About that prison abuse scandal, we keep being reminded that sex is taboo among Arab/Muslim men. Even bees do it, but these men demur and don't do it unless it's proper, meaning, between husbands and wives. They are so virtuous. That's the story and the news media are sticking to it in this war of images -- which we're losing, by the way. We're getting to be as bad as the Israelis at hasbarah, public relations.
Of Abu Ghraib, one alleged victim kept telling us over all our networks, in approximately these words, "The Americans made me stand naked in front of other men, and women. I would rather they had killed me. Yes, this is worse. There is nothing more terrible for a Muslim than sexual humiliation."
Really.
If you believe that the act of procreation is so sanctified among Muslim men, then you missed that segment on CBS' 60 Minutes, which showed behavior of another kind. Right outside Paris, in enclaves that house a massive and disgruntled Muslim population, it is not safe being a woman. The men swagger, the women hide, as much as they can, for all women are fodder for rape. An attempt every hour on the hour seems to be about the average weekdays, weekends and holidays.
For the crime and shame of being raped, by the way, a woman is either ostracized by her kin - or murdered. In one scene from the 60 Minutes program, a rapist was cheered from the windows and balconies of his neighborhood as if he were Charles Lindbergh getting the ticker tape treatment on Broadway. The rapist.
Christiane Amanpour, who filed the report, made a strange comparison when she alleged that the (lowly) conditions of Muslims in Paris corresponded to that of blacks in America. Some (include me) might consider this a terrible insult to African-Americans. I do not think that rape binges are part of the African-American legacy. Nor are honor killings.
This attempt to connect Muslim "civil disobedience" to African-American civil rights was a sorry move at grandstanding to the Left.
Otherwise, though, the 60 Minutes report was quite unblinking. But while we'll always have Paris, to remember the sensitivity of Muslim men toward their women, there are other spots within that world where women are cattle, rape is everywhere and prurience is the lifestyle. Not universally so, to be sure, as we must assume that within Islam there is a true and honorable silent majority.
But too silent. From our side, as well.
We have yet to hear any voice mention the paradox of what a handful of us did to them, against what they do to their own as carnally and as casually as lighting up a cigarette.
Sorry, wrong parallel, as smoking is prohibited.
But in all this geshrei over Abu Ghraib, you'd think we're facing a generation of Philadelphia Main Line Country Club prudes.
Not quite so.
On a visit to a Navy base in Haifa some time back, I got to talking with a captain who had served in one Arab-Israeli war after another. He let me have it when, in my stupidity, I said, "But after all, they are Muslims, religious people." We were on the topic of Yasser Arafat and his PLO terrorists, who had made themselves a home in Lebanon (the famous "state within a state"), so that they'd be close enough to Israeli kindergartens.
"Religious?" said this IDF captain. "Let me tell you about religious."
He told me about a special raid into one camp where Arafat and his Merry Men had made themselves comfy. Particulars escape me, as it's been a while, but maybe my captain was referring to the Litani Operation that was launched by Israel in response to repeated terrorist forays from Lebanon. The terrorists had darted in and out of Israel, guns blazing, but after Litani, with the IDF close behind.
"We went into the village," said my soldier friend, "and the enemy had mostly dispersed. We entered all their huts and what we found was not the Koran, my dear friend. What we found was disgusting. There was pornography all over the place. Every wall was plastered with pictures of women in the most disgraceful poses. Then we went around to secure the town and found that all the female inhabitants - Lebanese women - were pregnant. They had all been raped."
Then: "Religious people? Please."
Yes, there's that part of the world beyond Abu Ghraib that appears to have escaped our attention. True, the events at that Iraqi prison were not quite Elvis at Jailhouse Rock.
But let's keep it all in proportion.
Not that bringing up their lopsided transgressions will stop the "gotcha" gang from using Abu Ghraib as a means to slacken our resolve. One of our TV commentators kept shouting, "We must never forget what we did to them!" We? "What you mean 'We', Kimosabe?" We're dealing with hardly a dozen misfits that did that to them... and which doesn't compare to their actions upon us before, during and after 9/11.
Those 9/11 panelists, by the way? Every time I check into their hearings I keep thinking Hollywood Squares, as in, "Weren't these faces well-known 14 years ago?" So now these bygone stars, who keep disproving F. Scott Fitzgerald, are also going after our president (at least half of them are), as if George W. Bush, or any other president, could guess what was coming literally from over the horizon.
Even 21st century wisdom and technology are not enough when the seventh century dusts itself off and starts all over again.
