Vital Perspective

Arabian Nights: fear of female sexuality

Egyptian Dr. Muhammad Wahdan is scared of women. Otherwise this statement would be pretty hard to explain: "In Egypt we have four and a half million spinsters. The definition of a spinster is a woman who has reached 30, without ever receiving a marriage proposal. We have a spinster problem in the Arab world, and the last thing we want is for them to be sexually aroused. Circumcision of the girls who need it makes them chaste, dignified, and pure."

Click to watch the discussion.

What we can't quite figure out is what Dr. Mo is so scared of? That a "sexually aroused" female will attack him in a dark alley? Or, perhaps, that a "sexually aroused" female might find him unsatisfactory? We're not quite sure. Neither is a good reason to mutilate young girls, traumatize them for life and risk their death from blood poisoning with a procedure which Ayaan Hirsi Ali describes as follows in her autobiography: "the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: the long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests"

Hirsi Ali notes: "In Somalia, like many countries across Africa and the Middle East, little girls are made "pure" by having their genitals cut out. There is no other way to describe this procedure, which typically occurs around the age of five. After the child's clitoris and labia are carved out, scraped off, or, in more compassionate areas, merely cut or pricked, the whole area is often sewn up, so that a thick band of tissue forms a chastity belt made of the girl's own scarred flesh. A small hole is carefully situated to permit a thin flow of pee. Only great force can tear the scar tissue wider, for sex.  Female genital mutilation predates Islam. Not all Muslims do this, and a few of the peoples who do are not Islamic. But in Somalia, where virtually every girl is excised, the practice is always justified in the name of Islam. [...] Imams never discourage the practice: it keeps girls pure."

Arabian Nights: Rules for beating your wife

Bahraini Cleric Abdullah Latif Aal Mahmoud informs his audience of the correct way to beat their wives: "If the husband wants to use beatings to treat his wife, he must never ever do it in front of the children. It must remain between him and her. It must be done according to the following conditions: He must not cause bleeding or bruise her body. He should avoid her face and other sensitive parts of her body. As we've said, the limitations on beating are: They must not cause bleeding, they should not break any bones, they should not be on the face, and they should not bruise her." Watch him on Bahrain TV.

Our advice to a Muslim wife whose husband chooses to follow this mullah's advice: wait till he gets real close, then knee him right where it hurts. Hard.

Arabian Nights: Sex in Arabia

In our new Arabian Nights series, we'll explore the inner life of the Islamist male and try to find out if there is any connection between the peculiarities of sex in radical Islam, and the tendency of its adherents to blow themselves up.  Exhibit A: Saudi Sheik Muhammad Al-Munajid dispenses marital advice:  "According to Islam, a wife needs to comply with her husband's desires in bed. The Prophet Muhammad said: "If a man calls his wife to fulfill his needs, she must come, even if she is by the stove"".  The Sheik also notes with some dismay that the system is a bit different in the West, and not only because of electric stoves: "The wife in the West is not obligated to [obey her husband's desire for sex...] They claim that if [her husband] has sex with her against her will - this is rape! They consider this rape. They claim she must be willing. They claim that she must want it.""  Truly, Western women must seem rather uppity to your average Saudi male.  Click to watch the video.

Something different for a Friday evening

Enjoy.

Tiger roundup

Sri Lanka's Ministry of Defense notes:

Another Indonesian arms dealer, Hadji Subandi (69) pleaded guilty in the second Tamil Tiger sting operation case before a Baltimore USA federal judge for attempting to smuggle sophisticated weapons to the foreign terrorist group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). [...]

Subandi had been arrested in September 2006 with five other suspected arms dealers after an elaborate sting operation. As part of the sting, alleged representatives of the Tamil Tigers deposited $700,000 with undercover agents as a down payment for millions of dollars in sniper rifles, submachine guns and grenade launchers, officials say.

In this second successful sting operation conducted by the US federal government against Tamil terrorist arms buying in the US Federal Agents arrested five Asian buyers and one Sri Lankan Tamil for trying to buy US Dollars 900,000 dollars worth of surface to air missiles and other sophisticated military weapons for Sri Lanka's separatist terrorists, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Apart from the missiles, the LTTE brokers were trying to buy grenade launchers, submachine guns, sniper rifles and night vision goggles.

Three of the other Indonesian men arrested with Subandi (Reinhard Rusli, 34; Helmi Soedirdja, 33; retired Indonesian Marine Corps General Erick Wotulo) have pleaded guilty before, and the other two a Singaporan (Haniffa bin Osman) and a Sri Lankan Tamil are scheduled for trial in May.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka:

The Sri Lanka troops overran four Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam held military camps in the Trincomalee district inflicting heavy casualties among the separatists during a raid conducted before the dawn on Friday.

