The Jungle

...and business as usual in Saudi Arabia. It's an absolute disgrace that the U.S. is on such good terms with that nation. We treat their royalty like, well, royalty when they visit, and look the other way about this sort of barbarity on their own citizens, solely because we need their oil. At what point do we collectively decide we've had enough and demand that they enter at least the 18th Century?

---

Saudi court ups punishment for gang-rape victim

(CNN) -- A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.

The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.

The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.

"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."

The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.

Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said. The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month.
....

---

If you ever wondered how the Texas State Legislature manages to so efficiently pass such a blistering number of laws when "in session," here's how.

Next time you hear these folks waxing lyrical how it's so important to ensure that ineligible voters among the ordinary citizenry are excluded from the polls as to risk turning away larger numbers of eligible voters, consider if we might spring a few bucks to simply install locks on the voting panels in the capitol.

If they have to pass fewer laws because they can't gather up an actual quorum for their busy agenda, what a crying shame that would be.

Osama bin Laden says there are two ways to end the war: either his followers escalate the killings and fighting until they win, or we just up and forfeit our democratic system of government. Big words for a sickly theocrat hiding out in the wilderness somewhere between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and his band of dedicated terrorists.

Our path on that score is pretty clear: we have to wipe out the terrorists. Because of Bush's arrogance, we're going after them pretty much on our own. He squandered the world's good will toward us on the heels of 9/11. When a true statesman could have rallied our allies to join us in our resolve to end radical Islamist terror, instead he threw down the black/white gauntlet of "with us or with the terrorists," charged ahead on his own, and pretty much assumed our allies would just line up behind us. After an all too brief and under-committed campaign hunting down Osama in Afghanistan, he unilaterally decided, in some strained logic, to overthrow Saddam Hussein as part of a greater "war on terror," to the dismay of the United Nations and most of our allies. What he needed to do, what he did not do, is to convince every nation in the world, one by one if necessary, to refuse to be a safe harbor for terrorists and to cooperate with our hunt for them; those nations too poor or disorganized or insufficiently motivated to root them out themselves, say Pakistan for instance, could count on our "help" to go in and get them when their hiding places become known.

Are our democratic freedoms REALLY under threat from al Qaeda? Let's be realistic: there is NO WAY radical Islamists could ever take over the United States and institute Sharia Law in America. They could never mobilize all of Islam, most of which is quite moderate, peaceful, and tolerant of other cultures, to "get religion" and overthrow the prosperous nations of the West. Muslims in the West enjoy our robust economy too much to want to revert it to a Middle Ages model. While the radicals do not outright reject modern technology, they would, left entirely to their own, undo the most important means to advance it.

Consider Saudi Arabia: a "wealthy" nation only if you look at the royal family and other privileged citizens, and ignore the vast majority of the dirt-poor population that has no real education. The "public schools" there are Madrasas, which teach nothing but the Koran. No science, no advanced math, no history but Islamic. Women have no rights, justice is medieval, peasants beg for favors from the king. Only the wealthy can get any real education, and many of them leave the country to get it. You can not have a prosperous nation unless the general populace is educated. The only reason they are an awkward "ally" of the United States, and the only reason they have what wealth they do have, is because they sit on the world's largest oil reserves. Take away the oil, and what do you have left? Sheiks and paupers living in a tribal society.

That sort of society CAN NOT build a war machine capable of taking on industrialized Western nations, especially a large one like the US. Their only hope is to mobilize the world's Muslims behind their cause, and that's not going to happen. At most, the greater body of Muslims are concerned about reclaiming the entire "Arab Peninsula" from the Indian Ocean to Turkey: in other words, undoing the creation of Israel -- not with overthrowing the US, nor even any western nation. All they can do to the West is be an annoyance with acts of terrorism, like bee stings on an elephant.

