Last night on CNN I saw this beauty of a report and now I found it on the web. After watching the report, and reading it on the web I am at a loss for words.
So apparently if you are a woman who is gang-raped in Saudi Arabia, you are guilty because, well, you are a woman?
Here is a nice tidbit about our “friends” treatment of women:
Under Saudi law, women are subject to numerous restrictions, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and a requirement that they get a man’s permission to travel or have surgery. Women are also not allowed to testify in court unless it is about a private matter that was not observed by a man, and they are not allowed to vote.
Also note that 15 of the 19 hijackers that attacked us on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia as well.
Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest STILL continue to fund terrorist organizations that are against us, and other Western nations.
Despite all of this, Bush himself has said that they are our “friends” and considers them a strong ally while we funnel them BILLIONS of dollars a year for oil and aid. Meanwhile they take our money and invest in some of the biggest American corporations. Citigroup’s (Citibank - the third largest bank corporation in the US) largest individual shareholder is Saudi Prince al-Waleed bin Talal. He also owns substantial stakes in HP, Kodak, Ebay, and Amazon.com. So the more oil we buy from our “friend” the more our nation’s largest multinational corporations are owned by these people who represent a culture that is diametrically opposed to our way of life.
This is just mind-boggling to me - that we can ally and be “friends” with this nation of islamic fundamentalists whose very ideology goes against the values that the United States was founded upon - a country that is constantly ranked as among the worst violators of human rights in the world by Amnesty International.
Meanwhile here in the Western hemisphere we still have a boycott of Cuba for being communist….
Maybe it is time for a top-down review of all of our policies, foreign and domestic. I strongly believe that ALL of our policies should be able to be reconciled with the values of the country as a whole, not the benefit of the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the world.
–Jon