The Sri Lanka army troops backed by artillery and multi barrel rocket launchers killed more than 20 Tiger guerillas that came a day after the LTTE threatened to cover Sri Lanka in a blood bath if the troops did not stop the offensive.

In a separate incident the LTTE fighters killed three and wounded 13 elite police commandos by ambushing an armored vehicle by a roadside bombin the Batticaloa District.

Five Sri Lankan soldiers are being held hostage by the LTTE, which is threatening to attack civilian vessels plying the waters between Trincomalee and Jaffna.

In India:

In its crackdown against LTTE supporters in the state, the Tamil Nadu Police have so far arrested 41 persons, including 16 Sri Lankans, Director General of Police D Mukherjee said here today.

[...]a Sri Lankan Tamil was arrested in Tiruchirapalli on March 6 and Rs 10 lakh seized from him. Based on information given by him, another Sri Lankan Tamil was arrested. His questioning led to the seizure of 150 bags of iron balls, weighing 4,500 Kg from Permanalur.

Two other Sri Lankan Tamils were subsequently arrested at Chennai, as also another Indian who provided Rs 17.66 lakh of 'hawala' money. Another person was arrested at Pudukottai yesterday, Mukherjee said.

Listing steps taken from November 29 last, he said 750 Kg of explosives, about to be smuggled to Sri Lanka from Kerala, were seized that day. Four persons, including one who was absconding for the past 18 months, were arrested.

Mukherjee said police conducted surprise raids in Chennai and Tuticorin on january 23 and seized 7.5 tonnes of iron balls meant for being smuggled to Sri Lanka. Twelve persons, including five Sri Lankans, were arrested.

Again on Feb 12, the Navy seized 92 bags of aluminium bars near Dhanushkodi. During the course of the investigation, 11 persons were arrested and 1.5 kg of aluminium bars seized.

The next day, the Coast Guard seized a boat carrying explosives off the Palk Straits. Five persons including four Sri Lankans were arrested. The boat was later destroyed in mid sea.

On February 14, the Navy seized a country boat carrying explosives and aluminium bars and arrested three Sri Lankans.

Su-Shi Watch: the silence of the Saudis

Ralph Peters writes: .

..when Sunni suicide bombers murdered 118 Shia pilgrims (and wounded almost 200 more) on Tuesday, Sunnis around the globe looked away: Shias only count as Muslims when America can be blamed for their suffering.[...]

The Sunni Arab campaign against Shias isn't just a struggle for political advantage: It reflects an impulse to genocide. And it makes a grim joke of claims of Muslim unity.

He notes that the suicide bombers that murdered the Shia pilgrims were Saudi. The Saudis, despite the thinly veiled bribes they offer in the form of future lucrative consulting gigs and lavish endowments etc for the Washington DC nomenklatura and many of its institutions (if you haven't read Bob Baer's Sleeping with the Devil yet, there's never a better time than the present, and note especially the parts expunged by our erstwhile intelligence establishment no doubt to avoid embarrassing our so called "Saudi friends") are still promoting radical Sunni Islam and inciting hatred towards everyone else - Christians, Jews, Anamists, Shia, Buddhists, gays, etc - at every turn. 

To the Saudi royal family, dead Shias aren't tragedies - they're trophies. One almost expects those bloated, bigoted princes to organize Shia-hunting safaris the way they slaughter endangered species when vacationing in impoverished African countries (been there, seen that).

Bloated, bigoted and lavishly fueling their corruption and hatred mongering with proceeds from the biggest pot of oil on the planet. The al Saud family sits on one quarter (you read that right, 25%, one family) of the world's oil reserves. And boy are they putting their oil money to effective use.

the Saudis are waging a propaganda campaign to convince American opinion-makers that they're our best pals in the whole, wide world.

It works. An honorable elder statesman I respect recently got suckered during a junket to Saudi Arabia. He left Riyadh convinced he'd been sitting down with our indispensible allies.

Well, the view I've seen with my own eyes - in dozens of Muslim and mixed-faith countries - is of Saudi money spent lavishly to divide struggling societies, to block social and educational progress for Muslims and to preach deadly hatred toward the West.

Until 9/11, the Saudis got away with their extremist filth in this country, too. And Saudi-funded mosques here still seek to prevent Muslims from integrating into American society.

The Saudis, not the Iranians, are the worst anti-American hate-mongers in the world today. When our dignitaries visit Prince Bandar and his buddies, they get the (literal) royal treatment. But in the slums of Mombasa or Cairo, in Lahore, Delhi and Istanbul, the Saudis do everything in their power to make Muslims hate us. 

