CAIRO – An 8-year-old Saudi girl has divorced her middle-aged husband after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for about $13,000, her lawyer said Thursday.
Saudi Arabia has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad for permitting child marriages. The United States, a close ally of the conservative Muslim kingdom, has called child marriage a “clear and unacceptable” violation of human rights.
The girl was allowed to divorce the 50-year-old man who she married in August after an out-of-court settlement had been reached in the case, said her lawyer, Abdulla al-Jeteli. The exact date of the divorce was not immediately known.
A court in the central Oneiza region previously rejected a request by the girl’s mother for a divorce and ruled that the girl would have to wait until she reached puberty to file a petition then.
There are no laws in Saudi Arabia defining the minimum age for marriage. Though a woman’s consent is legally required, some marriage officials don’t seek it.
But there has been a push by Saudi human rights groups to define the age of marriage and put an end to the phenomenon.
One Saudi human rights activist Sohaila Zain al-Abdeen was optimistic that the girl’s divorce would help efforts to get a law passed enforcing a minimum marriage age of 18.
“Unfortunately, some fathers trade their daughters,” she told The Associated Press. “They are weak people who are sometimes in need of money and forget their roles as parents.”
It was not clear if the man received money for the divorce settlement. The man had given the girl’s father 50,000 riyals, or about $13,350, as a marriage gift in return for his daughter, the lawyer said.
The 8-year-old girl’s marriage was not the only one in the kingdom to receive attention in recent months. Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or young boys including a 15-year-old girl whose father, a death-row inmate, married her off to a cell mate.
Saudi Arabia’s conservative Muslim clergy have opposed the drive to end child marriages. In January, the kingdom’s most senior cleric said it was permissible for 10-year-old girls to marry and those who believe they are too young are doing the girls an injustice.
But some in the government appear to support the movement to set a minimum age for marriage. The kingdom’s new justice minister was quoted in mid-April as saying the government was doing a study on underage marriage that would include regulations.
There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia every year. Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty marriage gifts or as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.
I have always believed that America is special, unique and exceptional – as a country, a form of government and a large community of citizens residing in 50 different states and many territories but understanding and possessing similar values – American Values. I have tried to pass on these values to my children, just as my parents did for me. They also passed on my Judeo-Christian values of behavior and treatment of others, which I have also taught my children. But in this popular culture of today, with the assault on our country by the left, their effort to devalu what it means to be an American, and their deliberate subversion of American Exceptionalism, it has become increasingly more difficult to convey what it means to be “An American”.
I found the answer at Prager University on YouTube. Dennis Prager gives a 5 miniute lecture on American Values in a clear and concise delivery and captures the essence of America as distingiushed from European values from which we sprang. Please take the time to view the video – it is worthwhile.
Without any pretense of an argument, which liberals are neurologically incapable of, the mainstream media are now asserting that our wussy interrogation techniques at Guantanamo constituted “torture” and have irreparably harmed America’s image abroad.
Only the second of those alleged facts is true: The president’s release of the Department of Justice interrogation memos undoubtedly hurt America’s image abroad, as we are snickered at in capitals around the world, where they know what real torture is. The Arabs surely view these memos as a pack of lies. What about the pills Americans have to turn us gay?
The techniques used against the most stalwart al-Qaida members, such as Abu Zubaydah, included one terrifying procedure referred to as “the attention grasp.” As described in horrifying detail in the Justice Department memo, the “attention grasp” consisted of:
“(G)rasping the individual with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, in a controlled and quick motion. In the same motion as the grasp, the individual is drawn toward the interrogator.”
The end.
There are rumors that Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney wanted to take away the interrogators’ Altoids before they administered “the grasp,” but Department of Justice lawyers deemed this too cruel.
And that’s not all! As the torments were gradually increased, next up the interrogation ladder came “walling.” This involves pushing the terrorist against a flexible wall, during which his “head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a C-collar effect to prevent whiplash.”
People pay to have a lot rougher stuff done to them at Six Flags Great Adventure. Indeed, with plastic walls and soft neck collars, “walling” may be the world’s first method of “torture” in which all the implements were made by Fisher-Price.
As the memo darkly notes, walling doesn’t cause any pain, but is supposed to induce terror by making a “loud noise”: “(T)he false wall is in part constructed to create a loud sound when the individual hits it, which will further shock and surprise.” (!!!)
If you need a few minutes to compose yourself after being subjected to that horror, feel free to take a break from reading now. Sometimes a cold compress on the forehead is helpful, but don’t let it drip or you might end up waterboarding yourself.
The CIA’s interrogation techniques couldn’t be more ridiculous if they were out of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition sketch:
Cardinal! Poke her with the soft cushions! …
Hmm! She is made of harder stuff! Cardinal Fang! Fetch … THE COMFY CHAIR!
