Wednesday, March 26, 2008

MURDERING FOR WHAT

MURDERING FOR WHAT?

From East to West and from the North to the South there is a continuous and unholy cycle of murder and carnage around the world. There are the daily reports of bombings and killings, suicides and torture, child rapes and stonings hangings and assassinations form all corners of the world with one common thread, Islam.

It begs to question what is the purpose behind all of it, and what are the Muslims going to do. No, not just the average Muslim but the Islamic governments, and the leaders of theses so called Islamic movements, from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

First of all the average Muslim must confront his or her own beliefs such as, is slavery good or moral since Islam though against slavery it does allow it. Is it ok to stone to death, a woman or a man for adultery and if so should we stone to death every man and woman that is positive for any STD, sine the existence of a sexually transmitted disease itself is a prima fascia evidence that the adultery had occurred. Will you be willing to surrender your own sister or mother or daughter for the punishment. Does Islam forbid the education of the women? Will you marry off your twelve year old daughter to a fifty year old man? Is it ok for a twelve year old girl to get pregnant and become a mother? If the answer to any of it is no then the Muslims must step up and pronounce these, must speak out and say that something is wrong with system, write books and educate their public.

The Islamic governments also must say it , loud and clear, that their belief system is out of date in the twenty first century. It is not to say that everything is wrong with the whole of Islam. How can we in the West be against child rape and befriend the countries that allow it. How can we support any country where girls as young as nine and ten are being “married”, as in Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia for instance.

It should start at the top, currently there are two important Islamic regimes in the world that are using the sharia law as the basis of their rule, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Why is not a boycott of these regimes being instituted by the international community? It is the oil, right?

While we pretend to complain about the human rights abuses in Darfur and in Tibet by the Sudanese and the Chinese governments respectively, the protest against the Saudis is much muted, if it exists at all, and the sanctions against the Iranians are in regards to their nuclear programs not their record on human rights. Trade with China and Sudan goes on unabated, while we claim a higher moral ground. It is a shame, and we really don’t have much to say while we have the Guantanamo that is still open, with the prisoners there having no human rights, and we have declared water boarding not a form of torture and we have otherwise out sourced/ contracted out torture.
TO BE CONTINUED

Friday, March 21, 2008

PROTECTING OF VIRTUES


http://arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=108067&d=21&m=
3&y=2008



Arrests of Businesswoman and Professor: Unanswered Questions

Nourah Abdul Aziz Al-Khereiji, noraaalkheriji@hotmail.com

A number of questions have been raised regarding the recent arrests of a business-
woman in Riyadh and a professor in Makkah. Both were allegedly in a state of
khulwa (seclusion with an unrelated man or woman) and so far, officials of the
Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have not answered
any of the questions. A "clarification" from the organization's director in Riyadh
regarding the arrest of the businesswoman was published in the Feb. 19 edition
of Al-Watan daily but it raised more questions than it answered.

Firstly, would it not have been better for the commission's agent who took
Yara, the businesswoman, from a Starbuck's café on Feb. 4 to issue a warning to
the woman and her unrelated male business associate? Is this not part and parcel
of the commission's role? As the name of the group implies, the role is to promote
virtue before preventing vice. A polite warning would have avoided an unnecessary
and humiliating arrest and public defamation. And had the arresting commission
member not overreacted, he would have learned that the woman was having coffee
with a business associate because the electricity had gone out in their office upstairs.
The agent would have learned that it was business rather than immoral behavior
that led to the man and woman to share a table in public.

The same could be said about the professor who was arrested under similar circumstances. Every human being deserves to be treated politely and the commission agents should have
taken the trouble to learn that the professor and his associate had a good track record
regarding moral conduct and should have been treated fairly and kindly.

A second question: Why doesn't the commission have women agents to deal with women suspects? Shortly after Yara's arrest, the commission agent took her in a taxi to a local commission center. By the commission's own interpretation, this transfer involved the
arresting agent and the woman committing an act of khulwa. Having female commission members would offer a solution to the problem of handling women who are suspected of committing moral crimes.

Third: Why didn't the arresting agent contact Yara's husband at the moment the alleged
moral crime was taking place? The agent not only did not attempt to contact Yara's
husband in Jeddah, but he prevented Yara from trying to contact him by confiscating her
mobile phone. Had he spoken to Yara's husband, he would have discovered that Yara's
husband had given her his permission to conduct business and interact with other men
in a professional working environment.

