Friday, October 07, 2005

The Saudis are real bastards

I tried several different titles for this post and finally decided to just let my real feelings show. I will be happier than I can accurately describe when we have developed our oil shale technology or our Fischer-Tropsch process (coal into gasoline) or our hydrogen power capability or solar power or wind power or whatever power to finally say goodbye to those vicious, cowardly, corrupt and deceitful Arabs. All of them, but especially the Saudis. They are truly pigs.

Do you remember Rania al-Baz? She is the 29 year-old Saudi Arabian TV newscaster and personality who was severely beaten by her husband several times. The last time, she was so severely injured that he bundled her into his car, took her to a local hospital and dumped her, telling hospital employees that she had been in a car accident and he had to hurry back to save others. She had had enough.

Rania directed that photos of her smashed face be released publicly and then, after her release from the hospital, went on Saudi TV, shattered face and all, to tell the Saudis and the world what had happened to her. The uproar in Saudi Arabia, but most especially around the world, was severe enough to force the Saudi government to prosecute her husband. She had refused to complain about earlier beatings because, under Sharia law, her husband would have taken their three children in any divorce proceeding. With the Saudis forced to prosecute him, she seems safe enough, for now, with her kids (the 5 year-old watched the last beating). Her husband was sentenced to 300 lashes and 6 months in jail. She agreed to his early release when he signed over to her custody of the children.

Rania was scheduled to fly to Paris to address a conference on domestic abuse in the Gulf states but didn't show up for three days after her scheduled arrival. That was because Saudi authorities decided to revoke her travel privileges. They didn't say why, they just said, "You can't fly." She ultimately escaped the country by hiding in a truck and crossing the Saudi border into Bahrain. She proceeded on to Dubai and flew to Paris from there. She is now more or less stuck in Paris while the rest of her family, including her three children, is stuck in Saudi Arabia.

I realize that we have little choice but to kiss the Saudis' collective asses. If we don't, our economy and that of most of the rest of the developed world would be squeezed more severely than we can imagine. It would probably force a president into war with the Saudis, and possibly the rest of the Gulf states, to try to take the oil fields by force to liberate the world's economy. What is happening in Iraq is child's play compared to that scenario.

But one day it is going to happen. We'll either make ourselves independent of those bastards in the Arabian peninsula as well as that fat pig in Venezuela or we'll be forced to send in the Marines . . . again.

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