So you think you are strong because you can survive the soft cushions. Well, we shall see. Biggles! Put her in the Comfy Chair! …
Now — you will stay in the Comfy Chair until lunchtime, with only a cup of coffee at 11.
Further up the torture ladder — from Guantanamo, not Monty Python — comes the “insult slap,” which is designed to be virtually painless, but involves the interrogator invading “the individual’s personal space.”
If that doesn’t work, the interrogator shows up the next day wearing the same outfit as the terrorist. (Awkward.)
I will spare you the gruesome details of the CIA’s other comical interrogation techniques and leap directly to the penultimate “torture” in their arsenal: the caterpillar.
In this unspeakable brutality, a harmless caterpillar is placed in the terrorist’s cell. Justice Department lawyers expressly denied the interrogators’ request to trick the terrorist into believing the caterpillar was a “stinging insect.”
Human rights groups have variously described being trapped in a cell with a live caterpillar as “brutal,” “soul-wrenching” and, of course, “adorable.”
If the terrorist manages to survive the non-stinging caterpillar maneuver — the most fiendish method of torture ever devised by the human mind that didn’t involve being forced to watch “The View” — CIA interrogators had another sadistic trick up their sleeves.
I am not at liberty to divulge the details, except to mention the procedure’s terror-inducing name: “the ladybug.”
Finally, the most savage interrogation technique at Guantanamo was “waterboarding,” which is only slightly rougher than the Comfy Chair.
Tens of thousands of our troops were waterboarded over the past three decades as part of their training, but not until it was done to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — mastermind of the 9/11 attack on America — were liberal consciences shocked.
I think they were mostly shocked because they couldn’t figure out how Joey Buttafuoco ended up in Guantanamo.
As non-uniformed combatants, all of the detainees at Guantanamo could have been summarily shot on the battlefield under the Laws of War.
Instead, we gave them comfy chairs, free lawyers, better food than is served in Afghani caves, prayer rugs, recreational activities and top-flight medical care — including one terrorist who was released, whereupon he rejoined the jihad against America, after being fitted for an expensive artificial leg at Guantanamo, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.
Only three terrorists — who could have been shot — were waterboarded. This is not nearly as bad as “snowboarding,” which is known to cause massive buttocks pain and results in approximately 10 deaths per year.
Normal human beings — especially those who grew up with my older brother, Jimmy — can’t read the interrogation memos without laughing.
At Al-Jazeera, they don’t believe these interrogation memos are for real. Muslims look at them and say: THIS IS ALL THEY’RE DOING? We do that for practice. We do that to our friends.
But The New York Times is populated with people who can’t believe they live in a country where people would put a caterpillar in a terrorist’s cell.
America must wake up or we will lose our culture. Europe is already on the way out and the UK is on the ropes. Read Brigite Gabriel’s book ‘They Must Be Stopped” or “Eurabia” by Bat Yeor or “Londonistan” by Melani Philips or “America Alone” by Mark Steyn. They all explain what is happening and what must be done.
Please spread the word and prepare yourselves.
God Bless you all.
(Thanks to “Doc Reynolds” for bringing this to my attention).
The current Leftist-Islamist coalition wrecking much of the first world with its combination of inside-outside warfare in America, Europe, Israel, Australia and across the world seems paradoxical in nature, but has both its origins and precedents.
The irrationality of the Leftist-Islamist alignment is the seeming ideological contrasts between the two. Islamists, after all, would behead or forbid most of the left’s agenda. There is little room in the heart of the average Imam or Mullah for Feminism, Homosexuality, Atheism, or the whole multicultural progressive rainbow. By contrast, there is seemingly little room in the progressive agency for Theocracy, Gender Segregation or the rest of the Islamist Smorgasbord.
But what allows this Gruesome Twosome to overcome their differences is that both see a common enemy in Western Civilization. The presence of a common enemy allows the “The Enemy of my Enemy” doctrine to kick in, which is what has made many of the unlikely and self-destructive ideological relationships in history kick off. Accordingly, the left has embraced Islamists as “protected minorities,” more “brown people” being persecuted by the “Patriarchal Military Industrial Complex” that bedevils their nightmares. And the Islamists have learned to talk like progressives, turning out Koranic edicts about beheading your wife that sound like liberal platforms.
While President Obama recently made a commendable effort to “connect” with the Islamic world, especially during his visit to Turkey, he went perilously too far by saying things that simply are not accurate and thus should not have been said.
For example: Obama said: “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better…”
I can understand why Obama would not want to say, “1,400 years of Islam has resulted in 270 million deaths and countless millions enslaved.” But such a history hardly qualifies as “shaping the world for the better,” and he would have been advised to simply not make such a historically unsupportable statement.
