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From: benali@alcor.concordia.ca ( ILYESS B. BDIRA )
Subject: Saudi clergy and their western supporters vs Human rights.
Message-ID: <benali.737564776@alcor>
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, civil rights, 	social issues, politics
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References: <saudi-rightsU3yD9ae@clarinet.com> <saudi-rights_9U3yD30ae@clarinet.com> <benali.737307554@alcor> <39898@optima.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 May 1993 15:06:16 GMT
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bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken) writes:

>In article <benali.737307554@alcor> benali@alcor.concordia.ca ( ILYESS B. BDIRA ) writes:

>So how would have *you* defended Saudi Arabia and rolled
>back the Iraqi invasion, were you in charge of Saudi Arabia???

All Muslims knew that the whole thing was set up to destroy Iraq, not
to "Liberate Kuwait", The people who were killed by the invasion are
more (many many more), than the ones that were killed by the Iraqis
in their smaller invasion. I lived in the west, and I have seen how 
your media prepared you (helpless naive Americans) for a war against
Iraq even before the artificial conflict between Iraq and Kuwait that
led to the invasion, as the CIA correctly predicted (and pretended to
be surprised not to know).
It just happened that Saddam was so predictible and so arrogant and stupid.

What would I have done: Most Muslims would choose 300 dead Kuwaitis over
200,000 dead Iraqis and 1000 dead Kuwaitis. The first case would happen
if no western intervention happened, and the second case was a direct
or indirect result of western envolvement.

Human rights in Kuwait? what about human rights in Iraq? why the west
gave Saddam a green light to slaughter his own people? I will give my
reason: because the rich Kuwaitis do not mind to be your salves, so
they deserve some democracy, but Iraqis might not, so they don't.

As simple as that, whether or not you want to admit it.

>I think that it is a very good idea to not have governments have an
>official religion (de facto or de jure), because with human nature
>like it is, the ambitious and not the pious will always be the
>ones who rise to power.  There are just too many people in this
>world (or any country) for the citizens to really know if a 
>leader is really devout or if he is just a slick operator.

Not necessarily the best solution, my view of an Islamic state (and
that of Turabi that your media made you hate) includes all the benefits
of a secular state minus the injustices. Did you ever read a book by
Rashid Al-Ghannoushi (Tunisia), Hassan Turabi (Sudan)? You only know
about them from your Self-censured, self-controlled media.

If they make this kind of campaign against such a moderate thinker as
Turabi is, and keep quite about such an extremist Muslim scholar as Bin
Bez of Saudi Arabia is, it just does not encourage any moderation in
our ARab world.

>You make it sound like these guys are angels, Ilyess.  (In your
>clarinet posting you edited out some stuff; was it the following???)

No it was not that, it was just some irrelevent stuff that I took out
to go around the copyright (;-))

I ceased to take the Newyork times seriously. In issues concerning Islam
it has become one of the biggest enemies (although less than the other
NewYork daily since Mortimer took it over). It lies, selects facts that
fits its agenda and even prints racist and open anti-Muslim editorials.

What they claimed in that articles is a bunch of lies because while 
the selected facts are true about some of those persons, the other members
are actually defence lawyers and University science professors who wanted
to fight corruption, uncover atrocities against opposition activists and
Shia minority, and generally increase awareness about the rights of all 
citizens. The only thing that is common between those people is their concern
for the deterioration of human rights since the Saudi clan took a green
light from AMerica (after the gulf) to do whatever is necessary to stay
in power. 


Do you know that ALL OF THE SAUDI ULEMA have been taught the same things?
the ones in the official Iftaa are as conservative as the ones that are
opposing it. SOme of the members of the human rights committe are MORE
PRO-WOMEN and wanted to defend them, and that is precisely one reason that
Bin Bez's Fatwah  implied for the "Illegality " of this committee
and  for his claim that it represents "Outside interests"

There is a human rights issue in Saudi ARabia, and YOU and NY times chose
to ignore the main issue and select some of the members of that committee
and actually defend the actions done against them (including banning them
from their Jobs.

What a hypocricy. I am not surprised really, THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME.

The official Ulema are the most extremist anti-women meat-heads in Saudi
Arabia, the west continues on its campaign to discredit itself in the
Muslim community, by supporting them. Well after Bosnia, I guess it has
ZERO credibility to begin with, so what the heck.

"Idha Lam tastahi Faf'aal Ma shi'it" (If you feel no shame, then do whatever 
you want, Hadith).  
(actually a better translation of the meaning would be: "If you do not
feel ashamed (from God), you will do whatever you want)
