Sounds like an interesting book.By John O'Sullivan A Throne in Brussels: Britain, the Saxe-Coburgs and the Belgianization of Europe
by Paul Belien
IN THE LAST FEW YEARS Belgian politicians have passed a law empowering them to arrest anyone for crimes committed anywhere, threatened to put Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, under its provisions, generously amended the legislation slightly when Donald Rumsfeld said that NATO would have to move from Brussels if it remained on the books, and in general thrown about the weight of a much larger nation. Exactly how did the home of moules-frites and child rape acquire notions of such undeserved grandeur? Will this extraordinary non-nation prove to be the model for a united Europe? And how should the U.S. and its closest allies react to this possibility?
Taken from the article, a note on a small gathering outside the Danish Embassy in D.C.
Update, Feb. 22: Thank you all who've written. Please be outside the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue) between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24. Quietness and calm are the necessities, plus cheerful conversation. Danish flags are good, or posters reading "Stand By Denmark" and any variation on this theme (such as "Buy Carlsberg/ Havarti/ Lego" Ecco shoes) The response has been astonishing and I know that the Danes are appreciative. But they are an embassy and thus do not of course endorse or comment on any demonstration. Let us hope, however, to set a precedent for other cities and countries. Please pass on this message to friends and colleagues.
#1
Not a bad crowd for the middle of a work day (I'd estimate about 100 were there).
Christopher Hitchens was there and so was William Kristol. I heard that Cliff May from NRO was there, but I didn't see him.
I met Molly Henneberg of FNC's Washington Bureau, but didn't speak on camera. Still, I may have been on. If you saw it, I was the guy in the White Sox hat.
In which Frank J at IMAO pretty much sums up my feelings regarding the port thingy, plus he has a great guest editorial that's a must read.
The more I learn about this issue with the ports, the more I learn I don't know anything from which to form an opinion. Despite my capitalistic instincts, I would have assumed the U.S. government ran our ports. As for reality, I don't know what "owning" a port entails. I could probably look that up, but it sounds boring. Thus, I don't trust Congress on this issue, because people in Congress seem to be dumber and have shorter attention spans than me.
Anyway, the UAE seems like moderate Muslims in that, deep down, they want to kill us all and force Islam upon the world, but they have better things to do. They're a modern economy, and I don't really see them sacrificing that to blow a few things up.... even to kill Jews. Plus, they are an ally.
Still, they have radical Muslim beliefs. If selling the port were like contracting out our airline security, I'd be against it even if I found it highly unlikely for the UAE to sponsor attacks against us. But, if selling out ports to them is no more dangerous than selling them the Dairy Queen down the street, then I don't see any problem ("Now that they control how many pieces of crushed Butterfinger go in our Blizzards, they'll be able to kill us all!").
Since I don't know, it would seem the safe thing to do would be against selling the ports since it's like I'm going to make any money from it. Still, if selling the UAE the ports is inconsequential to security, to deny them would kinda be a slight when we need allies. It would be like, "I'm not selling my Hyundai Santa Fe because you're a Muslim!" That could hurt feelings, and hurting people's feeling is wrong when it isn't especially humorous.
I really need someone smarter to steal an opinion from here, but anyone who understands this issue entirely must have spent lots of time reading really boring stuff, and people who spend lots of time reading really boring stuff are suspect to me.
I think I won't have an opinion on this. I can do that, right?
UPDATE: If you come to IMAO to get your opinions and thus need my opinion, I currently lack a coin to flip. Any suggestions?
UPDATE 2: The Ubeliever had pointed out this page where I can flip virtual coins. Now, the question is what coin should I use and what should being for the port be heads or tails? Should I put up a poll? Should I put up a poll on having a poll?
Not having an opinon and trying to artificially manufacture one is hard...
#2
"As for reality, I don't know what "owning" a port entails"
Having to deal with the Longshoremans union. Which means having to interact with large adult males who spent most of their school time junked up on Ritalin because the teacher couldn't handle normal male behaviors at that age. You're payback for all their pent up excitement.
You get to deal with government bureaucrats who weren't on Ritalin because they lack the normal lower brain stem group most humans were born with for the last 10,000 years.
