Great timing. Secretary of State Condoleza Rice is touring the Mid East, and the State Department releases it's Annual Human Rights Report. At the very moment Rice is saying what great guys countries like the UAE are, the report says they are abusing human rights in many ways. Amoung the abuses the UAE is accused of are as follows.

• no citizens' right to change the government and no popularly elected representatives of any kind
• flogging as judicially sanctioned punishment
• arbitrary detention
• incommunicado detention permitted by law
• questionable independence of the judiciary
• restrictions on civil liberties--freedom of speech and of the press, and assembly
• restrictions on right of association, particularly for human rights groups
• restrictions on religious freedom
• domestic abuse of women, sometimes enabled by police
• trafficking in women and children
• legal and societal discrimination against women and non citizens
• corruption and lack of government transparency
• abuse of foreign domestic servants
• restrictions on and abuses of workers' rights.

These are the guys we want running our ports? These are our buddies in the war on terror? You see, when they want to portray a friendly face for western cameras they trot out some Prince who has all but grown up in the US, American educated, and speaking perfect American English. I know these guys, when I was living in an international dorm at Eastern Michigan University, some of my best party buddies were from places like Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. They weren't very religious, they were well educated,wealthy, and they loved to party. But you see, these guys aren't the population of these countries, they are the elite. The Average middle Easterner is poor or lower middle class, religious, and does not party. So when you see a spokesman on the news know that they are not representative of the general populace. Does Condi have egg on her face? She wouldn't know, she's so plastered with yolk and ovalbumin, that she is oblivious to any new splatters of reality.