I'M SHOCKED! (not really) 

I thought that these were the "good guys" in the Middle East! Didn't
President Bush just make a big speech about the "common values" shared by
the US and the Saudis? Did he mean democracy? Or just oil? 

On the other hand, "we" representatives of "all that is good in the world"
should not be so hasty to make value-judgments of other societies. What's
right for America is not always right for others, and its their right to
decide what's right for them. Right?

The same BBC website also features a story of a female pilot who has sued
the US Defense Department because she was forced to adhere to the Saudi
dress laws
when off base. Should she also be allowed to drink off base, which is also
illegal there? (In fact, I'm pretty sure drinking is not allowed on base,
either.)

Americans just have to stop assuming that others will ever share their
values or like them. The US military presence in Saudi Arabia is a matter
of shared strategic interest, not shared values. But one American value,
which SHOULD be observed by US military, is behaving like guests and not
shoving their values down their hosts' throat.






At 12:14 PM 5/8/2002 -0400, Oralia Preble-Niemi wrote:
>I had thought that once the Taliban was brought to its knees the life of 
>women in Afghanistan, and by extension the other Muslim countries in the 
>Middle East would be ameliorated.  Alas!  No.  Here is an article I saw 
>this week.
>
>Lala
>
>
>>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1969000/1969535.
stm
>
>**************************************
>"La honra puédela tener el pobre pero no el vicioso."
>         -Miguel de Cervantes- Don Quijote de la Mancha
>**************************************
>"I divide all readers into two classes:  Those who read to
>remember and those who read to forget."
>                         -William Phelps
>***************************************
>Oralia Preble-Niemi, Ph.D.
>Professor and Head
>Foreign Languages & Literatures
>University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
>Chattanooga, TN  37403
>***************************************
>
Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.