It is a tale that is more reminiscent of the cruel callous punishments meted out to women in medieval times. And yet sadly it is a case that is making headlines in the 21st century.
For those of you who are not aware of the story, an 18-year-old girl from Qatif went to meet a man she had had a prior relationship with to reclaim photos that he threatened to blackmail her with. While they were standing outside a shopping mall, they were abducted at knifepoint. She was gang raped 14 times by seven men. The man accompanying her was also raped. In an extraordinary ruling, she was sentenced by the courts to 90 lashes for having been with a man who was not her male relative. When she appealed this verdict, expecting leniency under the extenuating circumstances, the court increased her sentence to 200 lashes and six months imprisonment. This increased sentence was delivered under the spurious pretext that the judiciary would not be aggravated and influenced through the media. Her lawyer has been suspended from the case, has had his license confiscated and is now being threatened with disciplinary action.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/21/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
It is no longer amazing that Islam is so hypocritical, nor is such barbarity upon its part any sort of surprise. The only remaining mystery is why Islam still exists in a civilized world. I can only hope that will soon change.
#5
Are the Saudi people fully aware of what happened or has this been given the MSM treatment? Seems like the government is afraid of something about this.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands - One was a Somali refugee, the other an Argentine investment banker. Both are now high-profile Dutch women challenging this country to rethink its national identity.
Princess Maxima, the Argentine-born wife of Crown Prince Willem Alexander, triggered a round of national soul-searching with a speech last month about what exactly it means to be Dutch in an age of mass migration. "The Netherlands is too complex to sum up in one cliche," she said. "A typical Dutch person doesn't exist."
"We're all atypical!"
"Yes ma'am. Another bon-bon?"
Her comments have tapped into an unsettled feeling among many Dutch who fear traditional values have been eroded in a country roiled by a rise in Muslim extremism. It's a view espoused by Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has turned her back on her Islamic roots.
Conservatives in this nation of 16 million say the long Dutch tradition of welcoming immigrants and putting little or no pressure on them to integrate undermines Western values. "Unfortunately, the debate about Dutch identity is too often held at a very trite and trivial level _ as if the discussion is between Brussels sprouts and wooden shoes on the one hand, and couscous and caftans on the other," said Bart Jan Spruyt, founder of The Edmund Burke Foundation, a conservative think tank. "What is really at stake, due to a frivolous immigration policies and decades of multicultural indifference, is the identity of the Dutch nation, Dutch history and culture as a part of the history of Western civilization."
Han van der Horst, author of a popular book on Dutch culture and history, staunchly defends the nation's live-and-let-live traditions. He points to an old Dutch saying that translates as "everybody is entitled to his own views," but hastens to add: "It doesn't mean you respect those views or share" them.
That attitude historically allowed rigidly separated groupings known as "pillars" to form in society, meaning people of different faiths or political persuasion had their own churches, schools, newspapers, television and radio broadcasters and labor unions. The system began to unravel in the 1960s, but some observers see the rise of Islam as a new pillar in Dutch society _ mosques are springing up around the country and Muslims have their own schools and Web sites.
Only this pillar have no intention of supporting the country.
Hirsi Ali, the former Somali refugee, is one of the success stories of Dutch immigration policy, but also one of its fiercest critics. She condemns the Dutch tradition of multiculturalism, saying tolerance for the intolerant has provided a dangerous breeding ground for Islamic radicalism.
Fear of such radicalism crystallized after the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, Hirsi Ali's collaborator on the controversial movie "Submission" _ a fictional study of abused Muslim women with scenes of near-naked women with Quranic texts engraved on their flesh. Van Gogh's assailant shot the filmmaker and slit his throat on an Amsterdam street, leaving a letter pinned to his chest threatening the life of Hirsi Ali, who wrote the film's screenplay. Despite going into hiding with 24-hour police protection, Hirsi Ali continued to speak out.
"Our migration policy is a failure," she told The Associated Press in an interview last year. "We used to pretend that we were a homogenous little country and that Holland is not a migration country. We have become a migration country like the United States."
After she arrived in the Netherlands as an asylum seeker fleeing an arranged marriage, Hirsi Ali quickly mastered the Dutch language, found a job and then went to university to earn a degree, eventually becoming a lawmaker for the conservative Liberal Party. She moved to the United States last year to take a job with a conservative think tank in Washington, but returned home this month after the Dutch government said it would not pay for round-the-clock protection in America.
