Saudi Arabia's Teachers of Terror (washingtonpost.com)
Based on this article from two Senators, it appears that madrassas are, in large part, terrorist indoctrination centers. We need to make the Saudis decide whose side they are on. Their duplicity has got to come to an end and if it means severing formal ties with them, so be it.

Unless we are prepared to use the military, and I doubt many people in this country are, our options are limited in the short term. An oil embargo would be foolish because we would punish ourselves and for little gain: oil is fungible and can make its way into this country through third parties. Even so, over the long term the Saudis need us more than we need them. Their economy is a one-trick pony: oil. That provides us with the leverage to force long-term change.

Right now we import about 17% of our oil from Saudi Arabia. I don't know which way it is trending at the moment but I do know we have managed to diversify our oil portfolio over the last twenty years -- to the detriment of the Saudis -- and believe we will be able to continue to do so when Iraq is at full capacity in a few years. Russia has also been increasing its exports of oil drastically in recent years and that will likely continue.

The House of Saud has for decades played a double game with the United States, on the one hand acting as our ally, on the other supporting a movement -- Wahhabism -- that seeks our society's destruction. Because of other strategic interests, our government has long indulged the Saudis, overlooking their financial and structural ties to one of the world's most violent terror organizations.

After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush made clear that America would no longer play that game. He said: "Every nation will have a choice to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." It is time for Saudi Arabia to make that choice.

Upon its establishment as the nation's ruling family, the House of Saud forged an alliance with the radical Wahhabi sect of Islam. The deal that was struck gave the House of Saud control over political and foreign policy, while the Wahhabis would be free to take charge of the society's religious and cultural institutions.

Recently our subcommittee on terrorism held the first of a series of public hearings on the activities of this Wahhabi sect. The findings were alarming. Wahhabism is an extremist, exclusionary form of Islam that not only denigrates other faiths but also marginalizes peaceful followers of Islam. As witnesses testified, Wahhabism uses mosques and schools, called madrassas, to indoctrinate mostly young people with a hatred of Jews, Christians and traditional Muslims who reject this radicalism. Its goals are world domination and the destruction of its enemies.

Osama bin Laden is a follower of Wahhabism. So were all 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Bin Laden's al Qaeda trained the Taliban in Afghanistan, formed a movement that threatens the government of Pakistan and is the source of terrorist atrocities from Morocco to Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Tanzania, Yemen and Saudi Arabia itself.