If we needed another reason besides soaring fuel prices to end our dependence on foreign oil, the barbaric state of Saudi Arabia has just given it to us.
Those wonderful folks who brought you most of the 9/11 terrorists have turned logic and justice on its head by sentencing a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape (that’s right…the VICTIM!) to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was with an unrelated male when the attack took place!
Despite Bush’s high-flown rhetoric about spreading democracy and caring about human rights, he continues to court and support a country that tyrannizes women and preaches hate and intolerance.
Where is our President’s outrage? What kind of country are WE when our government stands silent in the face of such injustice?
Why would the President be outraged? His family has been business colleagues with the House of Saud for decades. Unfortunately, this country’s need and desire for capitalism trumps our necessity to see democracy flourish globally and the sad fact is that our economy heavily relies on both Saudis money and oil to survive.
Besides, democracy does not always bring about a peaceful and prosperous result (as recently evidenced by the election of Hamas to govern the Palestinians).
Josh, that’s exactly my point.
The Bush family’s long-standing and cozy relationship with the House of Saud, and our country’s dependence on their oil have jointly compromised our foreign policy AND our moral judgment.
Until we are energy-independent, we will continue to turn a blind eye to America’s traditional values and act hypocritically.
Energy independence is just the tip of a very big iceberg. We will always be reliant on different types of imports and investment capital from foreign nations.
Our leaders may proclaim to be against this or that violation of human rights by aforementioned foreign entities, but, in the end, money talks (as usual).
It slightly beats the alternative of Russian-style communism.
Damn. Steve Levine always says what I wanted to say.
It’s the brazen hypocrisy of Bush and his administration that just slays me.
When his father recently said that people who condemn his son’s war forget the brutality of Saddam Hussein, I wanted to retch.
Where was the concern for human rights and the condemnation of Saddam’s regime when we were doing business with it, because it was in our ‘strategic interests’ since he was at war with Iran?
Yet another reason…
BAGHDAD  Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials.
Saudis accounted for the largest number of fighters listed on the records by far  305, or 41 percent . The data show that despite increased efforts by Saudi Arabia to clamp down on would-be terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, some Saudi fighters are still getting through.
Libyans accounted for 137 foreign fighters, or 18 percent of the total, the senior American military officials said. They discussed the raid with the stipulation that they not be named because of the delicate nature of the issue.
…and still no word from Bush.
Vince,
Many people (myself included) believe that we rushed to have Saddam executed so he could not give detailed testimony about his business dealings with Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al.
The crimes that he was found guilty of all occurred several years before we entered into these agreements. If Saddam was such a brutal murderer for acts committed in 1983, why were we having diplomatic visits with him in 1987? The executive officers of our federal government literally enabled Saddam to commit the very acts that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of brave Americans. Their blood will forever needlessly be on Bush’s hands.
Look who is talking about “justice”! the country of “Guantanamo”, “killing more than million iraqis”, “Abu Ghraib” ……etc
We don’t want such you to teach us justice!
Shame on U America before you say it to us!
@Joshua Rosenstock, you said it. So true.
@realmanfromeast, many of us in the U.S. (hopefully the majority), don’t feel that the corrupt and barbaric Bush administration represents the ideals that our nation was founded on.
Just as we count sacred the right to hold our government and its administrators accountable for their actions, so we reserve the right to call out the barbarism of the Saudi government.
Well said, Vince, but…
I’m afraid realmanfromeast has it right.
This administration has tarnished America’s reputation for justice, and made us look like hypocrites when we preach to the rest of the world. In that sense, we’ve forfeited our right to call out other nations’ unjust behavior.
And that, as much as any crime committed by this gang of outlaws, both saddens and angers me, because Americans are better than this administration.
I concede that there is truth in what realmanfromeast says, and I’m sure he voices the feeling of many millions.
But if we admit that all those who happen to live under a given barbaric regime shouldn’t condemn injustice wherever it appears in another society, then realman’s point is rendered moot, and all of us are silenced.
That I can’t accept.
“All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Of course we shouldn’t remain silent in the face of injustice.
But our righteous indignation at other countries’ unjust behavior is seriously weakened when our leaders practice such behavior in our name.
True.
That’s why we have to figure out how to derail Giuliani– he’s Cheney’s boy.
Rovian double-speak will give him the patriotic mantle, and the ever-compliant press will be mute about his perfidy.