Why Don't The Progressives Care About the Injustices Toward Arabs from Arab Governments?

[beenie]

Okay...I know I am going to regret this but I don't get it.

Women have no rights in almost all arab countries, especially the ones fighting Israel.

They can be beaten legally for any reason.

They can be beaten/killed for going outside without a male chaperone.

They must legally wear the black "outerwear" or face punishment.

They must abide by Shaira law.

Men as well have no rights.

There is no right to a trial much less a fair trial.

There are no civil rights.

It's illegal to be homosexual.

The arabs living in Israel proper have a higher standard of living than in any arab country. They have full civil rights. They can vote, and are represented in parliament. An arab is part of the Israeli Supreme Court and arabs hold numerous political positions in Israel.

In Tel Aviv there is an annual gay parade.

Why are the progressives defending these arab countries and their treatment of their citizens? At the very least why don't they ever criticize them?

What in the everliving hell are you blathering on about? The only part of this post that is relevant is this:

Okay...I know I am going to regret this

... and you should.

Come on, CMike, turn off Fox News and get real. I agree that in terms of women's rights, so-called Muslim countries are in need of a lot of work, but your generalizations sound like Sean Hannity on crack.

 

[beenie]

... and for the record, I criticize more about these Arab countries than you'll ever know. Talking about it over and over does nothing; I know women (including my aunt) who actively DO something about the problem.

 

[Aquitaine]

Brilliant Alceste. Absolutely correct. And that is EXACTLY what centuries of military research has demonstrated.

The information you get from torture can not be verified until after the event, and hence is useless. It does not work.

And if the government wants to send MY son, who I love more than life itself to war - it better bloody well agree to a set of rules of conduct that exclude torture.

And if sons (and daughters) are to be sent to war, it should be done defensively to nullify a direct imminent threat to the host nation, after all other methods have been exhausted. Rather than for some dubious conflict based on lies such as Vietnam or Iraq.

 

[beenie]

That's irrelevant. Most people agree that water boarding is torture because it fits the basic definitions for torture. Experiencing it is completely beside the point. You don't need to shoot yourself in the head to understand that it will kill you (in most cases).

What we have here is the inability or refusal to participate in the fundamental human experience: to empathize with another person, come alongside them in our imagination, and treat them as we would treat ourselves. People who can't do this are sociopaths.

So instead of thinking or feeling it out, what we have is a naked, unwavering dedication to the demonization of everything Arab (especially Gaza and Palestinians) and a pitiless, uncritical dedication to the promotion of Israel.

Nothing else matters: Israel is promoted to such a profound degree that it's basically a god, incapable of the slightest wrong, and Palestinians are essentially the root of all evil.

Excellent.

 

[icehorse]

I've been criticizing the abuse of women in the ME since 1994. It's one of those things, though. Nobody is here defending the practice of shooting young girls in the head for going to school, or locking a couple dozen girls inside a burning building to die for fear that they'll be seen without their hijabs on otherwise, or celebrating the fact that women in Afghanistan have the highest rate of suicide of any demographic in the world, or endorsing FGM, child marriage and human trafficking. Nobody is defending the custom that women in certain ME countries are not allowed to drive, work, or vote. Nobody thinks children are better off with Boko Haram and IS than they were with their parents.

What is there to say? "Wow - check out this awful thing that totally sucks." "Yup, that really sucks. Bloody awful". /thread.

Debates tend to be quite short when everybody involved is defending the same side.

What troubles me about this is that mainstream religious ideology is so carefully sidestepped as a contributing factor to all of this horror. It's the "Oh it's because of Western interventions" chorus that troubles me.

 

[Bunyip]

What troubles me about this is that mainstream religious ideology is so carefully sidestepped as a contributing factor to all of this horror. It's the "Oh it's because of Western interventions" chorus that troubles me.

Truth hurts?

 

[beenie]

What troubles me about this is that mainstream religious ideology is so carefully sidestepped as a contributing factor to all of this horror. It's the "Oh it's because of Western interventions" chorus that troubles me.

It's not the entire reason, but to deny it's not a factor is rather myopic.

 

[icehorse]

Truth hurts?

The key phrase you might have missed was "contributing factor". My list would include at least, and in no particular order:

- tribal culture
- western interventions
- natural resources that fall easily towards centralized control
- religious ideology

 

[beenie]

The key phrase you might have missed was "contributing factor". My list would include at least, and in no particular order:

- tribal culture
- western interventions
- natural resources that fall easily towards centralized control
- religious ideology

I would add corruption and lack of secular education to that list.

 

[Bunyip]

The key phrase you might have missed was "contributing factor". My list would include at least, and in no particular order:

- tribal culture
- western interventions
- natural resources that fall easily towards centralized control
- religious ideology

Don't forget that it was Western intervention that created all of these states.I just disagree that anyone is 'side-stepping' hy focussing on western intervention.

It is not the only factor, but it is a critical one.

 

[icehorse]

Don't forget that it was Western intervention that created all of these states.I just disagree that anyone is 'side-stepping' hy focussing on western intervention.

