1/WAR ON WOMEN

Last week, Loujain al-Hathloul, imprisoned since 2018, a young activist who fought for the right of women to drive in Saudi Arabia, appeared in court. Her "crime" was deemed equivalent to national security and terrorism cases.

@JoeBiden https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-west-s-enabling-saudi-arabia-enables-torture-loujain-al-ncna1249563

2/Al-Hathloul, 31, seen below before her ordeal, in court, looked weak, exhausted and shaking. The Saudis have tortured and reduced this vibrant, healthy woman to a quivering shell of her former self but for them that is not punishment enough.

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3/Al-Hathloul’s terrible fate is another reminder of the harrowing plight of women in the Gulf region that is the bleak underbelly of the empowerment myth that prominent women like Ivanka Trump and others from opposite political camps, both promote.

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4/Saudi Arabia kidnapped Al-Hathloul in March 2018, throwing her in jail later that year. Kidnapping women is common among Gulf state leaders, for "crimes" such as leaving abusive domestic situations.

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5/When nations abuse other identity groups — the Rohinga in Myanmar, the Uighurs in China — international condemnation descends. Not so when the abuse of women occurs, for example, as here, in the Arabian Gulf monarchies.

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6/Since these desert kingdoms struck oil and tribal leaders consolidated power, everyone from bankers to weapons manufacturers to institutions like NYU have fawned over the region’s wealth, all of which is controlled by a few thousand men.

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7/Western men — and women — helped create and now maintain these tiny, fearsomely armed nations with ultra-modern facades, almost never asking, in return, for a modicum of modernity for women or minority groups.

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8/So many who should be above — the presidents of great Western institutions renowned for tolerance and secular humanism and science have taken their money, including Harvard, Georgetown, Yale and MIT.

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9/Women in these nations live in slave status under male "guardianship". Actions deemed crimes are many, such as showing up unmarried and pregnant even if the victim of rape. Their natural human rights and dignity have been trampled by brute force.

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10/No amount of "liberation" for women in the West can paper over this fact. For four years, the Trump administration dispensed with asking for anything from Saudi Arabia besides its purchase power for trillions of dollars’ worth of American-made weapons.

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11/Would @JoeBiden do the right thing and take a public stand of support and sanction for the universal human rights of women and against their current condition of slavery and gross abuse?

@JoeBiden