Since the Van Gogh slaying, the conservative government has reversed course on multiculturalism, passing a raft of laws that emphasize integration over cultural tolerance _ most notably forcing foreigners to take citizenship courses and learn Dutch. It's within that context that Princess Maxima's speech created such a stir, especially because the Dutch monarchy is not usually political.
Dutch lawmakers from all sides of the political spectrum also have weighed in. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende _ one of three government ministers who approved the princess' speech before she delivered it _ supported her views. Right-wing, anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders labeled it politically correct "tittle-tattle."
Mohammed Sini, the chairman of Islam and Citizenship, a national moderate Muslim organization, said there is a tendency in the Netherlands to group all Muslims together, bracketing moderates along with extremists. He expressed hope that the old Dutch spirit of live-and-let-live would prevail. "The key is respect _ that you respect one another's values _ that is a key Dutch trait and fortunately there are still many people here who carry on the Dutch culture in that way."
#1
"What is really at stake, due to a frivolous immigration policies and decades of multicultural indifference, is the identity of the Dutch nation, Dutch history and culture as a part of the history of Western civilization."
And the destruction of that identity and culture is the precise purpose of the legislation that allowed immigration.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/21/2007 21:06 Comments ||
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#3
always remember: you're unique! Just like everyone else.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/21/2007 21:22 Comments ||
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#4
Unique is a combination of two latin words, Uni, meaning one, and equis, meaning horse. Therefore unique really means, "One Horse".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/21/2007 21:51 Comments ||
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#5
Alos, the Dutch fondness for multi-culturalism has deep roots. The Massachusetts Pilgrims initially went to Holland because they were tolerant of the religious beliefs of the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims decided to leave Holland because the Dutch tollerated behaviour deemed irreligious by the Pilgrims. They didn't want their children exposed to the ireligious behavior of the Dutch, therefore they decided to go to America where they could found a religiously pure colony.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/21/2007 21:55 Comments ||
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#6
When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal a good many of them went to The Netherlands, too, because that was one of the few countries that would accept them. From there a group helped to build New Amsterdam (now known as New York City, for those abroad who are not as familiar with the smaller details of American history). I believe those were the Jews that George Washington wrote so kindly to.
Posted by: trailing wife in Buffalo for Thanksgiving ||
11/21/2007 22:21 Comments ||
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#1
Soros wrote: A misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts -- Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia -- a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world . We can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor.
Since access to high-quality information is no problem for this guy, I can only guess thatwith all of his fabulous wealthSoros is able to afford some extremely powerful drugs.
you cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do so by following Lenins injunction: In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponents argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.
While the foregoing may be misapplied in the case of Horowitz, it certainly is worth noting in the context of our current conflict with Islam. Even a dead Lenin stopped clock is right twice a day.
here is a sample of some recent attacks directed at me, which are taken from the Google index: Fat-assed, faux-intellectual, a quintessential slobbering lackey, neo-con, insane, Trotskyist turned neo-con scumbag, Stalinist, Maoist, former communist, brimming with self-hate, hyperventilating about commies, traitor,anti-education fanatic, witch-hunter, far-right fanatic, far-right wacko, Ahmadinejads double, little Fuehrer, right-wing nut, Grand Wizard, anti-Muslim, religious bigot, arch- racist, Zionist neo-conservative, racist Zionist Jew, extremist racist Zionist Jew, a Nazi mind with a Zionist face, a notorious icon of Zionist Islamophobia, a blatant Judeo-fascist crusader of Zionism and social regressivism, Zionist poof.
Geez, I guess I've got it pretty easy.
I have been rushed on the stage in such unlikely locations as the Pacific Design Center and the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles both times by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party who were out in force during Islamo-Fascism Awareness week. In both these cases, I had failed to hire security and would have been beaten if members of the audience had not tackled the would-be assailants and wrestled them to the ground.
So much for the Left's idea of free speech. I can only wonder why it is that they feel so threatened by one single person's message. If their entire political house-of-cards is that flimsy maybe it is in serious need of toppling. The political process intrinsically demands that a given platform be robust and able to withstand critical assault. It is an automatic admission of failure if resorting to violence and slander are the only ways of defending your ideas from disproof. That Islam utilizes the Left's exact same tools in projecting its own ideology is neither conincidental nor much of a surprise.
