RUSH: Saudi Arabia. You know, Saudi Arabia, folks — actually, Iran is said to be and has traditionally been described as the epicenter of worldwide terrorism. And it’s always been true to one degree or another. But something that has been missed in focusing on Iran has been the role of Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism. Saudi Arabia is complicit in a lot of this, too, in radicalizing young men in the mosques. The king, the royal family, escape any association with this, and yet the king is the principal head of Islam around the world. The king of Saudi Arabia. Mecca is in Saudi Arabia and routinely the king somehow is exempt.
I remember talking to some experts, and they were telling me about this. For me it was a learning exercise, trying to get up to speed on some of this stuff. It was some months ago now. This guy was focusing on Saudi Arabia and its vast role in raising money and donating it to militant Islamists in the form of Saudi charities around the world, but just the stuff that goes on in the country. And I said, ’cause I was totally ignorant, I said, “Well, is the king part of this? You know, King Abdullah?”
“Yeah, they run it. Royal family runs this stuff.”
I said, “But they appear to be westernized and –“
He said, “Don’t be fooled.”
Well, anyway, the point of all this is, you remember it wasn’t long ago, last October or November, King Abdullah welcomed the newly named ambassadors to Saudi Arabia from other nations around the world. He welcomed them to his palace, and he delivered a speech, which is traditional, and he warned them about ISIS. He told them that they needed to go back to their home countries and tell their leaders back there that if people didn’t get their hands on this and didn’t get their arms around it, that ISIS was going to end up taking over the world and literally scaring everybody into submission.
They are the most brutal, the most dangerous, the most terroristic. And he was genuinely afraid of ’em. I couldn’t help but think at the time, well, where do you think they come from? I mean, he went back, he told these newly named and arrived ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, he told some of them — and I think it was the UK Telegraph where I was reading the story. He told them that Europe, if these people didn’t get their act together, Europe would fall to ISIS by 2020. He said, “They’re on the march.”
And a lot of people, “Okay, the guy’s just exaggerating to make a point.” Well, maybe not. Saudi Arabia is building a 600-mile great wall. Saudi Arabia is building a massive fence 600 miles long. It’s a combined fence and ditch. Its purpose is to separate Saudi Arabia from Iraq to the north. Most of the area on the Iraqi side of the border of Saudi Arabia is now controlled by ISIS, or ISIL. But they’re not just building a 600-mile fence. And, by the way, why are they building the fence? They’re building the fence to keep ISIS out. And you know why? Because fences work. It’s not just a fence, folks. This is a five-layered fence, and it has ditches.
This is a massive construction project. It has berms, it has razor wire, thermal sensors, radar, and helicopters. It is a full protection security system, 500 miles of that. Stop and think for a moment a 500-mile, five-layered fence. This is not just a bunch of stakes in the ground with some barbed wire running. There are guard towers every so many feet, miles, whatever, the trenches are deep. They are all packed with sensors to detect anybody trying to cross. And if you get caught you’re gonna be beheaded. They don’t mess around.
Stop and think of this, though. Six hundred miles. This is gonna dwarf, not the length, but it’s gonna dwarf in size, scope, and effectiveness the Great Wall of China. It’s going to be militarized using technology available in 2015. Thirty-thousand troops will man this fence and the sole purpose of the fence is to keep ISIS out. The Saudis are scared to death of ISIS. And the king made it clear to those newly arrived ambassadors last fall, it’s abundantly clear the Saudis are scared to death of ’em. If the Saudis, if these guys are too radical and too whatever for the Saudis, it ought to tell you that they are a bad, bad bunch.