#5
"but anyone who understands this issue entirely must have spent lots of time reading really boring stuff, and people who spend lots of time reading really boring stuff are suspect to me."
Sorry to be one of those suspect people who read really boring things, and I haven't read through all of the information, but one of the facts that I've picked up from this situation is that the UAE doesn't have to keep its' records on U.S. soil. THAT means that the U.S. courts can't touch 'em should they decide to take actions that are "less than ally-like"...
#6
one of the facts that I've picked up from this situation is that the UAE doesn't have to keep its' records on U.S. soil. THAT means that the U.S. courts can't touch 'em should they decide to take actions that are "less than ally-like"...
That alone is enough for me to maintain my standing opposition to this entire deal. We are at war. We have no way to scan all incoming overseas containers, diplomatic seals or not. Until we do, this deal stinks like sh!t.
M.A. NIAZI The Muslim world, awakened, refuses to go back to sleep. If one was to take the precedent of the Quranic desecration at Guantanamo Bay, the protests should have petered out by now. But they continue. Muslim governments all have a hard task containing the rage that Muslims are feeling because of the insult to their Prophet (PTUI PBUH), and which is being fuelled by their sense of helplessness at what is to be done.
The current round of tiresome riots is lasting longer because it's consciously being fuelled by your local Learned Elders of Islam. Your "sense of helplessness" isn't tugging at my heartstrings, because you're not too helpless to incinerate a few embassies. The rubes are always willing to be whipped up, and the holy men are always happy to whip them up, and do date there hasn't been any penalty to either of them, with the exception of a few corpses here and there who're never the holy men and seldom the guys waving their fists.
There is now a move to convene the OIC Foreign Ministers on this issue. That it has come so late indicates that it is not an initiative from the member governments, but is the result of a need felt to dissipate the heat the members are facing. Because the members' interests are disparate, it is unlikely to come up with any strong action.
That's kinda the story of the OIC, the Arab League, the EU, and the UN, isn't it? If everybody's interests are different, joining them together in a single body makes no real sense it's a "government of national unity" on an international scale. The net result is some really good lunches and a fairly hefty printer's bill.
It has already been warned by the European Union that any sanctions against Denmark will be met with all-EU sanctions against the sanctioners.
Look, Maudette! Vertebrates!
While one head of government might be willing to take on the EU head-on, as Iranian President Mehmood Ahmedinejad has done over his country's nuclear issue, for 57 heads of government to do so is almost unthinkable.
For 57 heads of government to all agree on anything is almost unthinkable. The results, should they manage to accidentally do so, would be even more unthinkable.
One solution would be for the OIC to issue guidelines suggesting various levels of sanctions, which members could adopt as they wished, but who would vote for them, and then not follow them? The easiest way out would be to pass a resolution condemning the cartoons in the strongest of terms, maybe call on the Danish government to apologise, and to call for the passage of laws by Western countries protecting religious figures from blasphemy.
That's the ultimate objective, isn't it? If I were to hop into my trusty time machine and go back to 1955 and tell my father that the world was considering imposing blasphemy laws like they have in half-savage Pakistan he'd look at me like I was stoopid. If I were to go back to 1804 and tell President Jefferson he'd look at me the same way.
There would be no 'or-else'. If the countries addressed refused to tremble in their shoes, too bad.
I dunno about you, but I refuse to tremble in my shoes.
Yet it is certainly interesting that the OIC is moving to tackle this issue. The last parallel protests, during the Rushdie affair, moved the OIC Foreign Ministers' Conference in 1990 in Cairo to insert as Item 87 (of 95) of its Final Declaration the following: "The Conference expressed profound concern on the continued attempts to vilify or denigrate the noble values of Islam, its most respected and revered personalities and places of sanctity. It urged the Member States to take steps to safeguard the lofty Islamic principles and to adopt coordinated efforts to face any blasphemous attempt. The Conference urged the international community to respect the sentiments of all religious communities and not to allow any transgression of norms of civility and morality under the cover and pretext of freedom of thought or expression."
