…when they treat their women in a way that most everyone (excluding nutbags, and I mean, real nutbags) in the US would find shameful?
Why does Saudi Arabia support the US when Americans violate so many taboos of theirs?
If I remember correctly, it’s got something to do with the rising price in sand…
Because they own a lot of oil. Duh.
Also: women are treated shittily in most of the world. Even in this country, where “feminism” is a dirty word nowadays, and it feels like we’re taking steps backwards in equality, as opposed to forwards. (Watching the Colbert Report last night riled me up a little, I need to pick up a copy of “Full Frontal Feminism.”
But Saudi Arabia is really bad, and I support diplomatic and economic efforts to change these kinds of attitudes. For example, I’d support adding penalty tariffs to imports from countries that gain competitive advantage by exploiting children and the poor.
Because they own the Bush family?
Because it’s okay to hate women, so long as you are from a non-western culture or religion. It does not really count as hate in that case, it’s just western misinterpretation of your cultural or religious ways, in order to oppress.
Because it’s only by supporting corrupt dictatorships that the US has any friends in the middle east besides Israel. Oh, and the oil thing.
I don’t understand what you’re implying here… The House of Saudi divested themselves form the Carlyle group in 2001 after all the controversy, according to your link.
Point 1) Saudi Arabia also has almost no crime.
Point 2) Men define women’s sexuality.
Discuss!
Doesn’t Japan also have almost no crime (at least compared to the West)? Something like a 97% conviction rate or something for those crimes that do occur?
That’s also the reason why you guys put up with all the cold weather we Canadians send you in the winter and the Nigerian scam emails.
I recently read an article that argued that Japan is big on confessions as the magic bullet train to convictions. So they will interrogate you until you give them one, other facts be damned.
Troy
I’ve read that as well. That they often try to pass confessions off as Japanese people being so cool and honor bound that they confess out of unbearable guilt and shame more often than other cultures would, when in reality it is because they are stuck in jail and have the shit beaten out of them until they confess.
It’s not beating so much as sleep deprivation and threats against their reputation or family.
Troy
Yay, I love this topic - it lets right wingers like SlyFrog justify their intolerance of foreign cultures by wrapping themselves in a self-righteous cloak of pseudo-feminism.
Look, suffrage in the US is less than 100 years old. My grandmother was born in a time when women could not vote in the US. And this was in a western culture, with a history of women leaders resulting from European monarchies.
There is no similar history of feminism in the Arab world, so no, I don’t expect them to suddenly throw away thousands of years of prejudice just because we started throwing oil dollars at them, especially when their own religion tells them that women are inferior to men.
Bringing feminism to the arab world is going to be a long process, and it starts with educating arab women, and exposing them to western feminist ideals. That’s why I’m much more concerned about the fundamentalists in Afghanistan threatening violence to keep girls from attending school, than I am concerned about whether women get to stand in the same line at Starbucks in Riyadh.
QFT…
Why even ask this question? Why do we support any corrupt regime? It is in our economic best interest to do so.
If somehow, today, an evil warlord got total control of all of Iraq’s oil, and promised the United States that the oil would flow, and flow to the United States at a discount price, what do you think would happen? The man could be eating barbecue babies for lunch, and we would hail him as a great leader or something like that. As long as the oil supply is safe, stable, and accessible to the united states, that is all we care about.
If Kuwait had been nothing more then a desert with no oil, the first Iraq war would have never happened even if Saddam turned the entire place into Saddam’s happy funland maintained by Kuwait slaves.
Its how the ‘free’ world works. It is not just the United States. France and Russia are purely motivated by self-interest. They opposed the war (right stance, wrong reasons) because they had seriously phat oil contracts waiting to go into effect if the sanctions were lifted. They didn’t care about the justice or injustice of it all. They wanted oil, just like we did.
Is there any action by any country in the entire planet that’s root cause isn’t self-serving?
Has there ever been any action in the history of the world by any power that wasn’t self-serving? It all pretty much comes down to wealth, which represents power in one form or another.
Why did country X do Y to Z? Answer: Greed. It is always greed, regardless if Y is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
While I do believe in truly selfless acts, these are committed by individuals. I do not think a large group, especially a government can act this way.
Why did we send troops to Somalia?
As opposed to trying to avoid the entire issue by calling bigdruid a pinko and then making a meaningless conclusory statement.
You’re right though, right wingers do have a much better record with respect to women’s rights than you pinkos.