Saudi Arabia @ MindSay 
As part of my job and the properties of "ongoing education" I do a fair bit of reading in my field. The bulk of it, for me, is made up of professional blogs where others have done the research. Now, I know that sounds lazy, but I do plenty of research on my own (as you well know if you read my blog with any regularity), so it only seems fair that I be allowed to break once in a while and let others do the work.
Having said that, one of my "not so scholarly but sure fun to read" favorites is the blog by the Annoyed Librarian (AL). This is a blog where the anonymous writer expresses less than popular opinions about the happenings in librarianship. I love her (or him...I don't know for certain) because the writing in thoughtful and intelligent, but snarky all the same. I do get a lot of solid information about current issues in the field from this blog, but mostly what I get is comedic relief and the joy of watching others light up over opinions that don't jive with their own.
Okay, so I was reading it today and there was a post about a job announcement. The job is for an academic librarian at a new university in Saudi Arabia. The reason it was on the AL blog is because the listing is for a male librarian. Yep, read the announcement again....Male Librarian, as in, females need not apply. My favorite part of the posting is where they say that all candidates MUST "be willing to do any and all tasks assigned, even if they are beyond the scope of the 'contract position'." What does that mean? Like the position description requires you to help people find books and do research, but if your boss asks you to go out on your lunch break and rob a bank, you are required to do it? Also, I really enjoyed that the candidate MUST be in possession of a master's degree in librarianship from an ALA-accredited school. ALA being the American Library Association. So, we hate the infidels, but they sure do know how to teach library skills....is that how it is?
Why am I blogging about it? Well, it isn't because I was offended. From my understanding, they don't let women drive cars in Saudi Arabia, so why would I expect them to hire females in professional positions? I don't. I think they should, I am a big believer in equality for all, but I don't get to make the laws of the universe. It'd be cool if I did, for sure, but so far, I can't get a full time librarian job, so ruler of the universe is probably out.
I just thought I would mention it because it is a pretty hot button issue, with our interests in the Middle East and all. But what is really interesting to me is the comments that the post generated. At the bottom of the original message by the AL you can click on the comments and read what people are saying. The directions that people go with these things, the things that people choose to care about, sometimes--sometimes it truly boggles the mind.
| By Heba Saleh BBC News |
 Many Saudi executions are beheadings by the sword in public places |
In a letter to King Abdullah, the rights group described the trial and conviction of Fawza Falih as a miscarriage of justice.
The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read.
Among her accusers was a man who alleged she made him impotent.Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7244579.stm
To ensure the prestige of Saudi involvement in Annapolis this week Israel (i.e. the Olmert government) had to agree that the entire West Bank, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the entirety of the Holy Temple Mount be on the table for consideration in the formation of a Palestine State.
Olmert might as well have hired pied pipers and lead Jews marching into the sea of oblivion.
JRH 11/25/07
Youssef Ibrahim writes about Saudi Arabia from the perspective of former CIA Agent Robert Baer. The picture is not pretty. The picture painted of Saudi Arabia is that of an evil Mohammedan Kingdom bent on global subversion via Wahhabi fundamentalism coupled paradoxically with wealthy Saudis living the life of a Western hedonist.
Think of that! Next to Israel, Saudi Arabia is considered by many (especially pro-Arabists) to be central as an American ally in the Middle East as well as a source of political stability. Indeed the fact is Saudi Arabia via the dissemination of evil propaganda and the duplicity of the most corrupt versions of Western hedonism is emerging as an enigmatic source of political instability in the Middle East.
This polarity of Wahhabism and hedonism could topple the Saudi Monarchy or the entire royal family much as the Shah of Iran was deposed. It just takes one moronic President in the image of Jimmah Carter for that to happen.
JRH 8/29/07
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Saudi Arabia: The Islamist Cage
BY YOUSSEF IBRAHIM
August 27, 2007
The New York Sun (Print Version)
A former prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, recently declared he was returning home to try to regain power after six years of exile — in Saudi Arabia. The day that the monster of Uganda, Idi Amin, was removed from power in 1979, he flew to a country where sanctuary as a Muslim African leader would be guaranteed upon his arrival — Saudi Arabia.
