> I've heard about the abuses - there are some and it's horrible - but it's not indicative of the way most people are running their businesses in Dubai.

The government seems to be complicit in these abuses, so it's a good idea to support the government just because there are some people not committing abuses?

> A mentor of mine from England headed up a project management firm there. The workers under him made 20-40 times what they could make back home in South Asia, in places where the malnourishment/literally-starving-to-death rate is sometimes 30%.

So... because some people are making a lot of money it's ok for others to suffer... ? Does what your mentor does/did in Dubai somehow negate what is happening to these other workers?

> An acquaintance of mine who worked in Dubai had a Chinese girlfriend who was a stewardess on Emirates Airlines. Emirates is pretty incredible in that they pay the same amounts to their staff regardless of country of origin - almost all airlines and cruiselines pay much less to people from China, the Philippines, etc, than they would to someone from France or Australia. Emirates pays everyone the same. The acquaintence's Chinese girlfriend bought one house every couple months back in her home province in China on her wages. Her family was becoming incredibly wealthy.

If the wealth of Dubai is build upon the backs of slave-labor, then she is raising her family out of poverty with 'blood money.' She is knocking others down in an attempt to lift herself up, though indirectly.

> A company taking someone's passport and changing their contract is really horrible fraud, a horrific crime. But that's an indictment of the whole society - this kind of nonsense happens in the West too.

It is if the society decides to ignore it. It's not necessarily what happens in a society that should define it, but how a society reacts to these events. If this 'nonesense' is happening, and the people in Dubai are happy to turn the other way and pretend it doesn't exist, is this somehow acceptable behavior? I'm sure there are plenty of people there that are willing to ignore such abuses because they are making so much money.

> Take South Korea and the United States - a common story is a girl gets promised high paid waitressing/hostessing job, gets sold into slavery. This is a terrible thing, and should be stopped - but does that mean that United States is running on slave labor? No. A few bad people is not an indictment of an entire society.

How common is this though? Point me to data/articles/etc on this practice. I somehow think that these South Korean slaves are being sent into the 'sex trade' or becoming 'slave maids.' While this is nothing that should be ignored you would have a hard time making the case the a society is 'built' or 'based on' sex workers or maids (as opposed to maintenance/construction workers).

> For a lot of very poor people, Dubai helped pull their families out of poverty. The did some amazing things there. Those things won't be mentioned in a piece like this. People who would be living on subsistence farming in China build houses and manage property after working in Dubai. People from Sri Lanka, India, and Eastern Europe can support their whole families and save money after working there for a couple years, in places where there is no opportunity and everyone is literally starving to death.

I've already mentioned it, but it bears mentioning again. If this wealth is built on the backs of slaves, these people are (indirectly) throwing others under the bus in an attempt to improve their lot in life.

> The author doesn't care about the good.

I think that the point is that the good needs to out-weigh the bad. If 1 in 5 people coming from poverty in a 3rd world country 'hit it big' in Dubai while 4 in 5 people end up in deplorable working conditions with no chance of escape, is there really a point to mentioning that there is 'some good' happening?

> The opinion piece was written before doing any research or interviews, the research and interviews were set to tell the story.

You have no evidence for this, and at this point you're just making baseless accusations as a way to somehow bolster the point that you're trying to drive home. Please don't try to back up your argument by making unfounded statements.

No offense, but you're also failing to realize that you're railing on an 'opinion' piece while offering in return nothing but your own opinion based on anecdotal evidence. You can't use your own anecdotal evidence to disprove someone else's anecdotal evidence except in specific cases (i.e. you went to the same 'slave worker' camp at around the same time but the conditions were vastly different).

> There's some bad stuff there? Oh yeah, absolutely. There's bad stuff in the USA too

No offense, but from the description of the working/living conditions of these people, illegal Mexican immigration workers in th USA that are held 'captive' by their employers have it good.