Obama also said that he wants to “strengthen Ataturk’s vision of democratic Turkey.” What Mr. Obama needs to thus say to the Muslim world is remind them what Ataturk’s vision was – a vision which ended the Islamic Empire in 1924, rebelled against Islam and its Sharia law, and gave women rights to vote, to get an education, to work, etc. It was Ataturk’s vision that put the last nail in the coffin of the Islamic empire, ending centuries of murder and terrorism. It was because of Ataturk’s action that the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt five years later, to reclaim and revive the Islamic Empire and setting the course for present-day Islamism. The Muslim Brotherhood is now the oldest and largest terrorist organization in the world, boasting 70 offshoots including Al-Qaida.
While Obama eloquently stated that America is not at war with Islam, which was necessary to speak with such clarity, it was important to continue by saying: “However, we are all challenged today by Islamist radicalism that has declared war, not only on America but also on moderate, peace-loving Muslims. Islamism, or the ideology of political Islam, threatens the entire world, including the millions of Muslims who don’t adhere to it, and it is growing in strength with every passing day.” Attempting to disconnect terror and radicalism from the political ideology that underlies it is precisely what Western Europe and Great Britain have tried, without success.
Obama missed a great opportunity to challenge the moderate Muslim world to stand up with us against the Islamists who wish to destroy not only our way of life but change the political landscape in their own countries through overthrow of their leadership and their governments.
Such an outreach by Obama would have created solidarity between moderate Muslims and America, because moderate Muslims are more likely to hear and respect what Obama says due to his Islamic heritage. This was Obama’s opportunity to make a statement that could have set the stage for real and historic change, but sadly, he missed it.
Meanwhile, North Korea conducts another missile launch, which has enormous ramifications for the world’s ability to defeat Islamism. North Korea is doing more than manufacture nuclear weapons for itself. North Korea’s business is selling arms technology to the cash-rich Arab nations who provide it with the cash it so desperately needs.
A few years ago North Korea supplied Syria with the nuclear reactor that Israel bombed in September 2007. North Korean engineers were killed and many injured at the Syrian facility during the Israeli bombing.
On another Islamist front Iran is clearly set on attacking Israel and America. Iran is very interested in buying the North Korean missile technology which they can then deliver an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack against America. So while North Korea may not attack us directly, its technology is what our die-hard enemies are going to use to destroy us.
The United Nations has proven to be virtually impotent in dealing with such serious issues. Saddam Hussein ignored UN sanctions, North Korea ignores the UN, and Iran marches on, ignoring UN sanctions. The United States needs to take a bold step to disrupt the “nuclear proliferation axis” that exists between North Korea and the militant nations of the Islamic world.
We can and should go directly to China and ask them how would they feel if we made nuclear and missile technology available to Japan and Taiwan? We can exert great pressure on China in this area because those two nations are a major threat to China if we make our technology available to them.
This will give China a vested interest in pressuring North Korea to stop their missile program. What we are concerned about right now is the political victory that North Korea has achieved with this launch. Even though this was not a military victory because the launch was not successful to the point they expected, it achieved a political victory against America.
This message is not being wasted on Iran and other nations, like Syria and Libya for example, who are trying to stand up to the United States. America is establishing a clear track record of “no-response.” In 2006 Kaddafi, who signed an agreement in 2003 to get rid of his 30 tons of mustard gas, reneged on the contract and changed his mind after watching America’s lack of decisive action against Iran.
North Korea is so dangerous because its missiles could carry a nuclear warhead to America or it could continue to provide the technology to other nations wanting to harm America. In other words, the nuclear threat to America and the West will continue to escalate beyond North Korea to Islamist regimes unless we bring it to a screeching halt.
A terrific article by Robert Spencer on the naive Obama and his “European Vacation”.
By Robert Spencer FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, April 07, 2009
“We will convey,” said Barack Obama to the Turkish Parliament Monday, “our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.” Undeniably the Islamic faith has done a great deal to shape the world – a statement that makes no value judgment about exactly how it has shaped the world. It has formed the dominant culture in what is known as the Islamic world for centuries. But what on earth could Obama mean when he says that Islam has also “done so much” to shape his own country?
Unless he considers himself an Indonesian, Obama’s statement was extraordinarily strange. After all, how has the Islamic faith shaped the United States? Were there Muslims along Paul Revere’s ride, or standing next to Patrick Henry when he proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death”? Were there Muslims among the framers or signers of the Declaration of Independence, which states that all men – not just Muslims, as Islamic law would have it – are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Were there Muslims among those who drafted the Constitution and vigorously debated its provisions, or among those who enumerated the Bill of Rights, which guarantees – again in contradiction to the tenets of Islamic law – that there should be no established national religion, and that the freedom of speech should not be infringed?