That was when Salman Rushdie published the Satanic Verses and ended up with a fatwah on him from the Islamists in Iran. At the time rest of the Muslim world joined in the hooraw, with similar riots and mayhem to those going on today. Some things never change; they're just events that are supposed to lead to an ultimate objective.
The OIC members were much more militant and upbeat then, as the meeting was in progress (31 July-5 August) when Iraq invaded Kuwait (August 2), and the loss of innocence that followed the Gulf War was still in the future, and 9/11 not even on the horizon.
The OIC spent its time after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait dithering and ultimately sold Kuwait down the (Euphrates) river, as did the Arab League.
Therefore, the OIC governments are feeling much more heat this time around, and feel the need to relieve pressure from their publics.
It's a good thing the civilized world feels no pressure from its publics. It might lead to a clash of civilizations.
Are Muslims more radicalised now than then?
Lots of them are, but not all. Arabs and Paks seem to be more nutty than most, but that's always been the case.
Perhaps. Have their frustrations at their helplessness grown?
Somehow they're frustrated at living in kleptocracies and dictatorships, but somehow also they prefer to emigrate rather than hang their tormentors. The ones who don't emigrate are rewarded by occasionally being allowed to riot and burn down a few embassies or churches.
Probably. Have they grown more dissatisfied with their regimes, more disillusioned with their ability to defend not just their vital national interests, but also the collective interests of the Muslims as a whole? It seems likely. Will they be fobbed off with a mere resolution at the OICFMC? Probably not.
I'd guess they will be.
Will they be moved to do something about it? At this point, unlikely.
"Doing something about it" at this point would be a stoopid move. First of all, not all of the Muslim world is willing to be ordered around by the nearest holy man. Second, not every Muslim majority country is willing to lie down with the holy dogs for fear of catching fleas. It's still early in the game to be expecting them to be willing to join the lemmings.
The problem is that the civilised solutions to this issue are simply not satisfying enough.
Ain't that the truth? And the civilized solutions aren't going to come from the Muslim world, either.
The special reverence in which the Prophet (PTUI PBUH) is held, demands that the blasphemers be punished according to Sharia, which prescribes the death sentence, and the death sentence alone.
You're free to impose the death sentence on each other, but keep your grimy ways out of our countries.
However, that is not a feasible option at this point.
Not at this point.
A Muslim government may emulate the Israeli example of sending in assassins (as it did with Iraqi nuclear scientists), but it would come under tremendous pressure, perhaps too much to expect it to bear.
Somebody might finally get the idea of sending assassins back, and the targets would be the holy men.
A boycott of Danish goods is questionable: pork is not halal even if it is Pakistani (a few wild pigs are consumed by foreign and local non-Muslims); milk will not become haram just because it is Danish.
Too bad. You're picking on Denmark because it's not a European economic powerhouse and you expected it to fold quickly. It's tried to be accomodating, but it hasn't groveled, which is what you demand. And I'm willing to eat more havarti and Danish ham's perfectly halal for me. Life's tough, ain't it?
The demand for legislation protecting the revered figures of all religions is compatible with the concept of freedom of expression, because it is feasible to place restraints on freedom.
No, it's not. In most of the West the constraints are placed by good taste, which isn't legislated, and which is routinely violated with regard to Christian and Jewish religious figures.
However, it could lead to rather odd situations. It might mean, for example, that anyone who claims some form of prophethood within the Abrahamic tradition, as did Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, and Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, founder of the Ahmadi Jamaat, in the 19th century, or even godhead within the Vedic or Buddhist tradition, as did the Maharishi in the 20th, would be as protected as Muhammad (PTUI PBUH), Jesus Christ, Buddha or Ram.
So much for the Mormons, the Ahmadis, and the Maharishi School of Yogic Flying. And then, there are the Jews. There's gotta be some way to keep them from being covered...
It might even provoke a spate of declarations of revelation, for the Western understanding of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and toleration equates these religious leaders with whoever else might make a claim.