Would any Jewinfidel, knowing that there are fanatics in our midst who are incited by their religion to regard us as apes and monkeys, and who see violence as a ticket to heaven, wish to test their forbearance?
There, fixed that. It is also worth noting the precise meme of how violencesomething generally condemned in most religionsis specifically exalted in Islam.
In honor of Islamofascism Awareness Week I am busy rewriting all of my old history books in order to properly show that the danger of some men in caves, along with one moderate regional power are in fact a greater threat to the United States than were the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the secessionist Confederacy, and even the Redcoats from our founding days.
If it weren't so pathetic it would be amusing to see the Left inadvertantly stumble across the truth as they blindly grope after sensationalist smear language.
#2
There have been more than 9,000 terrorist attacks since 9/11, including the murders of Western infidels such as Theo Van Gogh, whose crime was attempting to warn others. A petition is currently being circulated by leftist professors, like Eric Foner, at Columbia, which among other things condemns its president for criticizing the Islamo-fascist, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when he was a guest at the school.[16] There have been (and will be) no such petitions to condemn the campus radicals who mounted a hate campaign against conservative students and the speakers they invited to discuss the threat from Islamo-fascists like Ahmadinejad. And therein lies the problem for our country.
Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Dont come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f**king do as I s ay, Okay!!!? (From the book Unlimited Access, by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 - Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)
#5
My personal favorite was a year or so ago in a speech in SF. "We're going to take some things away from you to give them to people who need it more."
Direct plagarism of "From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs."__K.Marx
Posted by: Chonter Scourge of the Infinitesmal5212 ||
11/21/2007 12:37 Comments ||
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Michael Shank, Arab News
The Democratic presidential candidates have been salivating for a situation like Pakistan to come along the campaign trail. Eternally looking soft on security and stuck with no road map for Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan offers the candidates an opportunity to brandish new security strategies. With President Pervez Musharrafs violent crackdown on opposition parties, human rights organizations, media, lawyers, and the general populace, they have the perfect opportunity to posture. Trouble is, however, with Democratic White House hopefuls Obama, Biden, Clinton, and Edwards slating new strategies for Pakistan: They all have got their analysis flat wrong.
Illinois Senator Barack Obama, to his credit, was first out of the misguided gate long before Musharraf derailed all semblance of civility. Still spinning from fellow candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clintons jab at his offer to dialogue with adversaries (too naïve and inexperienced, she said) Obama countered Clintons criticism by swinging hard at Pakistan. In an about-face to appear hard, not soft, on security the plan was simple: Move from the wrong battlefield, i.e. Iraq, to the right battlefield, i.e. Pakistan. If actionable intelligence exists on high-value terrorist targets, said Obama, then US strikes will follow, regardless of cooperation from Islamabad. Eagerness got the better of Obama on this one, though, as foreign policy wonks from Washington to Waziristan cited this as utterly ill-advisable and wrong-headed.
Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, more recently, has emerged as the candidate least cautious to ramp up rhetoric on Pakistan. His first gaffe, assisted by candidate and Gov. Bill Richardson: Comparing Pakistan of today to Iran of the late 1970s. Biden conjectured that conservative religious types of today will similarly rise to overthrow the US-backed regime. As the Shah was replaced by the Supreme Leader and the Ayatollahs, the analogy beckoned, so too will Musharraf be replaced by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.
Thankfully, extremisms foothold remains weak as Islamic parties have never polled well in Pakistan, garnering roughly 11 percent of the vote. (Moreover, any non-democratic seizing of power by conservatives would result in a massive public uprising on par with present-day protests.) Contrast that with the competition to Musharraf, former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, at 65 percent of the vote, a number likely to rise given the recent bombing and house arrest targeting Bhutto, both of which increased her political profile. Add to that a sizeable pocket of progressives abstaining from either party, disaffected by the corruption in both Bhutto and Sharifs regimes, and a trend toward moderate mandates emerges. What Biden should focus on instead then is maintaining this mandate, a task increasingly compromised by US military aid to Musharraf.
