Well, despite the bland and empty assurances of the Islamic apologists who frequent the site, we are about to be treated to yet another spectacle in Iran.

Nine Iranians have been sentenced to death by stoning for the alleged offense of adultery. The eight women and one man were convicted in cities throughout Iran by different judges. The disproportionate number of women faces death is revealing. Ater all, if one has enough "evidence" to sentence the female half of the adulterous pair to death then one must necessarily have enough evidence to so sentence the male half. Apparently, there is an extra burden of proof if one desires to convict a male adulterer under Sharia law.

Where is Hureea with his assurances that a death sentence for adultery is practically impossible? That it requires multiple witnesses to the act of penetration? According to Shadi Sadr, a human rights lawyer in Iran, six of those convicted were convicted solely on the basis of alleged confessions given to the judge...confessions obtained without witnesses or lawyers present. No witnesses, let alone four witnesses, testified in their cases.

Last week, two women were "executed" in Afghanistan by Taliban "authorities" for the alleged offense of pandering for the Coalition Forces. Of course, they were not stoned to death. The Taliban, captured on film by a reporter at the scene, shot the women. One was shot multiple times in the back as she knelt among her killers. The other was shot multiple times in the head as she too knelt among her killers. I suspect we will not be afforded the opportunity to examne the "evidence" against these two women but I am pretty sure it did not consist of multiple independent witnesses who observed any overt act.

Eleven people, convicted under Sharia law and killed or awaiting death...deaths Hureaa et al assure us will never happen due to the generous legal protections Sharia affords. One wonders how long after Sharia comes to America or Britian, as some authorities suggest should be allowed to happen, we will see Muslim communities murdering their members...

No matter how much such acts disgust most people, they are fairly common place in within the Islamic world. I wonder exactly happened to account for this man facing death by stoning? Usually the vast majority of the victims of such stonings are women. I am sure there was some extra perceived insult to the Islamic authorities which sealed the mans fate.

Well, Law.. there have already been documented cases of Honor Killings in the US and Canada. But please don't be just alarmed for Islamic women.. stats are equally alarming all over the world.. just here in the US..

MURDER. Every day four women die in this country as a result of domestic violence, the euphemism for murders and assaults by husbands and boyfriends. That's approximately 1,400 women a year, according to the FBI. The number of women who have been murdered by their intimate partners is greater than the number of soldiers killed in the Vietnam War.

BATTERING. Although only 572,000 reports of assault by intimates are officially reported to federal officials each year, the most conservative estimates indicate two to four million women of all races and classes are battered each year. At least 170,000 of those violent incidents are serious enough to require hospitalization, emergency room care or a doctor's attention.

SEXUAL ASSAULT. Every year approximately 132,000 women report that they have been victims of rape or attempted rape, and more than half of them knew their attackers. It's estimated that two to six times that many women are raped, but do not report it. Every year 1.2 million women are forcibly raped by their current or former male partners, some more than once.

I get the point that many of these victims are not then killed, as are those under Sharia Law, yet.. Justice Dept stats are dismal when it comes to seeking justice for the crimes against women. ...

it's dicey business being a woman.

I think LM is talking about stoning to death being legal punishment for adultery in Afghanistan, Iran,Sudan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and in parts of the states in Nigeria. Iran is especially brutal towards women, this is true. This past year the UAE, after much human right lobbying dropped a case.

btw Wandering, in Latin American countries, ‘crimes of passion’ committed by men are treated very leniently and many times excused. They are not classified as murders. The abuse of women’s knows no boundaries. There are abuses in all cultures and religions.

I get it CG.. but as I was thinking about the point Law was making (the usual Muslim defense found on this board and Sharia Law in general) the topic jumped in my mind to a big picture of global/historical proportions.. (there's no medication for that fyi)

*you did it too, lol

Wandering, I know you do... When Muslim countries like the ones I listed advocate this type of punishment, it only inspires, Muslims worldwide to practice honour killings in their own neighborhoods...illegally. The real question LM should be asking is, why on earth are US companies like Halliburton, ones who have benefited financially from the War in Iraq, now headquartered in a place like the UAE? The UAE one of the few Muslim countries who stones women to death if they are found to commit adultery. Where is LM's outrage?

Dubai, of course has become the "jewel" of the ME...replacing Beirut with all it's spendor! Until these leader countries banish this practice, I am afraid it will continue our neighborhoods in the USA...

Stoning is a very archaic and barbaric practice for those who refuse to join the modern world and want to try to hold on to old and unfair (Especially to women) forms of justice.

Many of the countries that practice this sort of justice are U.S. Allies and we need to stress to them that these practices must cease if we are to continue are relationships with them.

I believe you answered the question within the question.. 'have benefited financially'



I tend not to invite LM's outrage.. it seems to have a very natural path. Best for one not to interfer with that...

Unfortunately, Law, I haven't seen hureea around here since April. I'm afraid others will have to take up the slack.

