Mansour al-Nogaidan has a critical editorial on the repression in Saudi Arabia. He describes in some detail the kind of Wahhabist extremism that is taught in Saudi madrassas and exported across the world.

It is clear that Saudi Arabia is one of the linchpins of terrorism, and eventually the House of Saud will have to reform from within or be swept away directly or indirectly. Hopefully these changes will come from within, as a direct attack on Saudi Arabia would be seen by many in the Arab world as a direct attack against some of the holiest places in Islam. Images of US soldiers in Mecca would be even more difficult than images of US soldiers in the Shi’ite holy city of Karbala.

However, al-Nogaidan does offer some hope of reform:

But we must be aware that this religious extremism, which has been indoctrinated in several Saudi generations, will be very difficult to defeat. I know because I once espoused it. For 11 years, from the age of 16, I was a Wahhabi extremist. With like-minded companions I set fire to video stores selling Western movies and even burned down a charitable society for widows and orphans in our village because we were convinced it would lead to the liberation of women.

Then, during my second two-year stint in jail, my sister brought me books, and alone in my cell I was introduced to liberal Muslim philosophers. It was with wrenching disbelief that I came to realize that Islam was not only Wahhabism, and that other forms preached love and tolerance. To rid myself of the pain of that discovery I started writing against Wahhabism, achieving some peace and atonement for my past ignorance and violence.

And that is what Saudi Arabia, as a nation, also needs: a rebirth. We need to embrace the pain of it and learn how to accept change. We need patience and the ability to withstand the consequences of our crimes over the past two decades. Only when we see ourselves the way the rest of the world sees us — a nation that spawns terrorists — and think about why that is and what it means will we be able to take the first step toward correcting that image and eradicating its roots.

The US is now working to free Iraq, a process which will have a domino effect throughout the region once it is clear that the specter of terrorism will not dissuade us from action. Yet more needs to be done – as Secretary Rumsfeld notices, the madrassas will only continue to create more terrorists unless they are countered. Countering the influence of Wahhabi radicals is absolutely critical to winning the war on terrorism – which is why the United States must act to support Islamic moderates like al-Nogaidan and others to help spread a more moderate version of Islam that does not condemn its followers into a lifestyle more fitting for the fourteenth century rather than the twenty-first.

Stephen F. Hayes has a follow-up on his earlier article finding on intelligence reports connecting Iraq to al-Qaeda. He specifically addresses the DoD’s non-denial denial of the memo that only deepens the mystery. Based on the text of the memo, it seems as though the intelligence reporting and analysis contained in the memo paints a very strong correlation between the Iraqi dictator and the al-Qaeda network. Why the mainstream media is ignoring this potentially explosive story is beyond me.

You’ll notice I added a new flag to the US and Israeli flags on the sidebar. Since the Iraqi people are now allies with the United States and are on the frontlines of the war on terrorism, it seems appropriate to show solidarity with the Iraqi people by displaying their flag.

The flag is the 1963 flag, as Saddam added the Arabic words “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) in January 1991 as a way of trying to show that his leadership was somehow divinely inspired. I had considered using the pre-Ba’athist 1958 flag, but that’s not exactly recognizable as the symbol of Iraq. There’s also another suggesting for a free Iraqi flag, but that has yet to be widely adopted.

I’ve mentioned Steven Den Beste’s strategic outline on the war on terrorism before, but it’s helpful to point it out again for those who haven’t seen it yet. Den Beste gives the best explanation of what’s going on in the war on terrorism I’ve yet seen, but he also explains the underlying reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing. Those who are tempted to explain away the war in Iraq as a war for oil, Halliburton, revenge, or any of the crude shibboleths used by the radical left to explain Iraq would do well to use Den Beste’s research to understand the actual rationale for this war.

Banagor has a very astute post on how the Muslim world has manipulated the West into accepting their bloody political agenda.

This is exactly the position expressed by the Arabs and Muslims of the world: they have nothing else but their hatred to negotiate with us. They know that as soon as they stop the calls to violence, and let things simmer down for a while, their cause is lost. They understand that if they didn’t continuously call for Genocide, their people would start minding their own business and call for real reform because they will have lost interest in the entire affair. This notion of negotiating these calls for murder should be so clear to all that their cause is not just and never was.

There is no movement that should ever be acceptable that is based on the deliberate murder of innocent children. There is absolutely no excuse for terror.

If we accept that the Israelis somehow stole the land from the Palestinians (which Alan Dershowitz shows is completely untrue in his seminal The Case For Israel), does that justify the rash of deliberate attacks against civilians.

By that logic, then if a militant group of Cherokee Indians were to murder 60 Americans in a Tulsa shopping mall there should be no repercussions. If a group of Basques were to blow up a Paris bistro that should not deserve condemnation? When the IRA detonates an explosive device in London, by the attitude towards the Palestinians, they should not be punished.

The attitude of the West over Israel is a function of pure anti-Semitism. Nowhere else would the use of political violence be accepted and even condoned. Yet Israel is singled out for engaging in actions that are necessary for its self-protection. There is a clear and obvious double standard when it comes to Israel which goes far beyond rational and fair criticism of Israel and acts as a justification for terrorism. It is not anti-Semitic to argue to that Israel’s settlement policy is unnecessary and unwise. It is completely unacceptable to argue that Israel’s settlement policy gives the Palestinians the right to murder innocent Israeli civilians in cafes and pizza parlors.

The Muslim World is using the weakness of the West to provide themselves with an apologia for inhuman acts and ancient prejudices. Unless the Western world can stand against these actions we are cowardly abandoning the values of justice, peace, tolerance, and democracy.