What are the Islamic world's gripes with the West? Of course most recently there's our invasion and occupation of Iraq, before that there was our military presence in Saudi Arabia for GHW Bush's rescue of Kuwait, in which many Muslims, not just Arabs, felt we overstayed our welcome on their "holy soil"; but their most consistent gripe is simply the "blot" of Israel. They don't really want our nation and couldn't get it if they tried: they want "their" land back. For the more radical elements like Osama bin Laden, grudges with the West (more precisely with Christianity) date back to the last years of the Crusades, when they were pushed out of Spain in 1492, and we can't do much about that now. The only thing that connects the US with that is our own political right wing loudly proclaiming that the US is a "Christian nation," and then our president idiotically using the word "crusade" in reference to the suppression of terrorism; the US didn't even exist in 1492, of course. If, instead, they knew us to be a SECULAR nation, guaranteeing equal rights regardless of religion, even that tenuous connection would be gone. The wisdom of the George Washington and John Adams administrations on this matter was to make clear to Muslim nations that the US was, in fact, a secular nation, not a Christian one, in the treaty of Tripoli (which was ratified unanimously). The US enjoyed peace with Muslim nations for the next 150 years (then "Israel happened").

So what IS the real threat to the US from radical Islamists? Not Sharia law, not even close. Simply that they'll keep poking us in the eye with terrorist attacks, on our own soil like 9/11 if they can manage it, elsewhere if not, as long as we do things around the world that they find deeply offensive.

What threatens our democracy the most? Our own over-reactions to the threat: letting our own government turn us into a nation under siege, and throwing away our most honorable principles in prosecuting our campaign against terrorism.

What can we do about the real threat? First, keep up the relentless hunt for Osama bin Laden and radical Islamist terror cells, keeping within our national principles even when they're inconvenient and let targets elude our grasp; second, LISTEN to the Muslim world to understand all the "little things" we do that offend them more than we might imagine, such as camping on their "holy soil" or behaving "sinfully" to their eye when we're their guests; third, lean on Israel to become truly a model SECULAR democracy in the Middle East, guaranteeing human rights for all and treating all citizens and residents as equals, regardless of religion, culture, or national origin, instead of favoring their own so much and treating Palestinians like dirt; fourth, TALK to all nations, to enlist their alliance in rounding up terrorists; fifth, lay down the law with Saudi Arabia: make it clear that we won't put up with their human rights abuses, which include neglecting the liberal education of their population while the few hoard the national wealth.

On that fifth, "or else what"? We boycott their oil? Oops, that ain't gonna work, is it? Wouldn't it be great if we weren't so dependent? Okay, so "or else" we change our military support priorities in the region. Why are Saudi Arabian human rights abuses important in the suppression of terrorism, anyway? Because it's a breeding ground for terrorists. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers came from there, as did Osama bin Laden.

What about Iraq? Well sure, we obviously have to clean up what Bush blundered into there, but we can't let it distract us from the broader suppression of terrorism.

With David Wallace Croft's suit to eliminate the state-mandated "moment of silence" in Texas public schools, we've heard from quite a few "freedom-loving" Fox fans telling him and all other non-believers to quit "wasting" the court's time (and tax dollars) pushing an "atheist agenda." Bringing such suits is somehow an assault on your religious freedom, you say.

In who's America do legal mandates equal freedom? 

This isn't about whether being utterly quiet for a minute at the start of the school day might be a good idea, it's about the law. The law is very serious business -- always think twice before handing them yet another bludgeon. Ask yourself whether it's right and proper for the state to mandate anything at all regarding religious observance, and to what extent the law should dictate how the limited time of a school day is spent.

Honestly now, do you NEED this law? Somaybe your kids can't find time enough to pray in their busy day. Who's problem is that? The state's? REALLY?

Regarding "moments of silence" in general, do you really need a captive audience to watch you pray? Whatever happened to Matthew 6:5-6?

If you're truly concerned about waste, tell your legislators and governor to quit WASTING our tax dollars creating laws that are bound to be Constitutionally challenged in the courts, and to quit WASTING limited education funds on non-education-related mandates. Vote the sanctimonious prigs out of office who can think of nothing better to spend our money on than seeing how far the courts will let them push their "majority" religion in public schools.