And in 1970, immediately following the death of an Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leadership of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement returned home in droves to try to Islamize their native land — after two decades in Saudi Arabia.
Thus, Saudi Arabia ever expands its fundamentalist cage.
Robert Baer, a 20-year veteran of the CIA and the author of "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude," has often described the Saudis as the world's primary financiers of terrorism, the source of much of Al Qaeda's leadership, and an incubating station for radical Islam.
Though such activities have come back to haunt the Saudis and their allies in America — Islamist terror struck home in 1995, 1996, and 1998 bombings, two American embassies were attacked in Africa, and the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen in the leadup to the attacks of September 11, 2001 — the Saudi system continues to perpetuate the model.
The reason, according to Mr. Baer and other Middle East analysts, is that Saudi Arabia runs on two currencies: the riyal and Islam.
Neither Saudi society nor its ruling establishment can escape: All of its constituent elements — from business and charity to religious instruction, law enforcement, and foreign relations — rattle inside the cage of the country's fundamentalist obsessions: The Saudi flag contains a Koranic verse. The Saudi monarch wraps his authority in Islam as "the custodian of Mecca and Medina." Saudi foreign aid is based on building fundamentalist madrassas and mosques, supporting such fundamentalist groups as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and spreading Koranic instruction worldwide.
Arab and Muslim expatriate workers who have lived and worked in Saudi Arabia — easily numbering 50 million over the last three decades — return imbued with a model of militancy that duplicates an Osama bin Laden-style path toward jihad against their home societies.
This vicious cycle mattered little when oil was cheap and the Saudis were a mere curiosity. But Saudi Arabia's power grew as it was transformed into a prime energy source in the 1970s, a huge financial influence in the 1980s, and an immense lobbying presence in the 1990s.
By the late '90s, there were full-size mirror images of Saudi Arabia's stilted brand of Islam in Egypt, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Kosovo, as well as among Muslim communities in Europe, Australia, and America. More mirror images are in the making.
In one of his many interviews since leaving the CIA, Mr. Baer gave an interesting analysis of the elements that make for the creation and exportation of this model, describing Saudi Arabia as both hapless and evil.
"They feel humiliated by colonialism, by the United States, by Israel — call it what you want. They feel they are citizens or subjects of a country that has never fought a war, and yet spends so much money on defense. They're humiliated that they don't take the Israelis on, because their army is worthless. They sit around and they read the Koran. And they get on these Islamic Web sites, and they watch Al-Jazeera. And they go to the mosque."
In other words, the Saudis do little except rattle around within the cage of their own fundamentalism. This deep confusion is reflected throughout the ruling family, which contains both princes who are Westernized — in such vulgar aspects as drinking, womanizing, gambling, and wearing diamond-studded Rolex watches — and others who leave a mosque only to enter a charity that nurtures madrassas turning out little bin Ladens.
Their schizophrenia is exemplified in such global personalities as Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, a multibillionaire businessman who simultaneously invests his billions in America while funding both the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is the American chapter of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood.
In the end, the Saudis are just rattling around in their cage. A society with no social project except to produce more Muslims, deeper Muslims, better Muslims, ends up as one that produces Muslim fanatics and terrorists.
Now, with oil prices having moved north of $70 dollar a barrel, a lot more trouble will be coming our way out of the Saudi cage.
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The original New York Sun URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/61322
© 2007 The New York Sun, One SL, LLC. All rights reserved.
I have been a huge President Bush supporter almost to the bitter end. For real, I have been! Even now I support Bush’s decision to go after terrorists in foreign nations: Lead in – Afghanistan and Iraq.
Then something happened and I am not really sure what it was. I know it has something to do with a cabal of media hatred, Democratic Party/Lefty hatred, inter-Administration bureaucratic hatred (e.g. State Department & CIA), European democracies hatred, Arabic hatred and probably some other hatred I forgot to mention or I am unaware of. I am guessing with so much hatred a politician must feel an urge to compromise somewhere.
It is in that seeming compromise on how to win the War on Terror that has turned me into a non-Bush supporter or at least a cherry picking supporter.
One absurdity of the Bush Doctrine on the War on Terror is the giving of massive arms to terrorists (Palestinians) and clandestine supporters of terrorism and American hatred (Saudi Arabia).
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