Saudi perfidy.

Probably something you might want to ask your Congressman or Senator about.

The new bill [the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005, S. 1171 and H.R. 2037] . . . references the 2003 Senate testimony on Wahhabism in which David Aufhauser, then general counsel of the Treasury Department, called the Saudi state the "epicenter" of global terror financing. It also notes that the Saudis have subsidized half the annual budget of Hamas, the deadly terror gang in Israel[?], as part of a $4 billion outlay to Palestinian extremists since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.

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But failure to combat terrorism is only part of Saudi mischief. S. 1171 goes on to condemn the indoctrination in hatred pursued by Saudi-funded Wahhabis in mosques and schools on U.S. soil, as well by clerics on the kingdom's official payroll.

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. . . Three-and-a-half years have passed since September 11, 2001; 15 of the 19 terrorist pilots on that day were Saudis.

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. . . Last week the State Department named the Saudi kingdom and three other Gulf states as the worst offenders against international laws against human trafficking. And the suppression of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish, as well as non-Wahhabi Muslim worshippers inside the kingdom, goes on.

The Senate bill has been bottled up in the Committee on Foreign Relations since June of 2005, the House bill in the Subcommittee on Middle East and Central Asia since May 2005.

Apparently, this is not legislation that the Republicans are in any hurry to move to a vote.

Maybe we should have titled this post as "Saudi and Republican perfidy."

"Confronting the Saudis." By Stephen Schwartz, Weekly Standard, 6/10/05, republished in FrontPageMagazine.com (emphasis added).

Additional reference: The Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005: Tough or Fluff? By Charles Martel, Sixth Column, undated.