L. Ron Hubbard, call your office!
It is also not just a matter of hurt feelings. Blasphemy against the Prophet (PTUI PBUH) is severely punished, even though other forms of abuse, while hurtful, are to be ignored, or merely rebutted. Denials of the prophethood of Muhammad (PTUI PBUH) can be ignored, for example, or debated, but they are not in themselves blasphemous. After all, a non-Muslim by definition is a denier. However, it is reasonably clear that certain mocking or insulting portrayals or epithets are unacceptable, such as the Danish cartoons.
So what's your bitch? You've just negated your own argument.
So should Muslims ask for very specific legislation about the person of the Holy Prophet (PTUI PBUH)?
Sure they will. They're just working out the wording right now, aren't they?
They can ask, and probably should, but this creates difficulties of its own. The USA was the first state to declare a complete separation between church and state. No religion is to be 'established' in the USA under the First Amendment, in the sense of having special privileges or any superiority over others. To ask it to pass a law specific to the Holy Prophet (PTUI PBUH), would technically be asking it to 'establish' Islam.
No "technically" about it. Your god's no more important than my god or lack thereof.
Here we do see the seeds of a clash of civilisations. The honour of the Prophet (PTUI PBUH) is not open to compromise for Muslims. Nor is the prohibition on 'establishing' any religion for Americans of whatever creed. Ask we must. Refuse they must. And pity the poor soul who is both 'we' and 'they'. Muslims hold that they are bound by everlasting and immutable limits, prescribed by the Almighty Himself in the Quran and through the Sunnah. Americans (and the West as a whole) hold that the only absolute is freedom, and any limits are determined by the people, who can change them as they will. These are incompatible. Either Muslims must accept mutability, or the West must reject its own principles.
I can see a reasonable compromise. How about if we keep our freedom, treasuring it and exploring its practical limits the more each and every day. We can laugh and have fun and pinch girlies and argue over the fine points of individual liberty and whether pigs have wings. We'll invent things, and we'll send men to the moon and we'll cure cancer. And you can remain in your Islamic paradises, speaking only to other Believers, trading only with other Believers, marrying only your own close relatives. Withdraw from international bodies that include Infidels. Return to your immutable world and keep doing the same things over and over, generation after generation, just like they do in Peshawar. Keep on bitching about the effects while you're revering the Cause.
Meanwhile, of course, expect Muslims to subside into inaction once again, at least until next time. Many have noted that all the Muslims of today need is the right leader, who is not present among the luminaries gracing OIC Summits.
Don't worry the Mahdi's out there, just waiting for the main chance. Though I don't think much of a society that needs a leader for everything...
If pushed enough, though, the Ummah will search for a leader in earnest, and find him, even if it means forcing him to accept the task.
They're big on Fearless Leaders...
The main problem before the world today is not how to avert a clash of civilisations, but how to manage it in a way that prevents some form of ultimate disaster. After all, even in warfare, there is a difference between warfare between 'terrorists' and counter-terrorists, in which anything goes, and that between two armies observing the rules of war, and the courtesies of the profession of arms.
Yeah. Jihad is the only answer.
AN AFTERTHOUGHT...
The real difference between the civilized world and the Third World is the latter's search for that Fearless Leader. They've gotta have him. They're enthralled by the idea of standing around in large groups, chanting in unison, of believing in something. It can be a holy man like Qazi or Tater, or it can be a tin hat dictator like Sammy or Hugo or Bob Mugabe, but they've got to have somebody with all the answers.
We in the West elect our leaders and they then begin their inevitable slide in popularity until they're safely out of office. We feel free to disagree with them, even make fun of them, even the ones we like. We change "leaders" with only slightly less frequency than we change our socks (or pantyhose, as the case may be). Once you're in power in the Third World you can stay there until you die, even if you're a nut like Turkmenbashi, or a complete incompetent like Bob. And the chances are that your kids or other close relatives will follow you.
I think this is why so many of us feel a visceral aversion to the giant papier mache puppet crowd that comes crawling out from under their rocks for every summit meeting. They're people in search of Fearless Leader. They've got to have someone tell them all the answers, rather than discovering them for themselves. To get those answers they're happy to tromp through the streets, exulting in the bravery of numbers. If they ever get their way we, too, can live in a soiety where innovation is ordered from the top, rather than emanating from garages or small businesses or people's dreams.
