Hi all. I
wanted to let you know that I finally caught the HBO report this morning,
actually quite by accident. It was disturbing, to say the least.
I am not going to
quibble about details, or who knows or who does NOT know about what's going on
over there.. I am only going to give my own point of
view.
First of all, at the
end of the segment Bryant Gumble and the gentleman he was interviewing about
this situation were discussing what the U.S. could do about this
situation. They brought up a very interesting point, that normally what
the U.S. does to "sanction" countries like this is to deny them economic value..
in this case however, the streets there are "lined with gold", so that is an
impossiblity. They then said something that struck home.. and that is that
the UAE is striving to become very "Americanized", they want to become a 21st
century nation. They long to be accepted as equals with the rest of the
world, hence their involvement in more and more activities outside of their own
country. So, I have to agree with Howard on this one, to have any chance
of a "sanction" with this country, we need to stop allowing them to participate
in our activities until this is corrected. Do I think we can fix every
problem this way? Of course not! But with THIS particular thing, I
believe that is the only way we will get our point across. The UAE WANTS
to sponsor our events, they WANT to have horses and riders not only in endurance
but also in TB racing. They WANT to be accepted as "modern" people, so
let's make it clear to them that their practices in human trafficking are NOT
acceptable by us, in ANY form.
