John Kiriakou at his Arlington home. (photo: Jeff Elkins)
The Saudi Jihadist Campaign in American Prisons
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
11 July 17
I'm a Saudi watcher. I've followed politics and developments in Saudi Arabia
for the past 25 years, first at the CIA, then at the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, and finally as a writer and commentator.
There's a lot that I don't like about the Saudis. I don't like that 15 of
the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks were Saudi nationals. I don't
like that the Saudis somehow got themselves appointed as chair of a key
panel on the United Nations Human Rights Council while simultaneously
deciding to behead and then crucify a 17-year-old boy after convicting him
of participating in an anti-government protest, "breaking alliance with the
king," and sedition. I don't like that the Saudis are waging an immoral and
illegal war in Yemen that has resulted in the death of thousands of women,
children, and other noncombatants.
Still, events like these, which are completely normal for the Saudis, have
not stopped every president from Franklin Roosevelt to Donald Trump from
proclaiming the "special relationship" between the two countries. The truth
is - and, again, I say this from 25 years of experience dealing with the
Saudis and working on Saudi issues - we don't much like the Saudis and they
don't much like us. But they buy our weapons systems and fighter jets and we
buy their oil. So the relationship is perfect from a capitalist perspective.
One thing that's rarely discussed in the American media is how, and how
frequently, the Saudis meddle in US affairs. I'm not talking about how the
Saudis engage the most important and expensive lobbyists in Washington to
pressure Congress to do what they want. Nor am I talking about the Saudis'
long history of financing radical mosques around the world, including in the
United States.
What I'm talking about is a concerted Saudi government effort - a policy -
of converting some of the most vulnerable Americans to their extremist form
of Islam. You see, the Saudis are the ones who provide the Bureau of Prisons
with literally all of the Qurans that appear in federal prisons. Most people
think that every Quran is the same. It is, when it's in Arabic. The devil is
in the details - and in the translations. When Saudi translators translate
Islam's holiest book into English, the analysis and commentary, which always
accompanies the original Arabic text, is decidedly fundamentalist, even
radical. Rather than extolling the Prophet Muhammad's exhortation to
"respect all of the peoples of the Book," the commentary urges followers to
wage war against "the nonbelievers." It demands that Muslims convert by the
sword. That's just one example, but you get the idea.
Former FBI director Robert Mueller warned in 2006 that there was a "radical
Islamist conversion machine" active in US prisons. He said that prisons were
"fertile ground" for Muslim extremists, and that they targeted American
prisoners for conversion specifically to Saudi Arabia's fundamentalist
Wahhabi strain of Islam. Mueller even gave examples:
.In April 2010, Larry James murdered his mother, pregnant wife, 7-month-old
son, 3-year-old niece, and 16-year-old niece for refusing to convert to
Islam. James had converted in prison.
.In 2014, Alton Nolen, another prison convert, beheaded Colleen Hufford, a
54-year-old grandmother and work colleague.
.Paul Pitts served 14 years in prison for murder, where he converted to
Islam and changed his name to Imam Abdu Shahid. He was paroled in 2001 and
was hired as a prison chaplain in 2007. In 2010, he was arrested for trying
to bring scissors and razor blades into the prison in which he was working.
FBI figures show that one out of every three African-American prisoners
convert to Islam in prison. That's about 40,000 converts per year. And it's
in addition to members of other races also converting, all on the Saudi
dime. I have no problem with people converting to any religion or to no
religion, either in prison or out of it. I do have a problem, though, with a
foreign archconservative government that has no respect for women,
minorities, human rights, democracy, or basic human dignity running wild in
our prison system.
I'm very happy to eviscerate the corrupt and incompetent Department of
Justice and Bureau of Prisons for their policy of allowing the Saudis to
finance fundamentalist Qurans and to convert prisoners to their radicalism.
But I don't think even government functionaries are that cynical. Instead, I
think they're just stupid. I would bet money that they don't even realize
what's going on in their prisons. Neither do the Congressional oversight
committees. It's about time for them to wake up and clean up their mess.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage
Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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