Posted on 11/22/2006 7:11:10 AM PST by goldstategop
While Americans celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, Saudi Arabians already had theirs over the weekend.
Tomorrow, we eat turkey. Over the weekend, the Saudis had us begging to eat crow over a man named Turki.
In an utter display of American weakness and shame, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers traveled to Saudi Arabia to apologize. Apologize for the American justice system and virtually everything else that America stands for.
Suthers went to Saudi Arabia to apologize for the conviction of Homaidan Al-Turki. Just before Labor Day, Al-Turki was sentenced to 27 years to life in a Colorado prison for keeping a slave and raping her, among other crimes.
Extremist Makeover: Homaidan Al-Turki & Wife Sarah, Before & After
Al-Turki, from a prominent Saudi religious family, was in Denver seeking his Ph.D. at Colorado University. This summer, he was convicted of sexually assaulting his Indonesian housekeeper, whom he and his wife--also convicted--kept as a slave. The Al-Turkis' abuse of this fellow Muslim went on for five years. They brought the 24-year-old woman to their home in Aurora, Colorado to serve as their cook, maid, nanny, and apparently "marital aid" (or in this case, also, "marital aide").
Mr. Al-Turki was convicted of felony counts of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft, and extortion, and misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment. He and his wife confiscated the woman's passport and kept her prisoner.
When it was time for Al-Turki--like any other American resident convicted of any crime--to ask for the mercy of the court, he chose a different tack: chutzpah. Al-Turki's statement to Judge Mark Hannen at sentencing was simply stunning:
Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit. The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution. No, upholding American laws against slavery, false imprisonment, and rape was the focal point of the prosecution. But that's something that our State Department--and apparently Colorado's chief law enforcement officer--now don't understand.
In an unprecedented move, the State Department flew Attorney General Suthers to Saudi Arabia to personally explain--and apologize for--Al-Turki's conviction to Saudi King Abdullah. Yes, U.S. taxpayers paid for this outrageous trip, though now Suthers is claiming Abdullah decided to reimburse the tab.
Suthers flew 19 hours to answer to leaders of another sovereign nation for enforcing the laws of Colorado. And apparently, he contracted a rapidly infectious case of Stockholm Syndrome during his stay, calling his pander-tour "the adventure of a lifetime."
Monday, he lectured the media that King Abdullah et al simply can't understand "that an Indonesian maid was considered a competent witness in our courts."
He also instructed that Abdullah and company were upset that they couldn't just buy their way out of it and pay off the maid. "They didn't understand how that wasn't possible here," Suthers said.
Suthers said that, under Saudi law, four eyewitnesses are needed to prove a rape case. Memo to Suthers: You are the Attorney General of Colorado, not Saudi Arabia. The four witnesses is taken from Islamic law, since Saudi Arabia is a theocracy. We are not. And that should be the end of the story.
Our "friends," the Saudis can't get over Al-Turki's conviction. Saudi state-run media, under King Abdullah's complete control, continues to portray the Saudi slavemaster in America as the victim of a judicial system biased against Muslims.
This is the same judicial system that failed to convict Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian, despite six-months worth of overwhelming evidence. The same judicial system that failed to convict Saudi national, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, of terrorism, despite his creation and oversight of terrorist-related websites calling for planes to fly into buildings . . . well before 9/11.
The same judicial system that agonized for over a year on the fate of Zacarias Moussaoui, and spared his life despite his prior knowledge of the impending murder of 3,000 Americans. The same judicial system that overturned--on the flimsiest of reasons--solid convictions of Al-Qaeda terrorists who comprised the Detroit terror cell. The same judicial system that has now indicted the valiant and innocent prosecutor of that terror cell. The same judicial system that overturned the NSA wiretaps of suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists.
2 Turkeys: Colorado Attorney General John Suthers & Fellow Cooked Bird
If anything that system has bent over backwards in favor of Muslims, to no avail in the Muslim world.
But that's not the point. Our judicial system is not perfect. It is, however, the fairest in the world. And we chose it. We need not apologize for it to anyone, much less the bloated self-anointed king of a totalitarian state. We need not apologize for it to the man from whose country 15 of 19 hijackers emanated.
We have many foreign nationals convicted in America, every single day. But American taxpayers don't send them to foreign lands to "explain" why they were found guilty.
The Saudis understand our legal system very well. They did not just discover America. The Saudi government pays for the best legal eagles for its nationals in America, when they are accused of a crime. The Saudis funded an absurd website comparing Al-Turki to the Statue of Liberty (strangely, the site's English version was removed). This sudden summons of a top American law enforcement official to "explain" is absurd and degrading. More absurd is that U.S. officials complied and went along with the act.
Can you imagine the U.S. sending a state Attorney General to explain to Hitler why we allow Blacks and Jews to serve as witnesses in our courts and why enslaving and raping them for five years is a crime?
In those days, America did not apologize for being a just society. These days, America just apologizes.
Colorado Attorney General Suthers is the latest emblem of those endless apologies to those who hate us. He can write his political epitaph with it.
Tomorrow, it's doubtful Suthers will be eating turkey like the rest of us. He's still digesting all the Saudi crow he consumed.
