Playing for both teams: base camp for the clash between extremist Muslims and the West is the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a county that seems to be a Western ally but that also supports terrorism.

For 200 years Muslim civilization was overwhelmed by foreign cultures. From 1750 to 1950, European powers ruled over Muslim lands across North Africa, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, Central and South Asia; in fact, every region where Islam was the leading religion.

Even though nations such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and Morocco are now independent they remain under the influence of outsiders. Let's take a closer look at Saudi Arabia.

The country is ruled by the al-Saud family, after whom it is named. It contains most of Islam's holiest sites including the birthplace of Mohammed.

The al-Sauds have styled themselves "royal" and do not like those who disagree with them. Opponents are jailed and handled with extreme brutality.

Political parties are banned. Women are treated atrociously.

The al-Sauds maintain control of the country through a complex web of interrelationships. The extended royal family has 30,000 members and very strong ties to the religious leaders. Since the creation of the state, the House of Saud has partnered with clerics who follow the strict form of Islam that comes from the 250-year-old teachings of a preacher called Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab.

Mercy and tolerance are hallmarks of Islam. However, Wahhabi teaching declares that Muslims who do not follow his particular version of Islam are deserving of death. Wahhabism is extremely puritanical. Alcohol and tobacco are strictly forbidden: so too is music, dancing, even loud laughter.

Wahhabi clerics control education in Saudi Arabia, and for decades they have raised many youngsters to hate Christians, Jews, and others. One textbook explains that Jews and Christians were cursed by Allah "and turned into apes and pigs." Universities focus on religious instruction and ignore the skills that would help young Saudis find employment.

One result is that foreigners make up a staggering 90 percent of all employees in the private sector. Millions of foreign "guest workers" from Asia, often treated like servants and accorded absolutely no civil rights, keep the country running by filling the jobs Saudis are unable or unwilling to do.

At the same time, the government is corrupt to its core and has mismanaged the economy. Saudi Arabia floats on a sea of oil that accounts for about a quarter of the world's known reserves. Given the huge wealth generated by oil exports it's surprising that the Saudi government managed to rack up deficits year after year.

However, the royal family dips into the national treasury to pay for its expensive cars, luxury yachts, palaces, gambling, and extravagant shopping trips in Europe. The country also spends vast amounts of money on weapons, mostly bought from U.S. suppliers.

And that brings us to an important connection. Saudi Arabia is propped up economically, militarily, and politically by the United States. That's because without Saudi oil the U.S. economy would collapse.

The seeds of this relationship were sown just as the Second World War was ending in 1945. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Saud in Alexandria, Egypt. The two leaders set up a "special relationship"--Saudi oil would flow to the United States and American technology and protection would go the other way.

Just prior to the agreement an American official remarked: "The oil in this region is the greatest single prize in all history." As the United States started to exhaust its own oil reserves that prize grew in value enormously. When Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein invaded neighbouring Kuwait (a major oil producer) in 1990 the value rose even more.

U.S. President George H.W. Bush (the current president's father) told King Fahd of Saudi Arabia "[the] security of Saudi Arabia is vital--basically fundamental--to U.S. interests and really to the interests of the Western world."

The United States organized a huge military force to drive Saddam out of Kuwait. Saudi Arabia was the main staging area for the counter-attack and about half a million U.S. and allied troops were stationed there.

After the Iraqis were forced out of Kuwait several thousand American troops stayed on at the U.S. base in Dhahran. Many conservative Muslims found the presence of foreign soldiers on their soil deeply offensive.

Eric Rouleau, writing in the July/August 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs, noted, "Despite official denials, the U.S. troops, who have been in Saudi Arabia ever since the Persian Gulf war, are highly unpopular ... many Saudis complain that they consider it a form of occupation--at best humiliating ... at worst intolerable."

People such as Osama bin Laden and other Islamic fundamentalists believed that the U.S. was trying to dominate Muslim lands. They accused the Saudi royal family of being too welcoming to the Americans and turned their jihad against the al-Sauds as well as the U.S. and its allies.

Bombs have exploded. In June 1996, 19 U.S. servicemen were killed in a bombing at Khobar Towers, a U.S. military complex near Dhahran. In May 2003, a suicide attack on a residential compound in the capital, Riyadh, took the lives of 26 Americans and wounded more than 160. In addition, there have been many attacks against other foreigners living and working in Saudi Arabia.