Four: Why did the agent confiscate Yara's mobile phone in the first place? It has become common practice nowadays for the commission to take the personal belongings of people detained on suspicion of committing moral crimes.

Five: Why did the agent have to take Yara in a taxi? As long as commission agents move about making arrests, is it not better to ensure they move around in official commission vehicles when they detain people?

Six: What makes the commission think every citizen is going to be as compliant as Yara when it comes to demanding that they get into a taxi - or even a marked commission vehicle - without a male relative or at least a female commission member? I would have flatly refused to get into any vehicle under such circumstances, especially considering the high-profile case of Salman Al-Huraisi, who was beaten violently and fatally while in custody of the commission in Riyadh.

Seven: Didn't the Interior Ministry last year order the commission to turn suspects over to the police? Under direct orders from their superiors, the commission must involve the police after detaining anyone suspected of a moral crime. In Yara's case as well as the professor's, the commission processed suspects without involving the police.

Eight: Is a strip search really necessary for women arrested for khulwa? And when the commission confiscates personal effects, should it be allowed to destroy them as happened recently with an Al-Watan reporter in Riyadh?

Nine: Why does the commission compel people to sign papers saying they admit to doing wrong?

Ten: Why is having coffee in a public place with an unrelated man considered "illegal seclusion"? What is the true meaning of khulwa? If a woman is in a shop making a purchase and there is only she and a male salesman, is that khulwa? If a woman is taking a taxi alone, is she committing a moral crime?

Eleven: Is brutally beating a suspect to death a form of promoting virtue or preventing vice? Should the commission apologize? Should the men who beat the suspect to death be charged with a crime and punished?

Twelve: If a man gives permission to his wife to conduct business and travel on her own, what then?

The commission also mentioned that Yara was showing her hair and displaying her beauty. But this has obviously been approved by the Ministry of Culture and Information since women television presenters do the same and also apply makeup to their faces.

The head of the commission in Riyadh stated that the mingling of men and women in the workplace is not allowed by the Labor Ministry and is against Shariah and the country's laws. But in fact the Labor Ministry has allowed women and men to work together. At hospitals they work not only as doctors but also engage in administrative work along with men. They also work in tourism offices and in markets. Moreover, women have been in the audio and visual media from the beginning and there, they have to mingle with men.

I hope and pray that the commission would not always look at men and women suspecting the worst but would at least sometimes assume the best.

MY REPLY

Dear Sister Nourah

You raise here some good questions as to the operations of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Here are a few suggestions and replies to your article.

Back in the early seventies, when I still lived in Riyadh, more than once I was hit by these people, usually once or twice for not going to prayers, or having long hair and wearing tight pants like they did in the West in those days, I knew Mr. Amin Abdul Majid and was familiar with the Batha office of the commission. I still have my long hair, but now I live out here in the land of the free.

The commission members by their definition, and job description I suppose, must be narrow minded individuals, not given to accepting personal freedoms and individual responsibilities. They must not be given to open-mindedness and considering each situation, they are the judge and the jury on the spot, that is their mission.

Islam as “misunderstood” by the average conservative Muslim is non practicable. Islam says that it is here “to bring people from darkness to light”, the prophet talked of it as being a “guide”, it must be understood in it’s historical context, the women were to cover their bodies, privates, and jewelry, not to walk around like tents, you could not imagine a bunch of women in covering such as they have today in Saudia or Pakistan or Afghanistan to be walking in a camel caravan or herding sheep, now explain that to the Taliban.

Lack of understanding must be a basic requirement to work at the commission , lack of education too. But the reason they do not have women employees is self explanatory. Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive, ( I would not want to share the road with a woman driver in the Saudi face cover ) thus a woman worker would have to be a with a male driver that is not her relative I suppose thereby causing a “khulwa” situation to exist of its own, secondly these semi literate conservatives already consider a working woman as a shurmuta so they will not respect her already.

The ideal and the mission of the Commission of Virtue is to defeat the modern society, which it considers an enemy of Islam, I hear you pleading but the two of these can not co exist. Islam wants a person (male and female, as there is no prohibition from educating women anywhere) to be educated. This must be emphasized from every institution, every pulpit every ministry and by every king.

