Gordon Brown meets Saudi terrorist suspects

November 2, 2008

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met with former Saudi inmates of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay as he toured a de-radicalization facility on Sunday.

Saudi officials claim their efforts at rehabilitating extremists using months of reasoned argument against radical Islam have a success rate of 80 to 90 percent: Only 35 people out of 3,200 in the program have been re-arrested for security offenses...

Raymond Ibrahim...

"Radical Islam" is practically synonymous with Wahhabism, the Saudi endorsed "version" of Islam, which children are taught from the moment they can read. This assertion totally contradicts itself, but don't expect Brown to notice, or care.

Center for Religious Freedom, the Hudson Institute ...

This report compares the 2007-2008 textbooks that are currently posted on the website of the Saudi Ministry of Education with those analyzed in our 2006 study, and shows that the same violent and intolerant teachings against other religious believers noted in 2006 remain in the current texts.

They assert that unbelievers, such as Christians, Jews, and Muslims who do not share Wahhabi beliefs and practices, are hated "enemies." Global jihad as an "effort to wage war against the unbelievers" is also promoted in the Ministry's textbooks: "In its general usage, 'jihad' is divided into the following categories: ...Wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them." No argument is made here that such references to jihad mean only spiritual and defensive struggles.

Lessons remain that Jews and Christians are apes and swine, Jews conspire to "gain sole control over the world," the Christian Crusades never ended, the American universities of Cairo and Beirut are part of the continuing Crusades, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact, and on Judgment Day "the rocks or the trees" will call out to Muslims to kill the Jews.

They teach that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an "apostate," an "adulterer," and those practicing "major polytheism." Shiites are among those identified as "polytheists." One lesson states that "it is not permissible to violate the blood, property, or honor of the unbeliever who makes a compact with the Muslims," but is pointedly silent on whether security guarantees are extended to non-Muslims without such a compact. Other lessons demonize members of the Baha'i and Ahmadiyya groups.

A lesson from a tenth grade text now posted on the Saudi Ministry's website sanctions the killing of homosexuals and discusses methods for doing so...

Consistency is a virtue, for some.