Posted by: john ||
02/24/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The main problem is these folks need a real education and not a religous one.
Hell, its all a quantum condition anyway.
I don't want any religion telling me what to do.
#9
They better hope we keep "observing the rules of war, and the courtesies of the profession of arms". Not even Mr. PBUH will be able to help them if something happens to make the gloves come off. Cartoons will be the least of their problems.
Nice job sexing it up too, Fred.
What struck me the most about this piece was the sense of entitlement this paki feels.
I am supposed to care about his religion, his god or his prophet.
And he expects me to follow his religious laws.
Where the hell does this sense of entitlement come from?
And how can it be made plain, to all like him that many people just don't give a damn.
Posted by: john ||
02/24/2006 17:22 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Wait until I explain to him how his god is a promoted kitchen god. Cause... the family kitchen god never failed Abraham's clan but the City GOD of UR was a Joke.
Course now I will have many crazed religions after me for speaking this truth...
Remember UR had the City God
There were Crossroads gods
There were faimly kitchen Gods
When UR was doing fine - Everybody was buried in huge graveyards in front of the CITY GOD's image.
By Abraham's time... UR had been repeatedly ravaged by barbarians for hundreds and hundreds of years.
The City HAD DONE POORLY.
His family like the others now buried their dead at home where the family god could watch over them.
Abraham's father still worshiped the City God & The Family God & the Crossroads ones
Abraham got disgusted and gave up on the CITY and ITS GOD. He did not give up on THE GOD OF HIS FATHERS the FAMILY GOD.
He may have still honored the Crossroads gods too..
#12
I am supposed to care about his religion, his god or his prophet.
And he expects me to follow his religious laws.
Where the hell does this sense of entitlement come from?
A measure of Islamic fundamentalists success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic rules and punishments on women and girls, enslaving them in a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced veiling, second-class status, lashing, and stoning to death.
Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution. The magnitude of this statistic conveys how rapidly this form of abuse has grown. In Tehran, there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution, many of them are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that reportedly operate in the city. The trade is also international: thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad.
The head of Irans Interpol bureau believes that the sex slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling fundamentalists. Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls.
Many of the girls come from impoverished rural areas. Drug addiction is epidemic throughout Iran, and some addicted parents sell their children to support their habits. High unemployment 28 percent for youth 15-29 years of age and 43 percent for women 15-20 years of age is a serious factor in driving restless youth to accept risky offers for work. Slave traders take advantage of any opportunity in which women and children are vulnerable. For example, following the recent earthquake in Bam, orphaned girls have been kidnapped and taken to a known slave market in Tehran where Iranian and foreign traders meet.
Popular destinations for victims of the slave trade are the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. According to the head of the Tehran province judiciary, traffickers target girls between 13 and 17, although there are reports of some girls as young as 8 and 10, to send to Arab countries. One ring was discovered after an 18 year-old girl escaped from a basement where a group of girls were held before being sent to Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The number of Iranian women and girls who are deported from Persian Gulf countries indicates the magnitude of the trade. Upon their return to Iran, the Islamic fundamentalists blame the victims, and often physically punish and imprison them. The women are examined to determine if they have engaged in immoral activity. Based on the findings, officials can ban them from leaving the country again.
Police have uncovered a number of prostitution and slavery rings operating from Tehran that have sold girls to France, Britain, Turkey as well. One network based in Turkey bought smuggled Iranian women and girls, gave them fake passports, and transported them to European and Persian Gulf countries. In one case, a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey, and then sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000.
In the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan, local police report that girls are being sold to Pakistani men as sex-slaves. The Pakistani men marry the girls, ranging in age from 12 to 20, and then sell them to brothels called Kharabat in Pakistan. One network was caught contacting poor families around Mashad and offering to marry girls. The girls were then taken through Afghanistan to Pakistan where they were sold to brothels.
In the southeastern border province of Sistan Baluchestan, thousands of Iranian girls reportedly have been sold to Afghani men. Their final destinations are unknown.