On your fourth point, why did the agent confiscate the mobile, here you have to see that under the Saudi law a person is guilty unless proven otherwise and that the “criminals” and as such suspects have no human rights, actually they are to be considered less than human, and then a female criminal is less than anything that is of worth their respect, the underpaid and under educated keepers of Islamic values and saviors of the virtues of Muslim women can not be considerate of human rights.

Your point number five is again explained by the occurrence of khulwa if the agent takes the prisoner in his department vehicle, but then we need to understand Islam, khulwa only can occur if the man and the woman are together in place where something “more personal” can happen , like in a house or a motel room, by the definition that these agents are using if I were to sit next to woman in an airport waiting room we would be fornicating, but these same people have no qualms about having sex in the presence of “GOD” himself with women they would not be married to, after dying, they just want to make sure you are not doing anything .

I am glad that Yara did get in the vehicle, she could have been killed as you have seen lately, these guys are more frustrated than they ever were during the seventies and it shows in the cases of abuse and outright brutality of recent past,, what with the mobile phones and the internet and satellite TV these guys just keep everybody as virtuous as they once were able to.

I could go on, but the kingdom needs to do something, starting with the abolishment of the whole department, it sets a real bad example of what Islam is, and what Islam could be. Immorality, public or private has its own punishments, look to the west, fornication causes disease, breaks up families, is ruinous financially, greed is destroying societies, undermining the countries, increasing criminality, and child abuse, promiscuity is keeping kids from learning in schools, keeping groups in poverty and on and on. One barely needs a virtues monitor just needs be educated.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

A RACE ABOUT THE RACE

A RACE ABOUT A RACE


So now Obama is accused of being a member of a church where his preacher likes to say outrageous things, like god damn America! And that is racist? Bigoted? Shocking?

Oh come now folks? You and I well know that the people in “Boise” (and the other white places, do we forget that Idaho is the state where the white supremacists run to) did not vote for Obama because he is the most qualified, they voted for Obama for two reasons, one that they hate Hillary and two that against McCain, Obama WILL lose in a nation wide election.

But here is the point, it is not the sermons of Mr. Wright that show racism, or that even now Obama feels compelled to defend his preacher. The black bigotry and racism was already shown when ninety-one percent of blacks voted for Obama, forgetting all of what Hillary and Bill had done for the black community for a lot longer than Obama has been doing.. And also that while Obama has a slogan, he does not have a plan, may be a “road map“, but then we know enough about he “road maps” already.

May be racism in America, as practiced by the whites, is on the decline. But it is the law of percentages at work, that makes the problem look worse than it might be. At a personal level, most whites may not even be racists, but our government and private institutions are as full of corruption, graft, nepotism and quid pro quo, to make even the Hosni Mubbarak of Egypt and the King of Saudi Arabia themselves proud. Our Justice System has no justice and or any system. With the country still being a majority white country, most of the power, money and the positions are still held by the whites so that the common graft, favoritism and nepotism gives it the appearance of racism.

Say for instance the head of a government office or a business hires someone white because they are related or the guy being hired has a cousin who will hire the first guys cousin now it is not being racist, is it, just taking care of ones own, and one’s own kind.

And why not, when I accuse a white of being a bigot or a racist and not being helpful, I must first look at myself. There is an old saying that “you got to learn to crawl before you can walk”.

The difference between a critique and wise counsel is subtle, and mostly dependent on the listener’s mind set and attitude. The black community should know and be worried or happy, depending on their “tude”, that there is a “real white” under class coming, that will be their competition at the bottom also. This time the escape will be to swim to the top. We can not keep complaining about the past, and the slavery and the injustices of Jim Crow and the white upper class. We cannot obtain a recompense that will ever undo the bygones. If we look to a future of peace justice fairness and harmony, we will need to prepare ourselves for that with education and hard work, not complaints and hope for redress. We are all Americans, Not Africanized Americans, a ghetto attitude is counter to making race relations better, how can you have better relations with the whites when you can hardly live with each other amongst your own kind? We must think of ourselves as an American who is born black, not as a American who is born African.

As we look to the next elections, we are a nation of losers, white or black, we know the country is going through tough times. What with the NAFTA, the North American Union, the GATT and the free trade with the slaves in China and elsewhere, we need a leader. The leaders discuss the problem, ask for sacrifices and devise solutions. What we have in the race, as we have had in the White House for the past thirty years, are the pimps, YES PIMPS. The smooth talkers that talk about the bright and shiny things you will get, if you let them control your life.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

A SIMPLE QUESTION

Just think if Obama was a Muslim running for president, and he attended a mosque where his Imam preached sermons similar to what his Christian preacher is saying, how close would he have been to getting the democratic nomination????

