September 11th – Seven Years Later

By KT McFarland

....Until we and the rest of the world stop buying their oil we will be unable to stop terrorism at its source.

Twenty years ago Saudi Arabia, flush with petrodollars, began exporting its conservative brand of Islam, Wahabism, to other Sunni Muslim countries. They established religious schools in these countries, called madrassas, to convert the next generation of Muslims to their sect.

Many of these countries saw the madrassas as a life line and a way to educate their people when they could not afford to do so themselves. The problem is Islamic extremists took over the madrassas, especially in Pakistan and used them as recruiting grounds for terrorists. The teachers at these schools may have taught their students to read and write, but they also taught a select group of them to make suicide bombs and plan attacks. These Pakistani extremists are supplying the next round of terrorists and suicide bombers.

Iran, flush with oil wealth, has also used those revenues to support terrorist organizations like Hezbollah in Lebanon, which poses a direct threat to Israel. Iran has used its oil wealth to reconstitute its military and especially to fund its nuclear weapons program.

The single best thing America can do to prevent this next generation of terrorists and to stop Muslim extremism in its tracks is to cut off its source of funding. Without excessive oil profits, countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran will be hard pressed to provide for their own people, they will have nothing left to fund terrorist movements abroad or acquire nuclear weapons.

That is why the next Administration must break with the status quo in Washington and push for energy independence. It is just as important a tool in our war on terror as our military and intelligence efforts. Only then can we truly celebrate America’s triumph over Islamic extremists and terrorism.