In mosques throughout the country imams have been cheering on the violence, while preaching their radical, Wahhabist form of Islam. They have been calling on the faithful to engage in jihad against what they call the Great Satan (the United States) and its allies. In addition, they are taking their message to Muslims living outside traditional Islamic countries.

Mark Silverberg has been watching this closely. In his 2005 book The Quartermasters of Terror (ISBN: 1556053827), Mr. Silverberg claims that every level of society in Saudi Arabia is involved in the Islamic jihad. He and others have traced vast sums of money from the al-Saud family to the construction of mosques worldwide. (The figure of $87 billion U.S. has been mentioned but how anybody can put an accurate estimate of the cost of what is essentially a secret activity is another question).

According to Mr. Silverberg, the Saudi royal family has:

* Paid millions of dollars to the families of suicide bombers;

* Picked up the cost of building Islamic centres and schools around the world where intolerance toward non-Muslims is taught;

* Funded numerous Islamic charities that are fronts for terrorism;

* Encouraged the publishing of anti-Semitic and anti-Christian rants on the front pages of its government-controlled newspapers; and,

* Supported the Saudi clergy and educational system in recruiting thousands of Saudis for extremist groups abroad.

The human rights group Freedom House finds a lot to agree with in Mark Silverberg's studies. In 2005, it issued a report with a self-explanatory title: Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques. The group collected texts from a dozen mosques that were funded by the government of Saudi Arabia.

These texts contain some pretty disgusting stuff about it being an obligation of Muslims to hate Christians and Jews; to do all in their power to convert non-Muslims to Islam; and to behave when in a non-Muslim country as though "behind enemy lines."

Moderate and tolerant Muslims are equally condemned in these publications.

The same organization, Freedom House, found current school textbooks in Saudi Arabia that demonize the West. One Grade 12 text "instructs students that it is a religious obligation to do 'battle' against infidels (non-Muslims) in order to spread the faith."

Freedom House points out that "the government of Saudi Arabia is trying to assert itself as the world's authoritative voice on Islam, [so] these religious texts have great significance. What is being taught today in Saudi public school textbooks about Muslims and how they should view their relations with other religions and cultures will influence a new generation of Saudis, as well as growing numbers of Muslims throughout the world who use these texts."

According to many experts, the goal is to push all non-believers out of traditional Muslim lands. This is said to be the main motivation behind Osama bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war against the West, or as he put it, "against the Jews and the crusaders." Bernard Lewis, in his 2003 book The Crisis of Islam (ISBN: 0679642811), says that with the cleansing of Islam accomplished the terrorists will be ready to move on to the next phase of their jihad. The holy war will continue, he says, until the whole world accepts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule; "then," writes Mr. Lewis, "a dark future awaits the world."

Pretty alarming stuff and echoed by Walid Phares in his 2005 book Future Jihad (ISBN: 1403970742). Mr. Phares would have us believe Wahhabi-recruited jihadists have already worked their way into positions of power and authority in sensitive government agencies and the faculty of universities in the West.

There are plenty of other experts who take a less bleak view. They point out that the jihadists are small in number. While they might pull off some spectacular attacks, they are scarcely a blip on the world's security radar screen.

At the same time, the extremists are at odds with each other.

Those of the al-Qaeda persuasion reject the idea of the world divided into nation states. The only boundaries they recognize are between Wahhabi Muslims and everybody else. Of course, as Wahhabis they believe they are the only ones on the true path to salvation. The Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, however, accept the existence of national boundaries.

There has been a bit of a war of words going on among these groups. Al-Qaeda slams all those who make any accommodations with the West, such as voting in elections. And, the various organizations are battling one another in signing up recruits.

That said, all these groups have the same goal--the creation of a global Islamic community, with sharia law applied to each and every person on the planet. The Muslim Brotherhood says it believes people have to be coaxed into accepting this ultimate truth. Al-Qaeda is impatient and believes it can force people to this position.

FACT FILE

In April 2002, Crown Prince Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, the country's effective ruler, visited U.S. President George W. Bush. The American government complied with a Saudi request that no female flight controllers be involved in guiding the Crown Prince's plane through U.S. airspace.

There are more than 7,000 princes in the Saudi royal family among whom the lowliest members are believed to receive a monthly pay cheque of $I0,000 U.S.

