20
g iants of the coming interactive media revolution, giving the Saudis
additional leverage for American media manipulation.
The ground is ripe for worldwide Islamic fundamentalist
expansion.  Mohammedanism is currently the fastest-growing religion
on the planet.69  There are a billion Moslems--as many as Jews and
Christians combined--and that number is increasing daily.  According
to Cairo University's Professor Ali Dessouki70, 50 countries are now
Islamic. What's more, there are massive Mohammedan populations
everywhere from Nigeria to Mongolia, the former Soviet Central Asian
republics,71 Southeast Asia and the Philippines.  The countries with the
world's largest Islamic bodies of citizenry are not even parts of the
Arab world--they are Indonesia and China.72    To  top  it  off,  Islamic
public opinion, if the Arabs,73 Iranians and Pakistanis are an accurate
barometer, is virulently anti-American.
Today's Islam extremism is the perfect example of a meme
grown ravenous. Saddam Hussein, in his 1990 drive for expansion,
claimed to be following Allah's message.  The late General Zia ul-Haq,
former head of Pakistan, who masterminded the fundamentalist-led
Afghan resistance efforts using U.S. funds, kept a map in his office
with all Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia marked in
green.  It was the symbol of his ultimate ambition--unified Moslem rule
extending through every green-marked territory.74  In 1990, one
enthusiastic Turkish official, minister of state Ercüment Konukman,
noted the substantial Turkish populations in the former Soviet Union
and China, and looked forward to uniting them "under the colors of
the Turkish flag."75
A fundamentalist clergyman in Lebanon says, "Don't believe that
we want an Islamic republic in Lebanon. ...What Hezbollah wants is a
world Islamic republic."76  Cairo constitutional lawyer Dr. A.K.
Aboulmagd adds,77 "I even venture sometimes to say that Islam was
not meant to serve the early days of Islam, when life was primitive and
when social institutions were still stable and working.  It was...meant to
be put in a freezer and to be taken out when it will be really needed.
And I believe that the time has come. ...The mission of Islam lies not in
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