Wesley Clark is blasting the Bush Administration’s for its "responsibility for 9-11.

Excuse me, Mr. Clark, but under what administration was our HUMINT gathering capability systematically weakened? (Hint, not this one?)

Which administration had the opportunity to capture Osama bin Laden in Sudan in 1996 but did not do so because they feared the international backlash?

Which administration displayed a wanton attitude towards the military?

The fact is that the Clinton Administration allowed a series of attacks, from the first World Trade Center attack, to the bombings of our Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies, to the Khobar Towers bombing, to the USS Cole and nothing was done to effectively limit al-Qaeda’s funding or reach. In the eight years that Clinton was in office several Muslim charities were shown to have connections with terrorism – but AG Janet Reno wouldn’t touch it to avoid “offending the Muslim community.” The Clinton Administration could have stopped al-Qaeda in their tracks had they the political will to do so – but they did not. As both Lt. Col. Robert Patterson (USAF-Ret.) and National Review‘s Rich Lowry have document at great length, the Clinton Administration’s unwillingness to pursue al-Qaeda allowed them to engage in an series of escalating terror attacks culminating in the September 11 atrocity.

Of course, Clark doesn’t care about the facts, he’s only seeking political advantage by slandering the Bush Administration. However, that line of argumentation is foolish for the Democrats considering that their weakness on national security is their Achilles Heel. If I were them I wouldn’t be emphasizing that weakness at every available opportunity.

The Weekly Standard‘s Stephen F. Hayes has been doing what the mainstream media has not – actively investigation the links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. His latest report uncovers more connections between the Hussein regime and the terrorist cell.

Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim, also known as Abu Hajer al Iraqi was the head of al-Qaeda’s efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction throught much of the 1990’s. As his alias implies, he was also al-Qaeda’s pointman between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. A former al-Qaeda operative name Jamal Ahmed al Fadl told a US court that bin Laden and Hajer al Iraqi met in 1989, and in 1993 and 1994 he worked with the Iraqi government in Khartoum, Sudan on obtaining chemical weapons. (Video footage of Qaeda chemical weapons tests were found by CNN in Afghanistan and aired worldwide. The origin and nature of the chemicals used is still unknown.)

Hayes has uncovered a very credible case that there have been high-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda in the past, even involving the transfer of chemical weapons between the two. Given that evidence, it is clear that one cannot say that there is no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda unless there is evidence that conclusively disproves these connections.

Andrew Sullivan has a spirited fisking of John Kerry and Wesley Clark on Iraq in The New Republic.

Sullivan does an excellent job of skewering the completely inconsistant positions of the Democrats on the war. The Democrats are trying to play to a radical anti-war base on the assumption that the American people see Iraq as another Vietnam. What they fail to understand is that the attitude of the American people has radically changed since September 11.

The September 11 incident wasn’t the Gulf of Tonkin – it was a Pearl Harbor. No one who saw what these radical Islamists did can argue that there is no threat from the Middle East anymore. It was bad enough when those attacks were going on over there, it is something else entirely when they’re hitting our own cities.

The Democrats argue that Iraq didn’t have anything to do with September 11 – which is an assertion that is not entirely proven. It is unlikely that he had any significant involvement with the September 11 attacks, but he did have links to al-Qaeda and Iraqi agents were involved in at least the planning stages for the attacks.

The fact is that the American people understand that we can’t just ignore the problems of the Middle East. We have to do something before the situation there explodes unto our shores. That means we have to actively engage with the Islamic world and bring democracy to the region. This is essentially a liberal (in the classical sense) mission – we have not only pressing interests of national security, but a moral obligation to improve the world as well.

The American people understand that Iraq is only one step in a much larger war. The Democrats don’t understand this. They would prefer that national security be what we do after the next attack has wiped out Boston or Los Angeles. The Republican plan is to make sure that doesn’t happen. Until the Democrats can present a coherent, rational, and effective national security strategy they will not, nor should they, be a party that is capable of leading this nation in this time of war.

It’s looking like al-Qaeda affiliated websites launched a DoS attack against Hosting Matters, the web host that hosts many prominent blogs such as InstaPundit, VodkaPundit. Little Green Footballs as well as several others.

The attack seems to have come from a Malaysian group attacking a Jewish website, Internet Haganah using DoS tools and instructions spread from GeoCities.

More on the story as it develops…

President Bush gave his second major policy speech at the UN today. This is a speech that shows that the US will be sticking with the UN, much to the chagrin of those who see the UN as a tyrant’s debating club rather than an agent for world peace.

I was hoping that the President would be firmer on the subject of Iraq. He needed to reinforce that Iraq was a humanitarian mission that needed to be executed for the peace and stability of the region and the world. I would have made it clear that the United Nations had been letting the Iraqi people down by refusing to ask. I would have made it clear that the United Nations must do better to fight terrorism.

Then again, I would have also told the UN to go to hell, so perhaps I’m not the best judge of this.

For better or for worse, Bush clearly thinks the UN has a role in Iraq. Hopefully Bush isn’t willing to compromise the essential mission in Iraq to the UN bureaucracy. Granted, there are functions like immunization that the UN can do and do well, but involving the UN in the Iraqi political process is a recipe for disaster.

I am also severely disappointed that the President didn’t stand stronger for Israel. The fact that the UN Security Council voted to protect the terrorist Yassir Arafat shows that the UN is not neutral towards the issue of Israeli security. Without the ability of Israel to secure itself by constructing a security fence and removing terrorist leaders, there can be no possibility of peace. Yet Bush only made one off-hand remark about Arafat rather than forcefully pressing the issue.

After this speech, I think a lot of conservatives are going to be wondering if Bush isn’t going wobbly on us.