They know it in the outskirts of Paris. They know it in the streets of Jerusalem. They know that if it's humiliation you want, there's a big world outside Abu Ghraib.
Of Abu Ghraib, one alleged victim kept telling us over all our networks, in approximately these words, "The Americans made me stand naked in front of other men, and women. I would rather they had killed me. Yes, this is worse. There is nothing more terrible for a Muslim than sexual humiliation."
Really.
If you believe that the act of procreation is so sanctified among Muslim men, then you missed that segment on CBS' 60 Minutes, which showed behavior of another kind. Right outside Paris, in enclaves that house a massive and disgruntled Muslim population, it is not safe being a woman. The men swagger, the women hide, as much as they can, for all women are fodder for rape. An attempt every hour on the hour seems to be about the average weekdays, weekends and holidays.
For the crime and shame of being raped, by the way, a woman is either ostracized by her kin - or murdered. In one scene from the 60 Minutes program, a rapist was cheered from the windows and balconies of his neighborhood as if he were Charles Lindbergh getting the ticker tape treatment on Broadway. The rapist.
Christiane Amanpour, who filed the report, made a strange comparison when she alleged that the (lowly) conditions of Muslims in Paris corresponded to that of blacks in America. Some (include me) might consider this a terrible insult to African-Americans. I do not think that rape binges are part of the African-American legacy. Nor are honor killings.
This attempt to connect Muslim "civil disobedience" to African-American civil rights was a sorry move at grandstanding to the Left.
Otherwise, though, the 60 Minutes report was quite unblinking. But while we'll always have Paris, to remember the sensitivity of Muslim men toward their women, there are other spots within that world where women are cattle, rape is everywhere and prurience is the lifestyle. Not universally so, to be sure, as we must assume that within Islam there is a true and honorable silent majority.
But too silent. From our side, as well.
We have yet to hear any voice mention the paradox of what a handful of us did to them, against what they do to their own as carnally and as casually as lighting up a cigarette.
Sorry, wrong parallel, as smoking is prohibited.
But in all this geshrei over Abu Ghraib, you'd think we're facing a generation of Philadelphia Main Line Country Club prudes.
Not quite so.
On a visit to a Navy base in Haifa some time back, I got to talking with a captain who had served in one Arab-Israeli war after another. He let me have it when, in my stupidity, I said, "But after all, they are Muslims, religious people." We were on the topic of Yasser Arafat and his PLO terrorists, who had made themselves a home in Lebanon (the famous "state within a state"), so that they'd be close enough to Israeli kindergartens.
"Religious?" said this IDF captain. "Let me tell you about religious."
He told me about a special raid into one camp where Arafat and his Merry Men had made themselves comfy. Particulars escape me, as it's been a while, but maybe my captain was referring to the Litani Operation that was launched by Israel in response to repeated terrorist forays from Lebanon. The terrorists had darted in and out of Israel, guns blazing, but after Litani, with the IDF close behind.
"We went into the village," said my soldier friend, "and the enemy had mostly dispersed. We entered all their huts and what we found was not the Koran, my dear friend. What we found was disgusting. There was pornography all over the place. Every wall was plastered with pictures of women in the most disgraceful poses. Then we went around to secure the town and found that all the female inhabitants - Lebanese women - were pregnant. They had all been raped."
Then: "Religious people? Please."
Yes, there's that part of the world beyond Abu Ghraib that appears to have escaped our attention. True, the events at that Iraqi prison were not quite Elvis at Jailhouse Rock.
But let's keep it all in proportion.
Not that bringing up their lopsided transgressions will stop the "gotcha" gang from using Abu Ghraib as a means to slacken our resolve. One of our TV commentators kept shouting, "We must never forget what we did to them!" We? "What you mean 'We', Kimosabe?" We're dealing with hardly a dozen misfits that did that to them... and which doesn't compare to their actions upon us before, during and after 9/11.
Those 9/11 panelists, by the way? Every time I check into their hearings I keep thinking Hollywood Squares, as in, "Weren't these faces well-known 14 years ago?" So now these bygone stars, who keep disproving F. Scott Fitzgerald, are also going after our president (at least half of them are), as if George W. Bush, or any other president, could guess what was coming literally from over the horizon.
Even 21st century wisdom and technology are not enough when the seventh century dusts itself off and starts all over again.
They know it in the outskirts of Paris. They know it in the streets of Jerusalem. They know that if it's humiliation you want, there's a big world outside Abu Ghraib.