And unlike Nir Rosen-I am not going to apologize for what follows.
Lara Logan got beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob of Arabs. And now the world is “shocked” that such a thing would happen to a hot blonde in the middle of crowd of Arabs.
While I feel as much sympathy towards Ms Logan as anyone else-and I wish it had not happened to her-I’m not in the least bit surprised, and neither should anyone else be who has spent any amount of time in the Arab world.
These are Arabs after all. They are anything, but inconsistent.
The whining can start now- and the vicious attacks too. “How can you say that?” ” “No woman deserves to be raped”. ” You are a mysoginist pig”.
I didn’t say anything like that.
But, hey, knock yourself out- it changes not the reality or lack of risk management practiced by CBS news. On this particular issue-I have to side with the neandrathals-there are certain places it is just not smart to send a woman, especially a blonde woman reporter, to.
Are you listening DACOWITS?
People don’t like to hear that ugly truth. But it remains the truth just the same. There are times when prudent discretion needs to trump the urge to “break new ground”. This appears to have been one of those times.
Ask yourself these questions: 1) Why was it so important to have a woman there? and 2) How many Al Jazerra reporters who speak fluent Arabic got assaulted? Of either sex. I’ll bet the answer is “Zero”.
Look at it another way. I have the freedom to go anywhere I choose. However, whether I like it or not-there are some places, I should simply choose not go to-out of simple common sense prudence and a desire for my own safety.
Which gets back to CBS and its lack of judgement. You cannot tell me that there are not some dark haired, hijab wearing, Arabic speaking reporters that CBS could have paid-who probably also understand Arab culture-to do the same job that Ms Logan got sent to do. Why did it not occur to CBS to take that approach?
Oh yea- I forgot, we don’t have local bureaus anymore,with people who actually have lived in a country for an appreciable amount of time.
Before one goes to ballistic about pointing out what is a simple fact of life-I have a homework assignment for you. Google this phrase and see how many hits you get back: “Filipina women raped by Arabs”.
I’ll save you the time-its over 300,000. Where is the US media outrage about that? Most of those women didn’t even try to go down and insert themselves into a mob-they just picked the wrong employer to work for. At a rate of pay far less than Lara Logan’s. Don’t see the western world up in arms about that.
If you parsed the stories in that Google search carefully-you would have found at least TEN (that’s right-TEN) stories of a woman raped in an Arab country since the beginning of this year alone. There is no one who speaks out for them. And its not stopping. It should serve as warning flag though.
Now let’s be clear. I am not condoning what is clearly a horrible crime-no matter who it happens to. My point is, however, that these statistics point out what can only be described as a much higher level of risk for a foreign woman in an Arab country. People in management in CBS news had to know that. Relying on translators and security guards is not enough.
Its what they would call in the aviation world, “supervisory error”-which serves as a contributing factor in the mishap. Arabs are Arabs after all-they are not going to change, no matter who tells them to. Democracy or no-they are still Arabs. This is and will remain an unfortunate fact of life in these countries for a long time to come. At least as long as they practice Islam.
Even after the furor dies down about Lara Logan-those same Filipinas will still be getting on planes out of Manila and some of them will be living in fear just a few months after their arrival. And most of the Arab states will not be lifting a finger to change that. And sadly, no newspaper outside of the Philippines will report on it. Its a lousy story and a big part of what is wrong with the Arab world.
Its an outrage-just like Lara Logan getting raped is an outrage. But all of our moral pretensions is not going to change that anytime soon. That’s the world we live in and will report about. You cannot eliminate these risks-no matter how much you want to.
Because these people are Arabs.
You can manage risk though and try to keep it diminished or avoided. And one way is to actually have reporters who can blend into crowds and speak the language. And if its absolutely vital to go against that advice…..
Well, don’t be surprised when it blows up in your face.
Skippy,
It isn’t just the Filippinos that are getting the short end of the stick there, but nearly all of the Asians who get work visas into most Arab countries have to put up with horrible conditions. I know when I was in Singapore in 2009, one of the major stories of the week was a rolling expose done by either the Strait Times or the Sunday Times that was talking about the horrible conditions Chinese, Singapore, Filippinos, Indonesias, Malayas, etc live and work in when they take jobs as Nannys or house keepers in places like Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/Egypt/etc. The expose had come about cause some poor girl had been beaten to with an inch of her life by both of her employers (the husband and the wife) and only got away by taking the kids to daycare and then running off with just the clothes on her back to the local Singapore embassy screaming about wanting to go home and that her employeers had her passport and all other forms of id locked up away.
The feral arab gangs of rapists now roam Western Europe, England, Australia freely and rape at will. There are whole parts of France that are no-go zones for cops. For all I know they roam around the US too but we’ll never hear anything about that from our media.
Is it because they are Arab or may the etiology be more correctly attributed to Islam? Just asking? Or is Islam so entwined with Arabness that there is no seperating the two?
A risk management thought. Seems most corpoate entities use the financial consequences to decide how much prudence to use. The morality or “rightness” plays little or no role in the decision making process.
Be willing to bet the decision to use her was based in part on her hot blondeness which would ensure she was noticed.
Want to change the behavior: make sure the decision has consequences for the decision makers and CBS.
I think Islam and Arab culture are so intertwined now-that they are one and the same. However as long as they stick to stupid tribal issues-they will not advance. The whole Shia -Sunni thing is stupid.
right, I remember reading an article that rape is prevalent in parts of paris Suburbs that house North Africans, but not many are reported because of the stigma attached.
Evidently rape is common of girls and BOYS in Afghanistan.
The media and our government kept telling everyone that this was a peaceful demonstration for “democracy” in Egypt. They were only trying to convince themselves that it was so.
Skippy, what will now happen in Bahrain with our military presence there, and our access, and future capabilities to carryout our missions from that region?
This is a sad story for the lady. I hate to say this also, but the reporter should have declined to do the story from the start. I say this because she is not an American, but from South Africa. If anyone knows how to seperate the “tribes” from each other (don’t worry, if I were in SA during Aparheid I wouldn’t have been allowed in Sun City either) she should have, and probably brought her concern to the forefront.
Funny how Muslims keep saying that they belong to the religion of peace, and that all men are “brothers” yet look at the treatment those Muslim workers from Bangledesh, Pakistan, and other poor countries get in places like Dubai and other locations. They build the infrastructure and grand palaces, but get paid cheaply and forced to live in slum conditions. And as others have pointed out, they seem to have free reign to commit acts of sexual crimes against women (and young boys) but will be ready to kill an infidel for saying a bad word about their religion and behavior.
Hena was a 14 year Bangladeshi girl who was raped by her 40 year old uncle. SHE was tried and sentenced to 100 lashes under Sharia law…she died after 80 lashes..
bastards…