soldiers "behind enemy lines" -- a strange concept for an ostensible ally to push with its sympathizers. It advocates violence against those Muslims who convert out of the faith, imams who preach tolerance, and those who have sex outside of marriage.

These materials do not bear the imprint of a couple of wackos within the massive and unwieldy House of Saud, either. The publishers include the Saudi Air Force, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and the Cultural Attache of the Saudi Embassy in DC.

The captain says the Bush Administration tried to go the polite route.

The Bush administration has quietly tried to get the Saudis to stop disseminating this material at all, but especially within the US. The Saudis have apparently promised to do so, but have continued anyway.