Once upon a time, women in Iraq ran businesses, not only attended universities but taught in them as well, managed hospitals.
They could wear whatever they chose in public.
They did not have to wear hajib unless they chose to do so.
They could wear make-up if they pleased.
They could marry for love and they could get divorced if it didn't work out.

No more...
Bush and his supporters ended that for the women of Iraq. Now, they can be stoned to death...

No, CG, actually it was religious radicals who more or less ruined it. You know, I heard on the internet that the sun is going to burn out in a few billion years. I suppose you think that is Bush's fault too...

It is indeed sad that the Bush administration toppled the secular government of Saddam Hussein and turned Iraq into an Islamic republic governed by Shariah, thereby legalizing honor killings there.

It is also indeed sad that Bush, who becomes nearly orgasmic in his praise of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq which has resulted in over 100,000 Muslim civilian deaths there, wants to exploit the murders of Muslim women to support the invasion and occupation.

Wow, speaking of orgasmic! However, it is good to see just how successful the Surge has been. Last year at this time the lefties were foaming at the mouth about the 600,000 Iraqi deaths that had taken place. NOW, at least, we're down to 100,000. I'd call that progress.

______________________________
George Bush's America: Terror attack free since 9/11

No. It wasn't necessarily Bush's fault. But Iraq under Hussein was a very secular nation. If one takes a step back in time, that time when we, the United States, supported him, you'd realize that the Iraqi's were a very educated peoples. Men and women alike. Back then, and I've mentioned it before, people lived the good life in Iraq as long as they weren't suspected of speaking out against their government.

Were people massacred under Hussein? Absolutely. Why should that concern us though? A lot of people have been killed under regimes just as brutal as Hussein's... Regime's that we as the United States have supported.

Big deal, right? It wasn't religious radicals that destroyed Iraq. It was us. Lawmage, you know damn well after the first Iraq war we had the opportunity to overthrow Hussein. Not only did we have the opportunity, we actually gave our word to the Kurds that we would support them, amongst others, in their attempt to overthrow Saddam.

What did we do? Not only did we not support them, not only did we not keep our promise to them, we went so far as to prevent them access to the weapons we confiscated in Hussein.

You can blame the longest war the US has ever been involved in on the religious nut jobs in the country but we really have no one but ourselves to blame for this mess.

And yes, it's still a mess. And this mess falls solely at our president's feet.

That is stunning bullshit. You keep spouting off on how successful this surge has been. Fine. It drove down violence in the country. Well,it more pushed the violence outside the major urban areas to the more rural places but whatever, you're right, the surge sorta worked. Now I want you to admit that had your beloved president followed the Pentagon's advice, the advice that our generals gave him in which they told him that they needed far more troops than what Rumsfeld was willing to give... Had our president originally followed their advice we may have been out of this country by now.

Ray, I want you to admit the president was wrong. That's all. Admit that had he listened to his military planners this whole mess may have been over a few years ago. It absolutely kills me that you sit there and chuckle to yourself about how this increase in a troop presence has decreased violence in the country when had Bush listened to his war planners this whole drawn out war could have been prevented. .

Maybe if we went to war with the amount of troops we really needed we'd have half the body count right now, not that I think you're all that concerned about a body count on either side but whatever. At least these American hating American's make an outright stink out of this war. If it was up to your republican ilk, they'd be sitting in their smokey back rooms talking amongst themselves about how piss poorly this war has been run.

CG says 100,000 Muslim civilian deaths, and you accuse her of saying 100,000 Iraqi deaths.

Do you think we can't read? Well, yes, probably, neo-cons do think the rest of us are pretty damn stupid, and deserving of the cynical treatment we're getting from "George Bush's America--truth free since 2001"

I'm sorry. You obviously missed the point of my sarcasm. I merely wanted to remind people that it was members of the Blame America First crowd, much like youself, who were shrieking about how 600,000 thousand Iraqis had been killed and ALL because the U.S. invaded Iraq. So now the figure, for the moment, comes down to 100,000 and I wouldn't bet the farm on that number being any too accurate. Remember, it's being projected by a liberal and we all know how liberals depend upon facts, as opposed to emotion, to get their points across. (P.S. Stone. That last line was some more of that sarcasm I mentioned earlier)



My, my, my. That's quite impressive. So you think maybe Chocolate didn't mean "Iraqis" but was including, oh say Muslims in Indonesia, too, huh? Well let's just look at what she said:


Do you supposed it might be possible to infer from Chocolategeniis combination of the words "Iraq" and "there" to mean she was talking about deaths IN Iraq? And furthermore, would it be too far fetched to conclude that the vast majority of those deaths (of civilians, mind you, that's what she said, "civilians") might be comprised of Iraqis, even though she used the term "Muslims?" Hmmm?


Yeah. Could make you wonder where in the world anyone would get that idea.