Of the 19 people who hijacked aircraft and crashed them in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., 15 were from Saudi Arabia.

FLASHPOINT I

When the modern state of Israel was created in 1948 by the United Nations it immediately became a target of attacks by its Muslim and Arab neighbours. The land on which the country sits had been occupied for centuries by Palestinians, although Jews claim an earlier historical possession. In a war in 1967, Israel captured the Palestinian areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Since then, Israel has occupied this land in defiance of UN resolutions to leave. The Palestinians, who are Muslims, live in mostly squalid conditions.

The United States gives Israel massive economic, political, and military aid. The very existence of the state of Israel is seen as an affront by many Muslims, not just the extremists. As a result, those who support Israel are also seen as enemies.

FLASHPOINT II

The British Ambassador to Rome, Sir Ivor Roberts, is reported to have said that when U.S. President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq he "became the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda."

The invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain in 2003 is further evidence that the West seeks to dominate Islam. This is a view that is widely accepted by Muslims all over the world. They see "The Great Satan" (the U.S.) occupying Muslim land. They see their Muslim brothers and sisters dying at the hands of a foreign power. They see the U.S. abuse and humiliation of Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

As Iraq sinks further into chaos more Muslim extremists are drawn to the country because of the opportunity to strike directly at their enemy.

LIES BECOME TRUTH

Robert Boer doesn't have a very high opinion of the Saudi Arabian monarchy. In his 2003 book, Sleeping with the Devil, (ISBN: 1400050219) he describes the country as a "kingdom built on thievery, one that nurtures terrorism ... and promotes slavery and prostitution."

Mr. Baer spent 21 years with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, much of it in the Middle East. He writes that the Saudis pay vast sums to powerful Americans, often in the form of lucrative defence contracts (Between 1990 and 2000, Saudi Arabia bought arms from the U. S. worth $40 billion U.S.). Mr. Baer claims that this kind of spending buys influence in the highest places that is able to shut down any U.S. government investigations in Saudi shenanigans.

In House of Bush, House of Saud (ISBN: 074325337X) journalist Craig Unger gives support to this notion. He says companies connected to the family of U.S. President George W. Bush (Harken Energy and the Carlyle Group) have received business worth more than $1.4 billion from the Saudi government.

In the same way, writes Robert Baer, the House of Saud is able to influence extremists. Millions of dollars are funelled into terrorist groups through Islamic charities. The funding is conditional on Muslim fundamentalists agreeing not to overthrow the royal family.

Mr. Baer makes the claim that it is America itself that is subsidizing terrorism, as well as the corruption of the Saudi royal family. He estimates that $1 dollar from every barrel of petroleum is spent on Saudi royal family sexual misbehaviour, and $1.50 of every barrel of petroleum bought by America ultimately ends up funding extremist schools, foundations, and terrorist groups.

The House of Saud is so wealthy that, according to one expert, "Its money is able to turn lies into truth."

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. There are essentially two schools of thought about the conflict between Muslim extremists and the West. On the one hand, there are those who think that the anti-Western feeling comes from specific Western actions. These include U.S. support of tyrannical client states such as Saudi Arabia, and Israel's occupation of the Palestinian land, as well as colonial economic exploitation of the Muslim world. Supporters of this school of thought tend to see every area of Muslim/Western clash as a separate and mostly unrelated conflict: Palestinians carrying out suicide bombings because of Israel's occupation; Muslims vandalizing Scandinavian embassies because of the Mohammed cartoons; al-Qaeda attacking the U.S. because of America's "occupation" of Saudi Arabia, and in London because of the Iraqi war. The other school of thought sees the conflict as rooted in some sort of fundamental, ideological struggle. According to this view, al-Qaeda and its cronies are not so much fighting because of any specific grievance--they are against the influence of Western ideas in the Muslim world. They fear Western materialism, immorality, and secularity and their effect on Islam. According to that view of the world, what the first school's followers see as a series of local clashes are actually different theatres in a connected, worldwide struggle. Through discussion find out which view the majority of the class supports.

2. Find out about Canada's relations with Saudi Arabia and write a short summary for class discussion.

Websites

Amnesty International (Saudi Report)--http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/saudi/report.html

Freedom House (Saudi Report)--http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/pdfdocs/KSAtextbooks.pdf