One factor contributing to the increase in prostitution and the sex slave trade is the number of teen girls who are running away from home. The girls are rebelling against fundamentalist imposed restrictions on their freedom, domestic abuse, and parental drug addictions. Unfortunately, in their flight to freedom, the girls find more abuse and exploitation. Ninety percent of girls who run away from home will end up in prostitution. As a result of runaways, in Tehran alone there are an estimated 25,000 street children, most of them girls. Pimps prey upon street children, runaways, and vulnerable high school girls in city parks. In one case, a woman was discovered selling Iranian girls to men in Persian Gulf countries; for four years, she had hunted down runaway girls and sold them. She even sold her own daughter for US$11,000.
Given the totalitarian rule in Iran, most organized activities are known to the authorities. The exposure of sex slave networks in Iran has shown that many mullahs and officials are involved in the sexual exploitation and trade of women and girls. Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful mullahs.
In cities, shelters have been set-up to provide assistance for runaways. Officials who run these shelters are often corrupt; they run prostitution rings using the girls from the shelter. For example in Karaj, the former head of a Revolutionary Tribunal and seven other senior officials were arrested in connection with a prostitution ring that used 12 to 18 year old girls from a shelter called the Center of Islamic Orientation.
Other instances of corruption abound. There was a judge in Karaj who was involved in a network that identified young girls to be sold abroad. And in Qom, the center for religious training in Iran, when a prostitution ring was broken up, some of the people arrested were from government agencies, including the Department of Justice.
The ruling fundamentalists have differing opinions on their official position on the sex trade: deny and hide it or recognize and accommodate it. In 2002, a BBC journalist was deported for taking photographs of prostitutes. Officials told her: We are deporting you because you have taken pictures of prostitutes. This is not a true reflection of life in our Islamic Republic. We dont have prostitutes. Yet, earlier the same year, officials of the Social Department of the Interior Ministry suggested legalizing prostitution as a way to manage it and control the spread of HIV. They proposed setting-up brothels, called morality houses, and using the traditional religious custom of temporary marriage, in which a couple can marry for a short period of time, even an hour, to facilitate prostitution. Islamic fundamentalists ideology and practices are adaptable when it comes to controlling and using women.
Some may think a thriving sex trade in a theocracy with clerics acting as pimps is a contradiction in a country founded and ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, this is not a contradiction. First, exploitation and repression of women are closely associated. Both exist where women, individually or collectively, are denied freedom and rights. Second, the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran are not simply conservative Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement with a political ideology that considers women inherently inferior in intellectual and moral capacity. Fundamentalists hate womens minds and bodies. Selling women and girls for prostitution is just the dehumanizing complement to forcing women and girls to cover their bodies and hair with the veil.
In a religious dictatorship like Iran, one cannot appeal to the rule of law for justice for women and girls. Women and girls have no guarantees of freedom and rights, and no expectation of respect or dignity from the Islamic fundamentalists. Only the end of the Iranian regime will free women and girls from all the forms of slavery they suffer.
Dr. Donna M. Hughes is a Professor and holds the Carlson Endowed Chair in Womens Studies at the University of Rhode Island.
The author wishes to acknowledge the Iranian human rights and pro-democracy activists who contributed information for this article. If any readers have information on prostitution and the sex slave trade in Iran, please contact her at dhughes@uri.edu
#1
What would stop 90% of this crap would be an underground of women and girls, each of who are willing to die to stop this abuse--and even more willing to kill their abusers.
It is suicide to kill a rapist in Iran, but if the rape is discovered, your life is forfeit anyway.
So kill the rapist. Every girl in Iran must hear that message from another girl. Even if they are not brave enough to do it themselves, they will know that it can be done. And this knowledge is power.
Once such rapists start to die, no amount of governmental gynacide will restore the system. No rapist will ever again feel as safe. And how many women can the government hang for being raped, or for killing a rapist, until all women rise up against them?
#2
Anonymoose, few women think like this, not even in hyper-feminist hotspots. Its a fact of nature that womens rights have never been won by women but granted by men.
#3
You must have missed all those self-defense courses set up for women in the 70s and 80s, buwaya. Or the rapid rise in women learning to shoot well, since 9/11 (not me - I've been shooting for years).
