bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken) writes:  >In article <benali.737307554@alcor> benali@alcor.concordia.ca ( ILYESS B. BDIRA ) writes:  >So how would have *you* defended Saudi Arabia and rolled >back the Iraqi invasion, were you in charge of Saudi Arabia???  All Muslims knew that the whole thing was set up to destroy Iraq, not to "Liberate Kuwait", The people who were killed by the invasion are more (many many more), than the ones that were killed by the Iraqis in their smaller invasion. I lived in the west, and I have seen how  your media prepared you (helpless naive Americans) for a war against Iraq even before the artificial conflict between Iraq and Kuwait that led to the invasion, as the CIA correctly predicted (and pretended to be surprised not to know). It just happened that Saddam was so predictible and so arrogant and stupid.  What would I have done: Most Muslims would choose 300 dead Kuwaitis over 200,000 dead Iraqis and 1000 dead Kuwaitis. The first case would happen if no western intervention happened, and the second case was a direct or indirect result of western envolvement.  Human rights in Kuwait? what about human rights in Iraq? why the west gave Saddam a green light to slaughter his own people? I will give my reason: because the rich Kuwaitis do not mind to be your salves, so they deserve some democracy, but Iraqis might not, so they don't.  As simple as that, whether or not you want to admit it.  >I think that it is a very good idea to not have governments have an >official religion (de facto or de jure), because with human nature >like it is, the ambitious and not the pious will always be the >ones who rise to power.  There are just too many people in this >world (or any country) for the citizens to really know if a  >leader is really devout or if he is just a slick operator.  Not necessarily the best solution, my view of an Islamic state (and that of Turabi that your media made you hate) includes all the benefits of a secular state minus the injustices. Did you ever read a book by Rashid Al-Ghannoushi (Tunisia), Hassan Turabi (Sudan)? You only know about them from your Self-censured, self-controlled media.  If they make this kind of campaign against such a moderate thinker as Turabi is, and keep quite about such an extremist Muslim scholar as Bin Bez of Saudi Arabia is, it just does not encourage any moderation in our ARab world.  >You make it sound like these guys are angels, Ilyess.  (In your >clarinet posting you edited out some stuff; was it the following???)  No it was not that, it was just some irrelevent stuff that I took out to go around the copyright (;-))  I ceased to take the Newyork times seriously. In issues concerning Islam it has become one of the biggest enemies (although less than the other NewYork daily since Mortimer took it over). It lies, selects facts that fits its agenda and even prints racist and open anti-Muslim editorials.  What they claimed in that articles is a bunch of lies because while  the selected facts are true about some of those persons, the other members are actually defence lawyers and University science professors who wanted to fight corruption, uncover atrocities against opposition activists and Shia minority, and generally increase awareness about the rights of all  citizens. The only thing that is common between those people is their concern for the deterioration of human rights since the Saudi clan took a green light from AMerica (after the gulf) to do whatever is necessary to stay in power.    Do you know that ALL OF THE SAUDI ULEMA have been taught the same things? the ones in the official Iftaa are as conservative as the ones that are opposing it. SOme of the members of the human rights committe are MORE PRO-WOMEN and wanted to defend them, and that is precisely one reason that Bin Bez's Fatwah  implied for the "Illegality " of this committee and  for his claim that it represents "Outside interests"  There is a human rights issue in Saudi ARabia, and YOU and NY times chose to ignore the main issue and select some of the members of that committee and actually defend the actions done against them (including banning them from their Jobs.  What a hypocricy. I am not surprised really, THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME.  The official Ulema are the most extremist anti-women meat-heads in Saudi Arabia, the west continues on its campaign to discredit itself in the Muslim community, by supporting them. Well after Bosnia, I guess it has ZERO credibility to begin with, so what the heck.