I'm stunned by this. Suthers' trip was covered by the local press and nowhere did he apologize for anything. There is a huge flap in Saudi over this case because some Saudis claim this slimeball wasn't guilty but was the victim of prejudice. The State Department paid for Suthers to go over there and explain the facts.
For example, Suthers explained that the perp did not take the stand to deny the charges. Under the medieval Sharia system, that is taken as almost a confession, so that impressed the Saudis.
The local press has been pretty straightforward in the reporting - saying straight out that the rapist almost certainly would not have been convicted in Saudi because of the four witness rule and the fact that sexual abuse of female servants by male employers is commonplace over there. I think the whole affair has opened some eyes here.
Debbie is sliming a good AG on the basis of something she just made up.
Yup. What's even more distressing is that there are FReepers who are willing to accept this sort of sensationalism without bothering to check the facts of the case, and in so doing act like a bunch of DUmmies.
"If anything that system has bent over backwards in favor of muslims."Why should anyone be surprised?Suthers has simply taken the next step-bending over-and grabbing his ankles/sarc
"Suthers didn't apologize. Schlussel is lying."
According to my dictionary:
apologize - vi: to make an apology
apology - n 1a: a formal justification :DEFENSE b: EXCUSE
2: an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret
Schlussel is correct in characterizing Suthers explanation of Turki's conviction as an apology under the the first definition of "apology". She's wrong, however, in asserting that it is completely unnecessary to make such an apology. In some cases, perhaps this one, it is good to make a formal case to justify one's actions.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
In an utter display of American weakness and shame, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers traveled to Saudi Arabia to apologize. Apologize for the American justice system and virtually everything else that America stands for.
Suthers did exactly the opposite. Ms. Schlussel is lying.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
They didn't receive "special treatment". The guy is in jail. The King (leader) of a foreign country and an ally of ours wanted to know why this happened, and the State Department asked the attorney general of the state to explain it to them.
He got a good, all-expenses paid trip, and told them exactly why their man deserved to be in jail for 28 years.
I can understand arguing that the state department probably shouldn't spend our tax dollars on this, although that's true of MUCH of what the state department does (mollifying our allies around the world, along with most of our enemies), but I see NO REASON to attack the Colorado Attorney General for this, he stood his ground and explained how our justice system works.
I think Debbie simply misunderstood the entire event, or else she's really trying to mislead us.
This is why we can take Suthers' name out of contention for the Senate seat in '08 or any other office for that matter.
Do you have ANY proof that this doesn't happen all the time? You don't think Condi Rice has had discussions with Tony Blair about British detainees at Guantanamo?
I bet we do this all the time, it's not that big a deal to fly over to another country to have a talk, it's not like we live in the roaring 20s and he had to take a cruise ship.
And if Saudi Arabia paid for most of the trip, and put him up, what's the big deal? We grant "courtesies" to leaders of our allies all the time, that's what the State Department mostly does, kiss up to other countries.
But he didn't apologize. He did go to EXPLAIN, but it isn't likely a rare occurance to explain things to foreigners.
If there was an American who was imprisoned in a foreign country, and we had doubts over whether they received a fair trial, I would expect that we could pay for someone from that country to fly over here and explain it to us so we could be sure justice was being served. And I doubt anybody here would complain.
It seems they might not have spent anything:
"No taxpayer dollars were spent on the trip. Suthers said his initial understanding was that the State Department was paying for the trip, but found out en route that the king was picking up the tab."
Rocky Mtn News
Schlussel's a hack. Don't discredit Suthers based on her manufactured controversy, the Colorado GOP is weak enough as it is.
You have a bizarre dictionary, most have the common usage as the first definition, and the uncommon usage as the 2nd.
But in either case, you would be very disingenous to suggest Debbie was using the "formal justification" definition when she said we "apologized" (which I'm not sure is a valid form of "apology" for that definition -- "apology" as defined by your "justification" definition is a NOUN, and doesn't have an "apologized" form).
When you have to appeal to improper forms of non-standard definitions in order to justify what has been written, you have ceded the point that Debbie was being deliberately misleading.
My note to the shameful CO AG:
http://www.ago.state.co.us/contact_us.cfm
I was horribly shocked to learn that the Colorado Attorney General traveled to Saudi Arabia to apologize for a slavery, torture and rape conviction. Sharia law has no standing in this state, just as I'm very certain that our protections of civil rights, women's rights, children's rights, political freedoms and religious freedoms have no standing whatsoever in the repressive Saudi kingdom. The despicable Homaidan Al-Turki should be punished to the fullest extent of Colorado law without remorse or apology. If he wanted to keep a concubine of women in bondage and pain, he was free to do so in any of a dozen countries on this planet.
The state of Colorado has absolutely no business apologizing to anyone for enforcing the laws that its citizens and legislators have enacted. If the Attorney General cannot do that in good conscience, he should resign immediately, and leave the post to someone who can.
From what I gather the conviction was just and the AG's trip was diplomatically necessary. Did you expect the Co. AG to tell the prince in S.A. that sharia law is utter garbage and that he should shove it?
So that's why the hack attack eh? it's a cheap shot.
Here's the perp's defense:
"The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors"
And Muslims are not outraged that one of their own is characterizing their faith and culture as one of rape and slavery?
It's what they do.
Does a bear defecate in the woods?
Does a Muslim [fill in the blanks from Al-Turki's conviction.]
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