#5
There is an expression that "When women stand up, men sit down". Any resistance at all increases the degree of difficulty by a factor of 10. Eventually, it just becomes too hard to try.
#7
I am all for manditory capitol punishment of any man involved in sexual slavery. This totally disgusts me. One of the reasons I am for a legal and regulated Sexworkers sex for hire. It cuts these scum right out of the equation. It also insures that only women are involved are those who want to be.
#8
Hyper is right. While I am not questioning the good intentions of Ms. Hughes, something about this article doesn't add up. Lost in translation, perhaps?
Long (needs to be p. 49-ed) but interesting.Translated from the French: Caricatures danoises : lintolérable manipulation face à linacceptable capitulation
In the past weeks, one of Western democracy's essential principles, freedom of speech, has been under attack. With a number of exclusive informations, we shall attempt here to establish a frame of reference to help understand the context of the current situation.
A short recap of the facts
On September 30, 2005, a Danish newspaper, the Jylland-Posten, published twelve cartoons representing the prophet Muhammad. One showed him wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse.
The newspaper chose to commission those cartoons after the Danish author Kare Bluitgen expressed regrets that he could not find an artist who'd dare illustrate his book on Muhammad.
On October 19, 2005, eleven ambassadors from Muslim countries, posted in Denmark, formally protested against the cartoons. At the time, the Danish Prime Minister refused to receive them.
On December 29, 2005, the Arab League condemned the cartoons.
On January 10, 2006, a Norwegian paper, Magazinet, published the cartoons.
On January 23, 2006, a boycott of Danish products was launched from Saudi Arabia.
On February 1st, the French daily France-Soir published the twelve Danish cartoons. The same evening, the paper's managing director, Jacques Lefranc, was fired by the paper's owner, the French-Egyptian businessman Raymond Lakah.
On February 8, the French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, published all twelve cartoons as well as a number of cartoons of their own on the subject.
By the end of January, 2006, European embassies as well as cultural centers located in Muslim countries were trashed in the name of the defense of Islam.
Continued on Page 49
#3
Abbas Salimi Namin, head of Iran's Daftare Motaleat va Tadvin Tarikh institute (Institute on the Study of History) claims that the reaction of Moslems against the insults of the foreign media is normal and warns that one should expect even harsher reactions from the Islamic world if the insults continue. He rejected the view that Moslem should restrict their protests to the confines of the law and said one could not expect people to react within a certain framework and observe self-discipline because the insults were more destructive than the violence the protesters had caused.
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trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Muslim world, awakened, refuses to go back to sleep. If one was to take the precedent of the Quranic desecration at Guantanamo Bay, the protests should have petered out by now. But they continue. Muslim governments all have a hard task containing the rage that Muslims are feeling because of the insult to their Prophet (
It has already been warned by the European Union that any sanctions against Denmark will be met with all-EU sanctions against the sanctioners. 
One solution would be for the OIC to issue guidelines suggesting various levels of sanctions, which members could adopt as they wished, but who would vote for them, and then not follow them? The easiest way out would be to pass a resolution condemning the cartoons in the strongest of terms, maybe call on the Danish government to apologise, and to call for the passage of laws by Western countries protecting religious figures from blasphemy. 
Yet it is certainly interesting that the OIC is moving to tackle this issue. The last parallel protests, during the 
Therefore, the OIC governments are feeling much more heat this time around, and feel the need to relieve pressure from their publics.
A Muslim government may emulate the Israeli example of sending in assassins (as it did with Iraqi nuclear scientists), but it would come under tremendous pressure, perhaps too much to expect it to bear. 
However, it could lead to rather odd situations. It might mean, for example, that anyone who claims some form of prophethood within the Abrahamic tradition, as did Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons, and Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, founder of the Ahmadi Jamaat, in the 19th century, or even godhead within the Vedic or Buddhist tradition, as did the Maharishi in the 20th, would be as protected as Muhammad (
Here we do see the seeds of a clash of civilisations. The honour of the Prophet (
Meanwhile, of course, expect Muslims to subside into inaction once again, at least until next time. Many have noted that all the Muslims of today need is the right leader, who is not present among the luminaries gracing OIC Summits. 
