Supporting Monsters in Soddy Arabia
Whether it's Chile's Pinochet, Iran's Shah, or the House of Saud, why is it that the "Land of Liberty" consistently (and self-righteously!) facilitates individuals and regimes that torture and murder their own citizens?
Obviously the "leaders" of the Western world, particularly in the past four decades, have decided that supporting monsters throughout the globe is Good Business, filling the pockets of themselves and their friends and maintaining their power as America slips further and further into tyranny -- to take merely one example, the incarceration rate in the "Land of the Free" has risen 400 PERCENT in the past 3 decades.
Shore seem to be a lotta Evildoers around these days!
The vast majority of our caged Americans are MEN who are POLITICAL PRISONERS, having been incarcerated based largely on their gender, for "crimes against the public conscience" -- an incredibly hypocritical scheme, given the "public conscience" of U.S. support for the brutal House of Saud, the torture chambers of Egypt, Abu Ghirab, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Hey, I thought our "democracy" came into existence as a reaction AGAINST a monarchy??
Yet how facile our "leaders" find it to support oppressive and brutal dictatorships and monarchies elsewhere -- all in the name of "Homeland Security."
[excerpted]
Saudi Protesters Get Lashings, Jail Time
Thu Jan 13, 6:26 PM ET World - AP
By ABDULLAH al-SHIHRI, Associated Press Writer
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A religious court has sentenced 15 Saudis, including a woman, to as many as 250 lashes each and up to six months in prison for participating in a protest against the monarchy, judicial officials said Thursday.
Men are lashed in public in Saudi Arabia but women receive the punishment inside a prison in the presence of female workers. Lashing is an unusual punishment for dissidents challenging the monarchy or calling for reforms. They usually just receive prison sentences.
A judge issued the verdict Monday against 15 of 21 people arrested during last month's protest. Individuals were sentenced to one to six months in prison and from 100 to 250 lashes, a judicial official in Riyadh said on condition of anonymity. He would not disclose the individual sentences.
The trial of the remaining six will take place after a month, he said.
The daily Okaz newspaper on Tuesday quoted the Saudi prosecutor-general as saying he will appeal for a tougher punishment for the dissidents.
The 21 had attended a small anti-monarchy protest in the capital Dec. 16. The protests in Riyadh and the Red Sea city of Jiddah had been called by London-based dissident Saad al-Fagih, head of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia.
In Jiddah, at least six people were seen being arrested and dozens were seen running from police.
Al-Fagih had called the protests through his satellite television and radio stations and Web site. In the group's boldest challenge to the monarchy, its Web site spelled out "immediate procedures to be taken after the demise of Al Saud" royal family.
Al-Fagih's movement says it seeks to replace the monarchy with a liberal, moderate system of government.
However, some Saudi intellectuals say the group is religiously conservative and that its true aim is to set up an Islamic government that would neither be liberal nor democratic.
temporary yahoo link:
link
[end excerpt]
I mean, TWO-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY LASHES!!!
That's not "deterrence," that's just plain-old-sadism, masked as "law-n-order."
You'd think that Condoleeza, Queen of Babylon -- given the history of her people -- might have a bit more empathy for oppressed folks tied to a whipping-post and flayed alive....
But naaah! Like her fellow "Christians" and "conservatives" in the halls of power, she's not interested in her country, nor in God, nor even in an abstraction of justice -- she's only interested in Her Career. In Condoleeza. Ah, feminism. What a catastophic success thou art!
It's fascinating that all these self-described American "Christians" -- the same Christians who watched the "Passion of the Christ" movie in horror of the lengthy and sick scourging of Jesus, tears streaming from their eyes, are amongst the most rabid supporters of King George and his bomb-em-to-hell approach to world diplomacy.
Perhaps those "Evildoers" in Saudi Arabia, having lived under the desert sun so long, have tougher hides than our pretty, snow-white Jesus? No doubt they don't really feel those 250 whip-marks -- well, not like a white man would, anyway....
I guess when we tear the flesh off falafel-chompers in some far-away country, it's not the same as skinning a white man who's our "religious idol," eh? I've got my SUV, "Everybody Loves Raymond" reruns, and heck, I even put the porch-flag up last week on Martin Luther King Day. Geez ... what are a few lashings, after all, between business partners?
We are known -- and judged -- by the company we keep. TWO-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY LASHES for protesting a bogus, sadistic monarchy. While Uncle Sam and his MissUS stand beside and count the strokes, cheering and the blood flies.
Is this really the Nation our forefathers gave their lives to nurture?
They must be loathing US from their graves.
We have become an abomination, the Antithesis of our Proclaimed Selves, a worldwide scourge of hypocrisy upon our own collective ethos.
