Where else but in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will a court impose a sentence of 200 lashes on a young woman who was raped? What a bunch of barbarians. Half the Muslim world will take to the streets when a few Danes draw insulting pictures of the Prophet, but when a rape victim, for heaven's sake, is sentenced by a court of law to be beaten with a whip for her "crime," it's no big deal.
But let it not be said that the Saudi sons of Allah are not merciful:
Usually, lashes are meted out in increments because offenders could not survive hundreds of lashes at once. The administrator of the punishment is supposed to hold a Koran under his arm so he cannot swing the whip too fiercely; lashes are not supposed to leave permanent scars.
Beautiful. And you know, the thing is that the Saudi royal family, whose responsibility this ultimately is, is the most liberal regime we can hope for in the land of the Prophet. A diplomat once told me that there are no political forces in the kingdom more liberal than the al-Saud family ("I know, I looked for them," he said). My sense is the Saudi royals would liberalize the system if they could, but they depend on the Wahhabi establishment for their own power, which limits their ability to challenge these courts, even if they wanted to (which they may not, I dunno). Should the al-Sauds fall, Saudi Arabia would be Talibanistan with oil fields.
And please understand that it's pious Wahhabi savages who are heavily exporting their brand of Islam to the West, trying to force out competing versions from mosques and Islamic institutions. Not that you hear much about that in our media.
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How do you say 'Allah is not great' in Arabic?
So...when do we suspend our military agreements with Saudi Arabia? When do we tell them that we no longer will do business with them because of their barbaric practices?
I've tried to ask variations on that same question, RJohnson. You won't get an answer in this forum, at least not from the crunchy crowd. The answer is oil and the US dollar. Saudi Arabia sits atop the world's largest reserves of oil, and they are heavily invested in the US. As we see in today's headlines, the OPEC summit heard a lot of talk about dumping the dollar as the currency of oil exchange. Saudi Arabia is actually a moderate voice in OPEC, compared to Hugo Chavez and Iran's Ahmadenijad who are leading the charge to dump the dollar and sell oil in other currencies.
With inflationary fears already high, and the Dow slowly sinking, the last thing the US needs is an OPEC flight from the dollar which would cause an inflationary nightmare and drive US gas prices into the stratosphere. Corporate America knows this, and that's why there will be no condemnation of Saudi Arabia from anyone of real consequence in government.
And this is also why the US will maintain a permanent military presence in the Middle East.
Will: "With inflationary fears already high, and the Dow slowly sinking, the last thing the US needs is an OPEC flight from the dollar which would cause an inflationary nightmare and drive US gas prices into the stratosphere. Corporate America knows this, and that's why there will be no condemnation of Saudi Arabia from anyone of real consequence in government."
I'll try to remember that the next time Rod and others trot out their drivel about the "blame America first crowd." Apparently Rod is OK with an innocent woman taking 200 lashes for the corporate oil cronies. Otherwise he'd be talking to them in his articles instead of his natural allies, those of us on the left.
God forbid a crunchy con would have to make any sacrifices.
Of course Saudi Arabia should be condemned for this brutal and inhuman practice. But there are plenty of people outraged over this, but equally afraid of government backlash. The so-called mass violent protests against Mohammed cartoons were themselves just fodder for political parties to drum up support amongst the populace. Most people in the world really don't have time to worry about any of the crap going on in the world seeing as survival is a priority for most in the third world.
[Closing personal attack against R.D. edited out by E.M.]
who are we to judge others whether our neighbors or others across the world.. we have enough to worry about in our own backyard..
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