This is pretty disturbing>>

[PatPatriot]

The Religious Policeman
A Saudi man's diary of life in the "Magic Kingdom", where the Religious Police ensure that everything remains as it was in the Middle Ages.

http://muttawa.blogspot.com/

Saudi Civil War - up another notch
When I spoke last time about the high levels of public safety in Saudi Arabia, I did exclude terrorist activity. However two events since then have seemed to mock my words; the shooting of a German national last week as he came out of a bank, and the most recent atrocity in Alkhobar.

Saudi commandos rescue hostages

This time we didn't use the "Keystone Cops", we used an elite commando unit. And while the operation was as successful as such operations can be, three terrorists still managed to escape from a single surrounded building. Not that that will be a surprise to anyone. There's a quota, you see.

And, to compound this bad news:-

- the vilest murders were committed on non-Muslims in the name of Islam

- the victims were expatriates, our guests, whom we are supposed to protect

- the expatriates worked in oil, the one and only sector of our economy that actually makes money for us, rather than spends it

- if those expatriates chose to leave (and who could blame them?), then that sector will grind to a halt - we are a nation of managers, not workers

- the West, faced with a loss of its oil supplies and a possible world recession, would be sorely tempted to come in and occupy the facilities. Again, who could blame them?

- our country could be the next beneficiary of the United States' unique approach to "winning hearts and minds". However we'd only have ourselves to blame.

I'd like to be able to say that the overwhelming majority of my fellow Saudis totally condemn this terrorism. Sadly, that is just not true. There is a substantial minority, if not verging on a majority, who applaud any action that discomfits a royal family whom they perceive to be "unreliable" in religious terms, and to be too friendly with the US. So they support any action against them, regardless of who dies. And I see this support for the terrorists all around me, both in furtive conversations and more overt celebrations, the smiling jokes among friends, the victory fist punched in the air.

So while it would be nice to see Madrid-style mass demonstrations in the streets of Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Makkah, Madinah, condemning this terrorism in all its manifestations, forget it, it's not going to happen. We have other priorities. Hitler was obsessed with the racial purity of Greater Germany. We are obsessed with the religious purity of the Arabian Peninsula.
Posted by: Alhamedi / 7:23 PM| Comments (34)

 

[BoratSagdiyev]

Do you have a tatoo of an anchor on either of your arms Patriot?

 

[PatPatriot]

Borat my man what in this post would make you ask that question??

 

[BoratSagdiyev]

You seem as if you were shot at in a war and are unwavering in your support of what the president does and what our policies are thats all.

 

[TheFunkMonkey]

I think Borat wants to know if you are Popeye.

 

[PatPatriot]

No never been shot at...never been in a war...and don't want to be....scared shitless...natrual human instinct fight or flight...if you try to run away and are pursued then you fight or be devoured.

Eat the bear before the bear eats you...Europeans think that if they appease terrorist they will be the last to be eaten when in reality they will be the first.

I live a free and decent comfortable life, because the soldiers soldier, and therfore they have my support.
And by the way Borat and others,you live your comfortable lives around the world because of the soldiers of the USA...please don't forget it because I will remind you....because you could very well be the offspring of german or Japenese soldiers if it wasn't for the USA...try to be more appreciative...and don't question my courage or credibility,you no nothing about me.

 

[BoratSagdiyev]

I am not questioning you'r courage or credibility. I am questioning your ability to see through some of the things I and others see as blatant deceptions. We won the War does that mean that everyone in Germany Japan and Italy is a product of a union between American soldiers and those living in the Axis countries. No right, we are better than that. We live comfortably because others in the world don't that's the bottom line.We need their resources to mantain our standard of living.


<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>And by the way Borat and others,you live your comfortable lives around the world because of the soldiers of the USA...please don't forget it because I will remind you....because you could very well be the offspring of german or Japenese soldiers if it wasn't for the USA...try to be more appreciative...and don't question my courage or credibility,you no nothing about me.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[BoratSagdiyev]

I just want you to be aware of the fact that some of the most reppressive regimes in the past century were merely puppet governments put into power by a military coup instigated by...........you guessed it.

