I'm starting to think that the increased US engagement in the Muslim world might have to do with the fact that the Bushies want to build up powerful, financially capable allies out of some of the only other nations on earth that sanction execution, oppression of women, homophobia, marriage, purity, and religion. The Dubai thing is just another move toward an Axis of Extremist Conservatism.
Actually, I'd be careful about such generalizations. UAE is a very particular kind of country: only 12 per cent of the population and 7 per cent of the work force is made up of citizens. The big issues (see, e.g., Human Rights Watch's report) don't seem to be social or religious ones - Al Qaeda claims UAE is a major enemy for its sidling up to the USA - but ones related to the labor market. Perhaps due to the undemocratic nature of the UAE's government, I'm not aware of any major extremist/Islamist movement within UAE; the concern is of infiltration, what with the UAE's role as a labor hub and Al Qaeda's claim to have infiltrated the government.
They may not be radical Muslims, but they're hardly what I'd call liberal. The framing of economics and terrorism as the "big issues" is, I suspect, crafted to avoid the fact that we're gradually creating a conservatized base. When I lived there as a little kid, they'd do public executions by stoning on the tv for crimes like marital infidelity. You hardly need to be a Militant Jihad Extremist or whatever to be fucking scary.
Good point. I guess I just hadn't come across anything on public executions or whatever (which is not to say that it doesn't happen). Crazy.
We've never had a problem with repressive regimes, so long as they're stable ones we can deal with and not just a bunch of hairy radicals in caves who want to bomb us.
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We've never had a problem with repressive regimes, so long as they're stable ones we can deal with and not just a bunch of hairy radicals in caves who want to bomb us.
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