Got Rights...???

As I stood alongside the bus and below the metal sunscreen I wondered if they really knew what's going on . We arrived across the border from Bahrain heading into Saudi Arabia. My unit members and myself had to unload all our gear onto the roadside for inspection by the Saudi police. They were looking for crosses, bibles, magazines and eve n pictures of loved ones to revealing for Saudi eyes. Knowing what little I knew about Bahrain and the way things work I couldn't comprehend how all the other people of the Saudi line could not know what was going on.
In Manama, Bahrain "the Las Vegas of the Arab world" anything can happen for a price. I know that women are imported in for entertainment and most likely never aloud to return. Shieks or high ranking whoever can go and enjoy full vices and I guess not feel bad about it or really care because they are above it all. Women have been and always will be objects or at best second class citizens . How could these inspectors really take their job seriously if they really knew all this. As we started packing up our entire bag of clothes and gear I thought about the Filipino woman we had met several years earlier in Oman. We (10 in all) had stopped at an American fast food restaurant in Muscat because we didn't expect it to be there. This beautiful woman came out from behind the counter when she found out we were American. It was really tough to watch her beg each of us to marry her so she could escape the country. Only three were unmarried and they were advised by our senior that it would major trouble if they proceeded as we were there on invitation from the royal navy. I never will forget it and I truly never will be the same. Thank God your where your at and pray for an end to hell some women face every day.