Bush ally arrests American woman for sitting with man

In Saudi Arabia, religious police have arrested and brutalized a 37-year-old American businesswoman because she sat with a male business partner at a Starbucks. (The purpose of the Starbucks meeting was to use the coffee shop's Internet.)

Why was she arrested? Because the government there - much like the Bush regime - is run by a bunch of religious extremists!

The mother of 3 was then visited by American embassy officials, who pledged to file a report about the arrest, but so far they seem to have been softballing it. Why? Because Bush is allied with the Saudi government, and Bush likes to cavort with its officials. The Bush thugocracy isn't too enthusiastic about going to bat for Americans who get in trouble with totalitarian foreign regimes that it's allied with.

I know there's a saying about "when in Rome, do as the Romans do", but what's completely unacceptable is the outright mistreatment of an American citizen on the grounds that she sat with a business partner of the opposite sex. Bill Clinton occasionally stepped up for Americans in trouble abroad, while Bush doesn't do shit. Clinton quite properly intervened against the brutal caning of a U.S. citizen in Singapore accused of vandalism. (This led to conservative traitors in the U.S. turning against their own government in favor of Singapore.) Clinton even intervened for Americans in trouble in places like Mexico that aren't nearly as strict: He rightly stood up for a man who accidentally made a wrong turn near the border and drove into Mexico with his gun in his car and was accused by Mexican authorities of gun smuggling. Mexico doesn't have caning, but Clinton's actions saved the man from a prison term.

But (to quote the '88 convention mantra) where's George? (I know that slogan referred to the elder Bush, but it still applies.) And where's the American media? I can only find the story about the Saudi Arabia arrest in a foreign paper. I'm not saying America should impose its laws in foreign countries, but by golly, we can't sit around and let Americans suffer the loss of basic natural rights that everyone in the world is born with regardless of country.

What it boils down to is, as long as a human rights abuse against an American takes place in a Bush-allied country, Bush doesn't give a shit. In fact, he probably doesn't give a shit no matter what country it happens in.

(Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3321637.ece)