Make Some Noise!

"Because camel racing is extremely dangerous and arduous, especially for children," the suit says, "the Arab sheikhs would not make their own children jockeys and trainers. The sheikhs instead bought boys who had been abducted and trafficked across international boundaries and enslaved as young as two years old...

"The defendants robbed parents of their children and boys of their childhoods, their futures and sometimes their lives, for the craven purposes of entertainment and financial gain."
(read the rest

The suit (somewhat ironic, such is life) is being filed in the US (you can stop gagging now) against members of one of the leading families of Dubai. This practice, as Anti-Slavery notes, is not limited to Dubai but, in fact, is common practice is the Gulf States.

These states, of course, are seen as natural allies of the US, for a number of reaons: oil, money, influence, possible employment after being president, and, oh, yes, oil.

Not to diss friends of mine from Dubai and the Gulf whom I love dearly, but I would like to point out to my fellow Americans who might ask themselves "why do they hate us" once in awhile: this is one of the reasons. When you support a society that believes it is ok to enslave children (usually from much poorer nations) to serve as jockeys or whatever, you are no better than they are.

It's nice to have a variety of friends, but as they say, lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas. Aiding and abetting human rights abuse and child trafficking, Mr. President, does not become the US. And neither does torture, black ops, secret torture centers or anything else of that nature of which you and AG Alberto Gonzalez seem so fond.

These things may not bother you too much when out of the public eye, but it offends the national conscience, and that, Mr. Bush, supercedes all your weasling behind the scenes, dealings to assure yourself of something to do when you step down, and that pseudo-anti-terrorism gobbledygook you graced us with this week.