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LadyEllen -> Interview with Carmen Bin Laden (7/6/2007 4:29:59 AM)
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Last night on BBC 1’s This Week programme, we had the privilege of seeing an interview with Carmen Bin Laden – sister in law of everyone’s favourite bad guy, about the family and the Saudi culture that is driving Islamic radicalism and thus terrorism.
I have to say, that what she said was most disturbing, and whilst she wasn’t an insider as such, but certainly on the periphery of the inner circles, one finds her testimony rather credible.
It wasn’t dealt with during the interview, what her ethnic and cultural origin is. She said though that she had spent ten years living with her husband’s family in Saudi Arabia, and spoke of their culture as compared to ours and from her look and accent I’d have guessed Spanish, which put her in an interesting position to give a view.
And her view gave pause for thought. She seemed to divorce the whole Palestine and Iraq issues from what she said, and indicated instead that the force driving the attacks on the west are not only Wahabi Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia itself – and more disturbingly, that the attacks we are experiencing are not protest or revenge for injustices, but the means by which they intend to force their values upon us and that they are prepared to spend decades in doing so.
She claimed that the oil embargo of the 70’s is where all this started. They turned off the oil and saw how dependent we are and then made us pay through the nose for our weakness, thereby getting rich and so powerful too – convinced of their own right to do as they wish, and enabled to do so.
Now, the fact that the Saudis are far from being our friends and are involved in radicalising certain populations (Pakistan for instance) and spreading their ideas through funded schools around the world is no surprise. The surprise really is to have it confirmed by someone very close to the action, and to have it confirmed further that this is about nothing other than imposing ideology upon others for whom it is anathema, albeit that they will take advantage of the Palestine and Iraq situations to help radicalise Muslims worldwide and especially those living amongst us.
Now, they’re never going to win their fight of course. It does however put the whole Iraq situation in perspective and give pause to think about whether or not we should be nicer to the Iranians, rather than ally with our enemy (Saudi Arabia) against them (Iran has a lot of oil too), as a means of cutting the Saudis out. Alongside that though of course, it also indicates that the sooner we get out of oil altogether, the better, and that we must do everything we possibly can to help moderate Islam to resist the march of the Wahabis; the problem there though being, that isolated as they are with the radicals due to our fine policy of multiculturalism, the moderates are more afraid than we are.
E
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