Middle East Mindsets By Victor Davis Hanson

Radical Islamists love to scream about the "decadent" West. Everything from our operas to our attitudes about women outrage these loud, pious critics.
As part of their condemnation, fundamentalist Muslims say they put a higher premium on family values and reverence for the past than crass modern Americans and Europeans do. But that is hardly true.

In Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, unforgiving Shariah law administered by stern state clerics dictates the cutting off a hand for theft.

Is there less stealing then? Not at the highest levels at least. Sheiks from the ruling House of Saud are notorious for gambling and squandering abroad their nation's collective petro-wealth. But few such royals walk around Riyadh with missing limbs from "judicial amputation."

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