So to criticize the Saudi Government for being harsh and draconian is like criticizing our government because they really work for us. If they weren't as harsh do you think the house of Saud would have remained in power this long. They would have been out of there at least 25 years ago.

 

[American]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Borat Sagdiyev:
We live comfortably because others in the world don't that's the bottom line.We need their resources to mantain our standard of living.
QUOTE]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh please. Who told you that? We live relatively comfortably, although many in the U.S. are poor and there is a homeless problem, because of our great country's resources, both human and natural, free enterprise, democracy, infrastructure and liberty, among many other things.

Don't try posting that bullshit that third world countries are poor because the U.S. is keeping them down. They are poor by their own hand...governments that are like gangs who simply loot national funds, poor infrastructures, lack of education and limited natural resources.

You should take with a grain of salt the crap you're hearing at the local Starbucks.

 

[xpanda]

American, I don't think he was implying that the "US is keeping them down" as much as he's saying that ALL of us in developed countries do so well because poverty en masse exists elsewhere. Do you think you could buy your jeans for 60 bucks if they weren't being made by some near-slave labourer for 13 cents an hour? That's just one example.

Our countries make billions off the discrepancies in the standard of living between us and 'them' ... it's not necessarily evil that drives us to do this, but we're certainly not altruistic enough to stop it, are we? If we were, we would agree that debts in these countries can't be repaid without worsening their poverty levels. Unfortunately, our sense of social Darwinism won't let us think like that.

While corruption sometimes does exist, they are not 'poor by their own hand' in all instances. Jamaica, for example, was rather prosperous until the IMF tied lending to radical privatisation which their infrastructure was ill-equipped to deal with. We forced them to dump subsidies on their agricultural products so that we could sell easily in their markets, but, funny enough, we didn't drop our own subsidies so that they could sell in ours. Agriculture used to be 80% of their economy.

Have you ever heard of 'Free Zones'? These are multi-acred sites set up at ports in countries such as Bangladesh, Jamaica and others where government labour regulation is 'hands off.' No minimum wage, no labour unions, nothing. So companies like Nike and Hanes and a host of others can build factories in these Free Zones and use the labour in the region until it becomes more cost effective to go elsewhere ... labour wages in these regions will naturally rise as demand for labour rises above the supply. So, these companies move elsewhere and set their sweatshops up in another host country. The workers in the prior host country go back to no income. Soon, the companies might return because the labourers are again desperate enough that they will accept 9 cent an hour jobs. This is pure exploitation and nothing else. This isn't something the US alone is guilty of. Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia all do it.

It is truly a shameful practice and is a big part of the reason why we live as comfortably as we do. Ask WalMart how they got to be so rich.

 

[American]

Xpanda...I have to disagree with both you AND the "Thumbs Up" girl on this one.

Say we stop using cheap foreign labor on products. Instead of being $60 jeans, maybe we'd be paying $80. But unemployment would probably go down to less than 1% and the lower classes in the U.S. would probably be much better off.

If we stop this "shameful" exploitation of cheap labor in third world countries, wouldn't the workers in the third world country be even worse off than they are right now? Wouldn't the nearslave labourer making 13 cents-an-hour drop down to zero cents-an-hour?I don't see the third world countries complaining about being given the chance to provide this cheap labor.

 

[xpanda]

First, the reason you don't see third world countries complaining is because you're not looking for it. During the last Summit of the Americas and during the Doha Rounds, the G120 (as they are now calling themselves, the poorest 120 countries of the WTO and IMF) walked out of these meetings.

I don't claim that jobs should not be given to 'cheap overseas labour markets' (Lou Dobbs, anyone?) at all. In fact, I embrace it. I see this as the single biggest method for liberating them from poverty. However ...

What I do take issue with is the very clear double-standard that exists when developed countries use their 'upper-handedness' to coerce developing countries into making concessions that go above and beyond charging interest rates when we loan them money. These Free Zones I mentioned earlier are a complete abomination. These people are forced, by an organisation outside of their own country, to abandon their national labour laws. Tell me, would you be stand for this happening in the US? Imagine a port opening up in the Keys where factories abound that can pay no mind to minimum wage, overtime hours, safety standards, etc. This is not something that the poor country dreamed up, it is something imposed on them by the IMF as a condition of lending. Can you imagine having to make such concessions in order to mortgage your home?