Like so much else nowadays, the whole filthy Business makes me ashamed to be an American.
Obviously the "leaders" of the Western world, particularly in the past four decades, have decided that supporting monsters throughout the globe is Good Business, filling the pockets of themselves and their friends and maintaining their power as America slips further and further into tyranny -- to take merely one example, the incarceration rate in the "Land of the Free" has risen 400 PERCENT in the past 3 decades.
Shore seem to be a lotta Evildoers around these days!
The vast majority of our caged Americans are MEN who are POLITICAL PRISONERS, having been incarcerated based largely on their gender, for "crimes against the public conscience" -- an incredibly hypocritical scheme, given the "public conscience" of U.S. support for the brutal House of Saud, the torture chambers of Egypt, Abu Ghirab, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Hey, I thought our "democracy" came into existence as a reaction AGAINST a monarchy??
Yet how facile our "leaders" find it to support oppressive and brutal dictatorships and monarchies elsewhere -- all in the name of "Homeland Security."
[excerpted]
Saudi Protesters Get Lashings, Jail Time
Thu Jan 13, 6:26 PM ET World - AP
By ABDULLAH al-SHIHRI, Associated Press Writer
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A religious court has sentenced 15 Saudis, including a woman, to as many as 250 lashes each and up to six months in prison for participating in a protest against the monarchy, judicial officials said Thursday.
Men are lashed in public in Saudi Arabia but women receive the punishment inside a prison in the presence of female workers. Lashing is an unusual punishment for dissidents challenging the monarchy or calling for reforms. They usually just receive prison sentences.
A judge issued the verdict Monday against 15 of 21 people arrested during last month's protest. Individuals were sentenced to one to six months in prison and from 100 to 250 lashes, a judicial official in Riyadh said on condition of anonymity. He would not disclose the individual sentences.
The trial of the remaining six will take place after a month, he said.
The daily Okaz newspaper on Tuesday quoted the Saudi prosecutor-general as saying he will appeal for a tougher punishment for the dissidents.
The 21 had attended a small anti-monarchy protest in the capital Dec. 16. The protests in Riyadh and the Red Sea city of Jiddah had been called by London-based dissident Saad al-Fagih, head of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia.
In Jiddah, at least six people were seen being arrested and dozens were seen running from police.
Al-Fagih had called the protests through his satellite television and radio stations and Web site. In the group's boldest challenge to the monarchy, its Web site spelled out "immediate procedures to be taken after the demise of Al Saud" royal family.
Al-Fagih's movement says it seeks to replace the monarchy with a liberal, moderate system of government.
However, some Saudi intellectuals say the group is religiously conservative and that its true aim is to set up an Islamic government that would neither be liberal nor democratic.
temporary yahoo link:
link
[end excerpt]
I mean, TWO-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY LASHES!!!
That's not "deterrence," that's just plain-old-sadism, masked as "law-n-order."
You'd think that Condoleeza, Queen of Babylon -- given the history of her people -- might have a bit more empathy for oppressed folks tied to a whipping-post and flayed alive....
But naaah! Like her fellow "Christians" and "conservatives" in the halls of power, she's not interested in her country, nor in God, nor even in an abstraction of justice -- she's only interested in Her Career. In Condoleeza. Ah, feminism. What a catastophic success thou art!
It's fascinating that all these self-described American "Christians" -- the same Christians who watched the "Passion of the Christ" movie in horror of the lengthy and sick scourging of Jesus, tears streaming from their eyes, are amongst the most rabid supporters of King George and his bomb-em-to-hell approach to world diplomacy.
Perhaps those "Evildoers" in Saudi Arabia, having lived under the desert sun so long, have tougher hides than our pretty, snow-white Jesus? No doubt they don't really feel those 250 whip-marks -- well, not like a white man would, anyway....
I guess when we tear the flesh off falafel-chompers in some far-away country, it's not the same as skinning a white man who's our "religious idol," eh? I've got my SUV, "Everybody Loves Raymond" reruns, and heck, I even put the porch-flag up last week on Martin Luther King Day. Geez ... what are a few lashings, after all, between business partners?
We are known -- and judged -- by the company we keep. TWO-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY LASHES for protesting a bogus, sadistic monarchy. While Uncle Sam and his MissUS stand beside and count the strokes, cheering and the blood flies.
Is this really the Nation our forefathers gave their lives to nurture?
They must be loathing US from their graves.
We have become an abomination, the Antithesis of our Proclaimed Selves, a worldwide scourge of hypocrisy upon our own collective ethos.
Like so much else nowadays, the whole filthy Business makes me ashamed to be an American.
posted by little dynamo at
7:47 AM
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