It matters because Hussein's leadership of Iraq was deemed a threat to the stability of the region. While the United States doesn't personally recieve a large share of oil from the middle east, Europe on the other hand does. Now if an event were to occur (such as a war or revolution) in the region that would cause a severe number of oil exports to drop off the market this would cause severe world wide recessions as seen in the 70's or even (depending on the volume lost) world wide depression because of the dynamic trading relationship other nations, including our own, share with Europe. In a world economy that is heavily dependant on oil instability in the middle east that affects oil exports hurts everyone.

Wether or not the Bush cabinet really thought that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or, (and this is what I think) they saw an increasingly destabilizing government with Hussein losing control of a country that was merely a gateway between two natural enemies (shia and sunni) who together were responsible for almost 40% of the region's oil exports (if not more) we'll never know. But what I do know is that our presence in the middle east does come with some benefits.

As Iran's nuclear program develops conflict between Israel and Iran seems almost eminent and our presence in Iraq not only puts pressure on Iran, it causes the Israelis to look to us for an ok before they fly over Iraqi air space to bomb Iran. I may be wrong, but I think the Israelis would burn this world before they let another nation or military force try to erase them from both history and the future again and we may very well be the only thing between the two nations at this point.

I think in general that our foreign policy towards the middle east needs to focus around the primary goal of maintaining stability in the region. This is something that can both benefit the local peoples and the world economy at the same time. Should we be maintaining this stability by force, in my opinion no. But at this point there's no do-overs and we're in Iraq and should help the locals redevelop their government and nation before we leave. We should also be promoting stability by stimulating economic growth in the region.

The middle east suffers from one of the worst unemployment rates in the world. Employment was also considerably worse for yong people than older people with unemployment rates being eight to ten times higher for 15-24 year olds compared to 25-34 year olds. The MENA region has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, at 25.6% compared to the global average of 7.4%. The youth labor participation ratio is somewhere near 29.7% compared to the global average of 47.3%. With jobless youth it's no wonder they're so easily swayed by terrorists and fundamentalists alike.

Basically with such low employment rates, as a region they fail to compete with the rest of the world, which is why they're falling behind economically in a world economy. If we want to see improvement in this region of any kind it's going to have to start with their economy. It's the heart of every great nation and all things flow from it.

At the time of the Iraq invasion, our focus should have been Afghanistan. Once bin Laden was found, the Taliban routed, and stability restored, or at least deals made with warlords, we could have focused on Iraq if we needed to.

There are many reports now from people who were there that the invasion of Iraq was on Bush's agenda even before the 9/11 attacks. This is one of the reasons why many people believe (erroneously in my opinion) that the US in some way caused the WTC attacks to happen.

When you get reports like the current one by Seymour Hirsch that plans were discussed by Dick Cheney and others to dress Navy Seals in Iranian drag, put them on speedboats, and fire at our Naval forces, thus providing an excuse for the invasion of Iran, you can see how people would think this way.

These plans were abandoned not because they were so evil, but because the planners didn't want Americans shooting Americans, which I think is rather sporting of them.

As far as countries whose choice of capital punishment is stoning, I suggest that when the US takes advice from other countries about our own system of execution, we will be in a position to dole out advice to other countries on theirs.

Seymour Hersch is the "Chris Matthews" of the print world, with the exception that Matthews probably hews closer to facts.

Again, you have not attacked the facts alleged, but the messenger. Please comment on the statement I made, and show why it's wrong.

Ooooo! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Yet one more marvelous quote to dredge up the next time you start talking about Adam's apples or oxycontin or "fair & balanced." What a guy!

Please comment on the statement I made and show why it's wrong.

It's okay, Dax. I spoke to the home; he goes tomorrow.

Wait a second...How exactly should we respond to patent absurdities? Herch makes all sorts of allegations with anonymous sources...How are we supposed to "attack the facts alleged" when they are akin to saying little green men from Mars have cloned all of humanity and rule the world in secret? Some times it is sufficent to say the guy has consistently been full of shit, he is making another absurd allegation, and its rather likely he is still full of shit.

In this country, before you can be convicted of a crime worthy of capital punishment you have to endure an often times excruciatingly long legal process that ends with a jury of your peers determining your fate after two highly educated individuals battle over the conviction through the details of the case and the law. Even after you get sentenced to death you likely will have many opprotunities to make appeals or even be exonerated based on later discoveries in your case while you sit on death row for 10-15 years if not more.

None of these things have been available to the accused in this situation and making the comparison between lethal injection and being stoned to death in terms of civility is (and not to be rude) somewhat ridiculous.

If you will demonstrate Hersh (Hirsch, Hirsh, Hersch, I always screw up that spelling) has been factually wrong in many cases, or in any case, for that matter, and that what he wrote has been shown to be untrue, I'll wait here for your answer. Otherwise, I'll be at the bar.

Maybe Lawmage should learn how to respond to his own 'patent absurdities,' first. He could then go on to attack McCain's campaign ads and Limbaugh's erroneous statements. But wait, he can't do that, can he? He can only attack Obama.

Similar to the maner in which you continuously attack our men and women in uniform, Liz...