There were not.
Did Muslims play a role in the great struggle over slavery that defined so much of our contemporary understandings of the nature of this republic and of the rights of the individual within it? They did not. Did the Islamic faith shape the way the United States responded to the titanic challenges of the two World Wars, the Great Depression, or the Cold War? It did not. Did the Islamic faith, with its legal apparatus that institutionalizes discrimination against non-Muslims, shape the civil rights movement in the United States? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 mandated equality of access to public facilities – a hard-won victory that came at a great cost, and one that Muslim groups have tried to roll back in the United States recently. One notable example of such attempts was the alcohol-in-cabs controversy at the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport, when Muslim cabdrivers began to refuse service to customers who were carrying alcohol, on Islamic religious grounds. The core assumption underlying this initiative – that discrimination on the basis of religion is justified – cut right to the heart of the core principle of the American polity, that “all men are created equal,” that is, that they have a right to equal treatment in law and society.
Surveying the whole tapestry of American history, one would be hard-pressed to find any significant way in which the Islamic faith has shaped the United States in terms of its governing principles and the nature of American society. Meanwhile, there are numerous ways in which, if there had been a significant Muslim presence in the country at the time, some of the most cherished and important principles of American society and law may have met fierce resistance, and may never have seen the light of day.
So in what way has the Islamic faith shaped Obama’s country? The most significant event connected to the Islamic faith that has shaped the character of the United States was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Those attacks have shaped the nation in numerous ways: they’ve led to numerous innovations in airline security, which in generations to come – if today’s politically correct climate continues to befog minds — may be added to future versions of the fanciful “1001 Muslim Inventions” exhibition. The Islamic faith has shaped the U.S. since 9/11 in leading to the spending of billions on anti-terror measures, and to the ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to Guantanamo, and to so many features of the modern political and social landscape that they cannot be enumerated within the space of a single article.
Of course, it is certain that Obama had none of that in mind. But what could he possibly have had in mind? His statement was either careless or ignorant, or both – not qualities we need in a Commander-in-Chief even in the best of times.
The fight evil blog has been created because Western Civilization is under attack from inside and outside the culture.
From inside we are being undermined and subverted by those baby boomers who have indoctrinated our children for 40 years. Their parents turned over to us, a more peaceful world, which we (my generation) has set about destroying since we reached adulthood. It no longer matters what the causes were, the only thing that matters is recognizing the problem and facing the fact that evil is on the move in a big way, and gaining ground. One only needs to look at Europe and the UK for the secularization of the West which opens the door for the attack from outside. The biggest threat is the diversity and multiculturalism movement that has been pushed by Marx and Lenin’s “useful idiots” on the left for the last 50 years.
By finally grabbing complete control of the Democratic Party in the U.S., who now, due to the results of the recent election, control the direction of the country, these foolish do-gooders are simply accelerating the demise of the West. The THINKING European and Brit, I am sure, have felt that America was the last bastion of defense against this secularization. Now they see us finally throwing in the towel.
Western Civilization is being attacked from the outside by the rapid expansion of unhealthy, parasitic cultures. One of these evil cultures brings with it, the oppression of women and the forced subjugation of more civilized cultures that do not comply with its totalitarian edicts. This invasive culture gains entry into the host culture by exploiting what the aforementioned narcicists have created. That is, the destruction in the population of the host culture’s faith and belief in its culture. If one does not think one’s culture is superior to others, he will have nothing in him that is invested in preserving that culture. This makes it much easier for other more destructive cultures, that do think theirs is superior, to replace the host culture.
Again, one need only look at Europe and the UK for recent examples of the path we are on, and how successful that effort is. But the most recent example of the complete takeover of a free, predominantly christian culture by an inferior culture is Lebanon. This once beautiful garden and vacation spot was a gem on the Eastern Mediterranean riviera. Its Capital, Beiruit, was often referred to as the ‘Paris of the Middle East’ and was a thriving, civilized city in a beautiful and self-sustaining country. It is now a virtual wasteland, destroyed by an invading destructive cuture that terrorized the population and drove out civilization.
Those of you who know me, know that I have studied this issue since 9/11 and dug deep into the history of other cultures to understand what happened. I will be writing here often and in future entries will be recommending websites, other blogs, ‘youtube’ videos and books to enlighten you, should you so desire to be enlightened. Unfortunately, there are not enough people yet, who are aware of the threat and this blog is an effort to remedy that. In order to fight evil one must first be aware that it exists. Then be able to recognize it when you witness it. And finally, have the courage to call it what it is and stand against it.
Freedom Fighter 