[...]Our relationship with the Saudis reminds me of the scene in the film "The Shining" when Jack Nicholson's character imagines he's embracing a beautiful woman only to open his eyes and find himself smooching a decomposing corpse. It's time for Washington's Saudi-lovers to open their eyes.

We couldn't have said it better.

Highly enriched Islam

An excerpt form Thomas Friedman's latest column:

The Associated Press reported from Afghanistan that a suicide attacker disguised as a health worker blew himself up near "a crowd of about 150 people who had gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open an emergency ward at the main government hospital in the city of Khost." A few days later, at a Baghdad college, a female Sunni suicide bomber blew herself up amid students who were ready to sit for exams, killing 40 people.

Stop and think for a moment how sick this is.[...]

Nobody in the Arab world "has the guts to say that what is happening in Iraq is wrong -- that killing schoolkids is wrong," said Mamoun Fandy, director of the Middle East program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "People somehow think that killing Iraqis is good because it will stick it to the Americans, so Arabs are undermining the American project in Iraq by killing themselves."

The world worries about highly enriched uranium, but "the real danger is highly enriched Islam," Fandy added. That is, "highly enriched Sunnism" and "highly enriched Shiism" that eats away at the Muslim state, the way Hezbollah is trying to do in Lebanon or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or al-Qaida everywhere.

[...] suicide bombers go uncondemned or subtly extolled. [...] Arab nationalist media like Al-Jazeera "practically tell bin Laden and his followers, 'Bravo,"' Fandy said. "The message sent to bin Laden is that 'You are doing to the West what we want done, but we can't do it.' This is the hidden message that the West is not privy to. Unless extreme pressure is applied on Muslims all over the world to come up with counter-fatwas and pronounce these men as pariahs, very little will happen in fighting terrorism."

Friedman also quotes a poem by an Arab reformist translated by MEMRI. Here are some choice lines:

Walid Jumblatt is a funny guy

On February 14, 2007 Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt had the following to say to Syrian dictator Bashar-Al Assad (aka the opthamologist):   "oh tyrant of Damascus, you ape unknown to nature, you snake from which even the snakes have fled, you whale vomited by the ocean, you wild desert beast, you creature that is only half-man" (he also indulges in the standard Middle East rhetoric by calling him an "Israeli product", which Basher may have found more insulting, but at least he didn't call him a shoe)

In a Feb. 23 interview, Jumblatt decided to apologize...(drumroll.....)

Eat your heart out Nasrallah!

Girls! with guns! Enjoy. We sure did.

The world of genital mutilation

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, refugee from radical Islam, quoted in an excellent article by Christopher Hitchens: "I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and sexual emancipation. After making this voyage I know that one of these two worlds is simply better than the other. Not for its gaudy gadgetry, but for its fundamental values."

In the Winter 2007 issue of the Middle East Quarterly, Thomas von der Osten-Sacken and Thomas Uwer have an excellent article on the brutal subject of female genital mutilation in the Islamic world, citing some shocking figures, for example: 97% of girls in Egypt are mutilated in this way. They write, "Among social activists and feminists, combating female genital mutilation (FGM) is an important policy goal. Sometimes called female circumcision or female genital cutting, FGM is the cutting of the clitoris of girls in order to curb their sexual desire and preserve their sexual honor before marriage. The practice, prevalent in some majority Muslim countries, has a tremendous cost: many girls bleed to death or die of infection. Most are traumatized. Those who survive can suffer adverse health effects during marriage and pregnancy. New information from Iraqi Kurdistan raises the possibility that the problem is more prevalent in the Middle East than previously believed and that FGM is far more tied to [the Muslim] religion than many Western academics and activists admit."

The authors give the example of Iraqi Kurdistan, where "Midwives often perform the operation with unsterilized instruments or even broken glass and without anesthesia on girls four to twelve years old. The extent of mutilation depends on the experience of the midwife and the luck of the girl. The wound is then treated with ash or mud with the girls then forced to sit in a bucket of iced water. Many Kurdish girls die, and others suffer chronic pain, infection, and infertility. Many say they suffer symptoms consistent with posttraumatic stress disorder syndrome. [...] Most women referred to the practice as both a tradition and a religious obligation. When asked why they subject their daughters to the operation, many women respond "it has always been like that." Because the clitoris is considered to be "dirty" (haram, the connotation is forbidden by religion), women fear that they cannot find husbands for their daughters if they have not been mutilated; many believe men prefer sex with a mutilated wife."