Saudi Anti-Terror Program: Perfume On A Pig

(Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) According to a report in the Arab News, an unnamed source said yesterday that a sweep of a Riyadh neighborhood resulted in the arrest of 13 terror suspects believed to be members of al-Qaeda. Notably, the group is primarily boys under 16, one is a 13-year-old boy, and one is the brother of an al-Qaeda member who is on the government's most-wanted list.

Notwithstanding the importance of rounding up any and all terror suspects, a rational observer has to be somewhat skeptical of the Saudi anti-terrorism commitment given the following:

The arrests in Riyadh coincided with reports of the release of a number of suspects involved in terrorist operations who had given shelter to terrorists after they repented their wrongdoing, said Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, a member of the Shoura Council and the committee of scholars assigned to hold dialogue with the militants.

Therefore, if the terrorists say that they are sorry to a group of scholars, everything is okay and they are free to go. Great! Scholars ask a bunch of fanatics that are schooled in dishonesty to truthfully say they are sorry. I have no confidence that this criminal justice technique produces anything but laughs.

Consequently, it seems that the Saudi efforts to combat terrorism are more cosmetic than substantive. The efforts are also inconsistent since the Saudis have historically chopped off body parts for less significant crimes. If the terrorists lost a body part every time they were implicated, I guarantee that the glory and honor of terror would be greatly diminished and recruiting would suffer dramatically. No longer would people be predisposed to worship the memory of glorious martyrs in heaven enjoying their 72 virgins. Instead, they would see the martyr-in-training with one arm, one leg, or better yet, missing his manhood. In fact, the loss of manhood would be the recruiting deal-killer since the promised reward of 72 virgins would be meaningless. That is, unless the martyr-in-training found it appealing to have 72 women that he couldn't mount chewing on his ear for eternity.