Bidens second gaffe: With the help of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in a recent foreign affairs subcommittee resolution, he pledged to suspend assistance for the purchase of weapon systems not directly related to the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taleban. Translation? No aid will be cut; Pakistan claims all fights are related. Better if Biden would bide his time until a more laudable policy emerged. Like Obama, enthusiasm to separate from the presidential pack got the better of Biden. More laudable would be if Obama and Biden bid military bluster adieu and plotted out non-military strategies to undermine Taleban operations in Pakistan. As in Iraq, a military solution the only response executed by Musharraf to date is not the answer. It is the political, economic, and social sectors and the need for stability within each to which the president and by proxy the United States, must attend.
Clinton in her vehement condemnation of emergency rule in Pakistan perhaps came closest in countenancing the real source of the problem. The failed policies of the Bush administration were to blame, the senator said, diverting resources and attention from the fight against terrorism on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, while inciting radical elements inside Pakistan. While correct on the former point i.e. Bush administration policies are problematic, it is the latter point where she drifts. In fact, there is no diversion from the border fight, but rather a too heavy-handed approach. The indiscriminate shelling of border villages by Musharraf, aided by American intelligence, finances, and equipment, is helping radicalize locals against the government. Clintons showing of cards with this quote, gives clues to how she might fight the war once president: Bomb the border better.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, lastly, ranks weakest among all four candidates mentioned here, only because of his lack of learnedness. Edwards mistakenly thinks that we provide billions of dollars in assistance of all kinds, to Pakistan. Perhaps, had Edwards done his homework, he would know that of the $10 billion in US aid sent to the country since 2001, only $26 million has been funneled toward democratic elections. Most of US assistance is of the military kind, not the social, contrary to what US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte claims when protesting aid withdrawal, citing social sector concerns.
If any of the Democratic presidential candidates actually focused on the social concerns of Pakistanis, much could be done to undermine the radical extremism worrying Clinton and others. Pakistan now ranks below Myanmar in the United Nations Human Development Indexs social indicators a fact not terribly surprising given that Musharraf, in the last eight years of rule, has invested only 2 percent of GDP on education. Pakistan then, for the Democratic candidate confounded with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a huge opportunity; a little social investment will go a long way. But unfortunately no candidate seems to be approaching Pakistan in that way. The country is merely serving as a study in security strategy, and it appears their success at it is on par with precedent.
Michael Shank is an analyst with the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Virginia
Posted by: Fred ||
11/21/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Poor old Pakistan. As if they don't have enough problems.
WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (IPS) - While the vast majority of analysts here agree that sectarian violence in Iraq has declined sharply from pre-"surge" levels one year ago, a major debate has broken out as to whether the achievement of the Surge's strategic objective -- national reconciliation -- is closer or more distant than ever.
On one side, advocates of the surge -- the deployment beginning last February of some 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to help pacify Baghdad and al-Anbar province -- claim that the counter-insurgency strategy overseen by Gen. David Petraeus has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
On the other side, surge sceptics argue that the strategy's "ground-up" approach to pacification -- buying off local insurgent and tribal groups with money and other support -- may have set the stage for a much bigger and more violent civil war or partition, particularly as U.S. forces begin drawing down from their current high of about 175,000 beginning as early as next month.
One prominent analyst, George Washington University Prof. Marc Lynch, believes that Petraeus' strategy of reducing violence by making deals with dominant local powers is leading to the creation in Iraq of a "warlord state" with "power devolved to local militias, gangs, tribes, and power-brokers, with a purely nominal central state."
Even the surge's proponents admit that the outcome remains unclear. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institute, a Clinton administration official who angered many of his former colleagues by supporting the surge when Pres. George W. Bush first announced it last January and loudly praising its results on the eve of a major Congressional debate in September, told the New York Times this week that "in military terms...the trends (in reducing violence) are stunning."
At the same time, he added, "nobody knows if the trends are durable in the absence of national reconciliation and in the face of major U.S. troop drawdowns in 2008."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Hirsi Ali, the former Somali refugee, is one of the success stories of Dutch immigration policy, but also one of its fiercest critics. She condemns the Dutch tradition of multiculturalism, saying tolerance for the intolerant has provided a dangerous breeding ground for Islamic radicalism.
Analysis by Jim Lobe
