This article exposes the inhumanity of Saudi Arabia's Wahabbi-based legal system. Not only do the courts sentence a rape victim to lashings - evidently the young woman's crime was being alone in a car with a man unrelated to her - but on appeal the court doubles its punishment! How dare this woman have the temerity to protest her punishment for being raped.
With Wolf Blitzer's questions in last night's Democratic debate about balancing national security with human rights, nowhere is America's selling out of human rights more egregious than in Saudi Arabia. Damn our dependence on Saudi oil! Hillary Clinton famously argued in her 1995 U.N. Beijing address that protecting women's rights is inseparable from protecting human rights; John Edwards now frequently makes the same argument. What will really impress me is when one of these candidates uses the debate platform to blast our shameful alliance with Saudi Arabia, and commits herself to policies that will enable us to sever this alliance with minimal economic harm. Tom Friedman's $1-a-gallon 'patriot tax' on gasoline would be a decent place to start.
If a gas tax is politically impossible, at least use the bully pulpit to call international attention to the horrors of Saudi justice. Perhaps persuade the Europeans to join us in telling the Saudis that neither Boeing nor Airbus will sell aircrafts to Saudi Arabia until it liberalizes its penal code - at the very least ending lashings for rape victims. This probably seems wishful thinking to self-proclaimed 'realists'. but I think it's worth a shot. As DKos argues today, promoting human rights abroad bolsters rather than undermines America's long-term national security.
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2 comments:
Reid,
You really missed out on No Country For Old Men.
Best,
Matt
Of course, the idea of human rights is a noble goal. The truth however, is simply that the U.S. cannot vanguard the world's human rights. Saudi Arabia's oil-rich position allows them a lot of sovereignty that would simply be unfavorable to disturb. An oil rich, Muslim country in the Mid-East with such a high degree of stability like Saudia Arabia is vastly more desirable to the U.S. and all oil-importing nations.
I agree with you on an indeological level--Islamic fundamental law is medeival at best. In fact, I wouldn't stop short of advocating direct imperialism on the part of a liberal democratic power to change that issue. However, even a moderate application of U.S. power to address all severe human rights violations around the world would most likely be a) extremely unpopular and b) unfeasible, on a level of practical application.
Human Rights plays well with voters, as it really appeals to our sense of liberal-democratic decency. Ultimately, U.S. political leaders do have to compromise ideology with practical political and economic concerns.
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