I disagree wholeheartedly with the Democratic position against outsourcing, so be careful not to confuse my position with that group. I think Lou Dobbs is a fear-*****ring idiot. But I do side with the Far Left when I say that it is not our right to tell these nations to open up their markets to us, so we can sell there, while refusing to open our markets to them. The snowball effect, of course, is that their unemployment worsens as they can no longer compete domestically, and attempting to export to developed countries is inevitably moot due to our continued subsidising industry here. What right do we have to do that?

We are systematically taking away their jobs and offering them up worse opportunities in return. Nobody with a conscience could say this is okay.

 

[American]

Unfortunately for you and the third world countries, the great supply-and-demand god has no feelings and no sense of right and wrong, and who should be entitled to what.

 

[xpanda]

No, unfortunately for me and third world countries, the supply-and-demand god has been stifled and pushed to the side in favour of coercive supply-side economic practices. It is the collective (lack of) conscience at the IMF and WTO that have no sense of right or wrong and love to determine who should be entitled to what. Don't pretend that there is no human hand propelling this situation into exactly what it has become. The worsening of poverty levels is not the result of otherwise benign economics but, rather, the calculated exploitation of resources, including people, by people who hide behind closed doors, are not democratically elected, and who make deals on behalf of you and I without our consent.

Were it not for the impressive monetary gains to be made by multinational corporations, even the Right would be pissed about this.

 

[jointpleasures]

Like Bush or not libs and dems,

You better believe it when he says America will go after terrorists and those countries who harbor them. It's just the way it is going to be. Remember September 11, 2001?

Good and accurate article by a 'smart' Saudi that Patriot posted.


"KEEP THE COWBOY 2004"

 

[xpanda]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jointpleasures:
You better believe it when he says America will go after terrorists and those countries who harbor them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Or, at least those countries within close geographic proximity to the nations who harbour terrorists who also happen to be our close friends and allies so we can't go after them directly. I think that is what Bush really means, actually.

 

[PatPatriot]

Well the good news is once that area runs out of oil they can all go back living like the flintstones...the stupid bastards don't realise nobdy will give a flying carpet fxck about them once the oil is gone....when they should use the oppurtunity now to at least get themselves to the 18th century.
Iraq has a endless supply of one resource...water...if the idots would allow themselves to grow corn instead of buying grenade launchers so their people can eat insted of die they might be better off.
Bushes vision is right and is in the right place to start democracy, maybe Bush is ahead of his time....this is a power strugle between the mideastteners themselves not the west.

 

[American]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by xpanda:
No, unfortunately for me and third world countries, the supply-and-demand god has been stifled and pushed to the side in favour of coercive supply-side economic practices. It is the collective (lack of) conscience at the IMF and WTO that have no sense of right or wrong and love to determine who should be entitled to what. Don't pretend that there is no human hand propelling this situation into exactly what it has become. The worsening of poverty levels is not the result of otherwise benign economics but, rather, the calculated exploitation of resources, including people, by people who hide behind closed doors, are not democratically elected, and who make deals on behalf of you and I without our consent.

Were it not for the impressive monetary gains to be made by multinational corporations, even the Right would be pissed about this.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you don't think it's the supply-and-demand god at work, then how about the "Golden Rule"?

You're dead wrong if you think that the third world countries themselves haven't greatly contributed to their woes and are the reason they haven't been able to climb out of poverty.

 

[xpanda]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by American:

If you don't think it's the supply-and-demand god at work, then how about the "Golden Rule"?

You're dead wrong if you think that the third world countries themselves haven't greatly contributed to their woes and are the reason they haven't been able to climb out of poverty.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My "Golden Rule" starts out with "Do unto others ..."

What's yours?

I do realise that many third world nations have faced corruption and such but this isn't true in all cases and certainly does not diminish my argument that developed countries are clearly making their poverty worse. In fact, I would argue that the latter, not the former, is more common today and is fast becoming the norm.

 

[jointpleasures]

x,

Are the Royal Canuks mounting horses looking for the a couple of the dirty seven ( terrorists ) in that province?

I know they were trained to only to hand out littering and fishing citations.