It is not the only factor, but it is a critical one.

I'd agree that the Brits did a bad job a hundred years ago. On the other hand, someone had to do something... What would you have done?

 

[beenie]

I'd agree that the Brits did a bad job a hundred years ago. On the other hand, someone had to do something... What would you have done?

For one, I wouldn't have put big ol' India in the middle of East and West Pakistan... and left Kashmir up for grabs with all of that surrounding the area. Don't get me started on that partition; in my view, Pakistan should never have formed, but that's a whole other topic.

I wouldn't have given the same property to two peoples who cannot or WILL not live together in peace... take a look around. The division of land in the ME and in South Asia has led to a huge proportion of our problems world wide. Don't tell me the West didn't realize what they were doing when they put enemies in the same zip code, and when they put enemies in countries dividing common people.

In addition to the false wars we've created, is it a wonder the world is in such disarray?

 

[metis]

One of the sources is the Dept. Of Justice.

"2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles."

Just closing your ears and going la la la la la rather isn't a good way to learn new things.

And closing your mind to the fact that laws we have agreed to are supposed to prohibit us from using torture isn't exactly a moral thing to do. We can't cry foul if another country tortures our people when we use torture on them and then justifying it by claiming it works. Even McCain has mentioned this on numerous occasions, and I do think he knows something about that.

BTW, the heads-up with Ob-L was actually based on information from a resident near the compound whereas he noticed some unusual activity with people coming and going, and his life was made totally miserable by his own fellow Pakistanis after he divulged that info that made its way to the CIA. Also, there's a serious question whether it was the CIA or the FBI, with the latter not using water-boarding, that actually got the intelligence of where Ob-L actually might be. And also let me remind you that it was Bush's preoccupation with going into Iraq instead of pursuing Ob-L in Afghanistan that allowed him to escape from Tora Bora.

Again, this is past history, and if "W" is your hero, so be it.

 

[CMike]

... and for the record, I criticize more about these Arab countries than you'll ever know. Talking about it over and over does nothing; I know women (including my aunt) who actively DO something about the problem.

Really?

I posted a video of an arab leader on arab TV saying arab men should rape Israeli women, and not one of the anti-Israel people chimed in. Go figure

 

[CMike]

What in the everliving hell are you blathering on about? The only part of this post that is relevant is this:



... and you should.

Come on, CMike, turn off Fox News and get real. I agree that in terms of women's rights, so-called Muslim countries are in need of a lot of work, but your generalizations sound like Sean Hannity on crack.

They are not generalizations. It's the reality what arabs face from their governments.

Unless they are arabs living in Israel where they get to enjoy freedom.

 

[CMike]

Nothing justifies torture. Nothing.

My qualifications are in Security, Terrorism and Counter Terrorism - there is a vast body of military research going back centuries to demonstrate that torture is counter productive. It brutalises and dehumanises the torturer as much as the tortured.

If the torturers win a war, what have you won?

You are also as usual mistaken - just as Saddam did not in fact have WMD's, it was not the products of torture that prevented either of those attacks. In fact when the atrocities at Abu Graib were revealed it made an entrenched conflict substantially worse and directly endangered the lives of all of the brave servicemen and women fighting in the field.

It's not torture.

And in this case it led to information that stopped at least two major terrorist attacks within America and led to gettind rid of OBL/

Obviously Hussein had WMD. He used them. We know he used them.

They were transfered to Syria. Did you expect him to just leave them just laying around when US forces came into Iraq.

 

[CMike]

CMike

OH, and if you do not count waterboarding as torture - you have never experienced it.

You have?

CIA operatives are waterboarded as part of their training in conditions far worse than what the 3 arch terrorists had.

It also worked.

What would have been torture would be for civilians to experience the explosion of a radioactive bomb and burning to death in another 911 attack.

Fortunately, at the time there were grown ups in the White House, who were able to prevent these attacks via waterboarding your arch terrorist buddies.

 

[Revoltingest]

I posted a video of an arab leader on arab TV saying arab men should rape Israeli women, and not one of the anti-Israel people chimed in. Go figure

Now, now, be fair...you post so many anti-Palestinian
things that it hardly seems worth addressing them all.

 

[beenie]

Really?

I posted a video of an arab leader on arab TV saying arab men should rape Israeli women, and not one of the anti-Israel people chimed in. Go figure

WHERE? Direct me to this post and I'll have a read.

Now, now, be fair...you post so many anti-Palestinian
things that it hardly seems worth addressing them all.

Amen. I recall replying to something similar saying that if the translation is correct and this idiot is calling for such horrific acts, then it's inexcusable.

Seriously, do I have to search every anti-Arab thread on here and reply? I'd be here all day and night, and I have a family.

 

[beenie]

They are not generalizations. It's the reality what arabs face from their governments.

Unless they are arabs living in Israel where they get to enjoy freedom.

Israel's new motto: "The Land of the Unicorn and Rainbows"

I'm not saying Arab countries are perfect... they are FAR FROM it. But your generalizations and lumping everyone into one category sucks.