Chris Floyd: Special Relationship: Bush Family Friends Flay Rape Victim

[babylonsister]

Special Relationship: Bush Family Friends Flay Rape Victim
Saturday, 17 November 2007
by Chris Floyd


The ever-estimable Buzzflash asks the pertinent question: Will Laura Bush, renowned campaigner on behalf of the oppressed women of Islam, take up the cudgels for the "Girl from Qatif": a 19-year-old woman who was gang-raped – and has now been sentenced by a Saudi court to six months in jail – and 200 lashes – for the "crime" of being in the car of a man who was not her relative?

Like Buzz, we all know the answer: she will not. At the most, we might possibly see a bland statement of mild, tut-tutting disapproval issued by a minor minion in the State Department, probably during the late Friday, post-deadline news dump. But as for Lady Laura, she will doubtless be too busy overseeingthe next intimate get-together with the Saudi royals, watching with who knows what strange tingly fascination as her husband plants a wet kiss on the grizzled face of King Abdullah, or sits down to chomp barbecue man-to-man with the billion-dollar bribetaker and backroom grease merchant Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud – better known by the nickname "Bandar Bush," bestowed by the president himself in honor of his long-standing connection with America's ruling family.

Saudi Arabia remains a highly personal tyranny: a single word from Bush's smooching partner could spare the rape victim from this savage punishment. These longtime Bush Family business partners and paymasters – who rule their kingdom through repression, mutilation and execution – could use their authoritarian power to reform the perverted, pseudo-religious strictures they have imposed at gunpoint on their people. But they will not – and Laura and George and Babs and old George Humperdink Warbucks Bush will never ask them to.

Why? Because they do not give a damn if a young woman who has been brutally raped is now whipped almost to death by their family friends -- friends who have helped make the Bushes richer and richer down through the years. If the lashing took place in front of their very eyes, they'd simply chat to Prince Bandar about the Cowboys game this weekend or ask King Abdullah if the weather was fine during his last stay on the Riveria. "Sure does scream a lot, don't she?" George might say at some point, provoking a playfully stern wag of the head from Laura for bringing up an unseemly topic during such a pleasant conversation. Then burly guards – American-armed, American-trained – would drag the quivering mass of shredded flesh out of the room, while elegant footmen stepped nimbly around her, bringing in the evening's sumptuous feast.

Oh, no doubt when Laura looks in her mirror at night, what she sees is one of God's little sunbeams, who wants nothing but the very bestest best for every single person on earth. But what is actually there is the visage reflected in countless gilded mirrors of the Establishment elite: a wretched, bloodstained collaborator with evil.

more...

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2854/81/

[grasswire]

1. tough-as-nails writing

I admire that quite a bit.

[Bozita]

2. "one of God's little sunbeams" wouldn't want to worry her beautiful mind

You gotta like Chris Floyd's work.

[al bupp]

3. With respect to the sentence this poor woman has been given...

It's got to be the text-book definition of adding insult to injury. Well, no I guess, it's actually adding injury to injury. 200 hundred lashes. Think about that for a second. That's something one might not survive. If she does, it'll leave a scar for life, that's for sure. Talk about going medieval on someone. Apparently for the authorities being gang-raped wasn't bad enough for her. What ass-hats.

I know, I know the fundies in this country have wet dreams about being able to do this here. Ironic isn't it? These, our special friends, have a society pretty much straight out of the 12th century. Yet, they're our allies (supposedly) against the extremists (and no, 200 lashes is not "extreme".) But wait, I think at that time Islam was on the for-front of woman's rights. More irony.

The author's correct, don't hold your breathe waiting for our fearless leaders to say anything that might remotely be considered offensive to the crusader era sensibilities of those who happen to sit atop the largest, most easily accessible oil reserves in the world.

If only writing posts to a internet forum could spare her the ordeal.

[Triana]

5. "I know, I know the fundies in this country have wet dreams about being able to do this here"

You betcha they do...neanderthals.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. This sort of thing earned someone some shock and awe a

while back. All things being equal, everything is just about the same to this day.

[Cerridwen]

6. But they are our allies. We can't mess in their local politics because they are

our allies. How many atrocities have been committed in our name as we justified it with that phrase; "they are our allies"? I personally think it ranks right down there with "just following orders".

If it's true that we are judged by the company we keep...

edit to add: I wonder how many countries now, say the same of us?

[DemoTex]

7. From the IHT article (about the rape victim's lawyer and the Saudi court):

The court also banned the woman's lawyer from defending her, confiscated his license to practice law and summoned him to a disciplinary hearing later this month.

"I explained to them that it was my job to do everything legal in order to serve my client. But they did not listen," the lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, was quoted by the paper as saying.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/15/africa/ME-GEN-Saudi-Justice.php

[Matariki]

8. Did you know that the man she was in the car with was also raped?

And also sentenced to 90 lashes? Her sentence was increased when her lawyer appealed.

Fuckers.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/world/middleeast/16saudi.html?ref=world

<snip>
The young woman’s offense was in meeting a former boyfriend, whom she had asked to return pictures he had of her because she was about to marry another man. The couple was sitting in a car when a group of seven men kidnapped them and raped them both, lawyers in the case told Arab News, a Saudi newspaper.

The woman and the former boyfriend were originally sentenced to 90 lashes each for being together in private, while the attackers received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison, and 80 to 1,000 lashes each.

[DCKit]

9. When you resort to personal attacks on the Bush/Saud families....

You run the risk of being RIGHT about what's really going on.

Bastid!!!! The noive!

[Amanita]

10. I am sure Bandar Bush approves of Pickes

[951-Riverside]

11. Mavis Leno? n/t