Is Saudi Arabia Holy Soil ? Last week -- that is, just over three years after the atrocities of September 11 -- the U.S. government, for the first time, listed Saudi Arabia as a "country of particular concern" on issues of religious freedom. The State Department described the kingdom as a place where no religious liberty exists, except for the state-supported Wahhabi sect of Islam. Indeed, in a real shocker, State actually used the word "Wahhabi," rather than avoiding any specific identification of those to blame, or utilizing such favored euphemisms as "extreme Sunni Muslims" or "adherents of an austere, rigid Islam." As State noted, millions of non-Wahhabi Sunnis as well as Shia Muslims living in the kingdom lack elementary religious rights. Shias, in particular, while making up as much as a quarter of the population and the majority in the Eastern Province, which possesses the bulk of oil resources, suffer "officially sanctioned political and economic discrimination," according to State.Click here to read the rest.....