Monday, March 17, 2008

SAVING AMERICA

SAVING AMERICA

Here we are, as I said before, the banking crisis in full bloom, the Americans losing their homes, inflation rising, the president as always not willing to tell the truth.

Is there a way out, probably not, but the damage to the country can still be mitigated, we could settle for a disaster instead of an out right massacre, if we care to learn the truth and face the consequences.

Here are two first steps that can be taken already without much pain and widespread discomfort, the first being that we stop the ethanol insanity. Effective immediately we need to stop all subsidies to the ethanol industry form crop subsidies to the fuel credits and tax breaks. If we did not know this before we now know that it has hurt the consumers with increased prices of everything and not caused the petroleum consumption to go down. Cost of fuel and food has gone up directly as the consequence of our foolish adventure in to alcoholism of ethanol. Lets just say NO!

The budget is on the rocks, the government is broke, this is not the time for tax cuts, allowing the Bush tax break for the rich to expire will help with the reduction in the federal deficit and allow the dollar to find some footing. Reduction in the federal deficit will help support the dollar and reduce the price of oil.

Allow the interest rates to rise some, support the dollar, and the foreigners will become interested in INVESTING in America again, not BUYING the America on the cheap. But then again you the reader could also be a politician or a media person sold on snuffing out the freedom of the Untied States and sold on to the North American Union

Friday, March 14, 2008

FEDERAL RESERVE AND SEX

SEX AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE


The Federal Reserve giving the banks two hundred billion dollars of free money (replacing their bad bonds with treasury bills), is like paying some one to have sex with your daughter so you can teach her about abstinence

ETHANOL AND SEX

SEX AND THE ETHANOL

Replacing ethanol for gas makes the same sense as having sex with someone you know to have multiple types of STD's, ( that is venereal diseases)

first, you are screwed in many more ways than you bargained for
two, in the end it will kill you

second, using ethanol instead of gas just like being reamed with a wire brush and saying you are having sex

third, the government is paying an eighteen billion dollar subsidy to ethanol industry and the food prices are going up as a result, it is like getting screwed at the both ends

Friday, March 07, 2008

GIRLS SMOKING IN SAUDI ARABIA

Up in Smoke
Tariq A. Al-Maeena, talmaeena@aol.com

While out for dinner the other night, my wife looking over a table of young girls barely into their teens, turned to me and said, “Isn’t it ironic that these girls are freely allowed to smoke the argeela (water pipe) which is so harmful to their health and yet are denied the opportunity for physical education in their schools?”
As I turned my attention to the group seated at the table and happily engrossed in animated conversation with each other while busily puffing away at their individual water pipes, I felt a pang of pain.
These girls were not much over 16 or 17 years of age. And here they were sucking up to a fast-rising social phenomenon that has crossed over the age barrier and now is a fad among the young. From the experienced manner in which each girl was handling her water pipe, I wondered if they realized the consequences of such social habits to their health.
And then I reflected on a recent letter I had received from a lady university professor who was elated when her pupils were allowed to play soccer on a soccer field against girls of another university. While her elation was justified in the face of past opposition to such activities by our girls, my concern was over the “under-the-wraps” approach that event was handled by.
Why are we so afraid to allow our girls to participate in physical education activities in our schools? Why could we not have sent a delegation of Saudi female athletes to an all-women’s athletic meet of Gulf Cooperation Council members being held in Kuwait, as other countries of the GCC have done? Saudi Arabia is a prominent member of the GCC, and for it to fail in its obligations toward its female athletes is not an encouraging sign.
It is certainly not that our religion forbids such activities, and judging from the reactions of most of those around me, it is certainly not many of the people either. Than why do we continue to bar physical activities that encourage the promotion of health among our girls and women?
Are we afraid of empowering women or allowing them control over their own bodies?
Do we fear that by providing them such an opportunity, we are leading them to a path of deviancy and deprivation? Why do we men assume such nobility upon ourselves and yet deny those very rights to our womenfolk?
Some would say our society does not allow such activities. “Balderdash” is my response. Our society, which some have perversely twisted to mean such a “special place” is no different from any other Muslim country. We are no better or worse than people elsewhere.
And until we get that through our heads, that we are in no way different or special from others, we will continue to wallow in such deplorable customs that allow young girls to puff away their health, and yet be denied to sweat away their energies in a more productive fashion.
If small groups of people insist on imposing their extreme views on school authorities, the Ministry of Education must resist such callous and irrational arguments and be bold enough to declare physical education as part of the syllabus in girls schools for the coming year.
By providing such an outlet, perhaps some of these girls may be discouraged from letting their health go up in smoke.


tombstone001 says



Why are we afraid to let the girls play soccer?
It is rhetorical question indeed, in truth we are consumed by the filth in our own minds. We think of girls to be dirty minded like ourselves and as objects not of dignity and respect and even a little freedom that Islam calls for but as objects of nothing more than lust. We are afraid that not only all men, just like our own selves, desire our daughters mothers sisters and wives for sex, but that our daughters sisters mothers and wives will for sure run off to oblige if we gave them a chance. Also we think that if our women had any freedom or education the may find out how our men and the society think of them as no more than may be the family goats,(of course you can trade your daughter at least for a good looking camel), and may even take the liberties like eating from the rice tray before the man.

this will also be posted on my blog@
tombstone001.blogspot.com
along with your article

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

A REALITY CHECK

A REALITY CHECK

The prophets of the old were not despised because they preached the word of gods, they were disliked because they told people to change their ways and customs, to do things differently or they would be doomed.

So is the story today, people from all walks of life are following McCain, or Obama or Clinton because none of them asks for any sacrifices or warns of the catastrophe facing our country if we do not change our ways, do not tell us that the land of milk and honey may turn into a “blooming desert” soon if we do not do things differently.

Over a period of time, I have been called a communist, a socialist, a fear mongered, anti-American, un American and a few other unprintable names but my message is the same, we can not go on down this road, we must change our ways, and change they way we live. It was five years ago when the Dothan Eagle published my first warning about the run away spending and the consequences of federal deficits under the title “Whose Money”. The day of reckoning may yet not be tomorrow, but it is five years closer, we have waited for a deliverer a lot longer.

Any one can go to a political rally hoping that the “One” is the deliverer, only if he or she could get elected the things will get better, the sky will open up and the sun will shine again. Our house values will rise and we will be able to borrow more and spend like there is no tomorrow and the gas will be a dollar a gallon. WAKE UP!

Call it the decline in the value of the dollar, rise in the commodity prices, bursting of the housing bubble, there are only three reasons for the economic mess we have. One is the federal deficit spending, and to the out sourcing of the American manufacturing, and we like to live way beyond our means.

Take the second here first, as we all have been told, our trade deficit with the other countries has been increasing steadily for the last thirty years or so. The main reason for this is NOT that we buy more from overseas, the main reason is that our industrialists and the globalist i.e. the bankers and the government have moved our manufacturing overseas where they can pay people slave wages while we produce nothing. Since we produce nothing (add value to a product or raw materials) we in reality don’t have any “income“. Since we do not have any income the government is forced to print money it does not have, or borrows it from overseas. Our housing problem is causing banking problems in Europe, to illustrate the relation.

We spend this borrowed money to buy goods from overseas, so what happens?
What happens is that now countries like China and India have growing economies, thus they open factories and generate profits and then buy cars and homes. Our borrowed money directly contributes to the development of overseas economy and they buy oil from the Middle East and the price of oil goes up. And we the American people are stuck with the bill twice, once to pay for the federal debt, and once to pay more for goods that were supposed to be cheaper if made overseas.

The solution, the only solution now is the change in the way , we, the Americans, live, a change in our thinking, and a change in our standard of living. Today we have a choice, we can refuse to spend money, we can demand that manufacturing be returned from overseas, we can choose to buy only goods made in America and ask our rich to reopen local factories, we can choose to pay a bit more for the goods made in America, or soon we will not have these choices, one way or another.

What difference is there if a junky buys heroine produced by Islamists in Afghanistan or you buy oil from a mid east country, the money could always end up with the “terrorists”. What difference does it make if we sell the technology to the Chinese to make missiles directly or give them the money through trade for them to improve their military? We are selling ourselves out, all the same.

In a Bill Cosby LP, back in the seventies, a neighbor asks Noah who is building an ark, “Noah, what you are doing?”, “how long can you tread water” Noah replies, in there, there is a message.