General Discussion Should Western Countries try to Intervene in Islamic laws?

Today, I was reading http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/women-with-suntans-face-arrest-in-iran/19457436 which outraged me. The article states that Iran is now threatening to to round up, arrest, and imprison women that are found to be suntanned, because they are in violation of Islamic law. An Islamic cleric even went so far as to blame recent seismic activity on women that revealed too much skin.

After reading this, which is only one of countless examples of the oppression that goes on in Islamic countries, my gut reaction is anger and a desire to help. But my next thought is to wonder if it is my place to do so. America has clearly shown that we think we have the right to interfere in the laws that govern other countries, but is this our place?

I'm still very conflicted on this and yet to form an opinion. What about you all? Do you think the Western world owes it to free women from the cruelty and oppression of these outdated Islamic laws? Or should we live and let live in the name of world peace? Do you think that allowing countries like Iran to garner such power over their people will eventually lead to the spread of their power - which could end in another war? Or do you think that showing we respect their laws and their religion will convince them to leave us alone?

I look forward to your opinions.
 
Well, clearly what Iran is doing vis a vis suntanned women is utterly outrageous. And unlike the cleric's rumination on the cause of seismic activity (which at least gave us http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-27/how-i-started-a-boobquake/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsC5), there is nothing humorous about what is going on with this offensive against suntanned women. It is the latest in a string of outrages and human rights abuses promulgated by extremists who bend religious dogma to their own ends.

As for your other question--what, if anything, should the U.S. do about these abuses--that is such a difficult question to grapple with. This particular example is focused on the extremist application of Islamic law, but there are plenty of other examples of deplorable and despicable conduct taking place around the world--female genital mutilation in parts of Africa, slavery in Africa and elsewhere, and so on. The U.S.clearly cannot right all the wrongs in the world but that begs the question--what is our proper role in combating these abuses? On polar extremes, we could do absolutely nothing or we could vow to end the practices by any means necessary, including military intervention if needed. Neither option is appealing to me. I believe the best course for the U.S. is to use our position of relative prominence in the world to focus world attention on these issues and try to work with the international community to curb them as best we can, through education campaigns, divestiture campaigns (like those used against South Africa) and behind the scenes lobbying to try to improve matters. There is no easy answer to any of this, but a united world community could do far more than the U.S. can alone to try to eradicate these vile activities.
 
I think there is a very clear line of other country right to interfere and that is Human rights. can you imagine how many lives of of my family and other jews could have been saved if only America and England had intervened? The problem is that these kind of issues make the western world uncomfortable and politicians and countrys rather push these issues aside until it blows up in their face.

The muslim (and many other faiths) are clearly breaking human rights and I think that gives the right to any other country in the world to intervene, as long as they do it properly, And without breaking human rights in the process of doing this. Like what happened in Iraq. Yes I think a military approach is the only way to go, because in certain situations international communication is bullshit and means nothing. You can't argue with somone that doesn't want to listen to you. You cannot possibly expect fundamentalist religious people to listen to reason. If you could reason with religious people, There would be no religious people.
 
I lived in many countries, US, UK, Spain, Russia, Israel, Switzerland and others, however one thing that I have learned after spending time in all these different places is that moralizing and theorizing while serious abuses go down is a dangerous way to approach world politics. Many people nowadays say that there are international organization, international courts, UN and other such nonsense that will be able to prevent abuses... however recent history, at least on the macro level, show otherwise... to many abuses happen and all the international organizations do nothing, and in most instances not for the lack of trying, but simply because they have no clout. What's the worse thing the UN can do? in 99.9 percent of the instances it would be some economic sanctions that now days don't scare anyone because there are enough nations that will trade with you despite any sanctions. Some may say that the Security Council could authorize military action... but this will never happen unless there is a unanimous vote, and there hasn't been one in forever. As an example look at the UN forces in the Israel-Lebanese border... the have achieved absolutely nothing, in fact I will go so far as to say that they made the situation worse since they prevent IDF from ensuring that the Hizballa doesn't get any more weapons.
Either way, people may point out the situation with US and Iran, and say, see, the US intervened over the objections of the whole world, and look where it got them?! However in my slightly uneducated opinion, the US found itself in this predicament mostly because it did not sufficiently commit... had there been more continous support for the military action and less outsourcing to private contractors then i believe the situation would be quite different.

And finally, I am a strong believer in the conundrum that if you see wrongs being committed and you have an ability to correct them, then do, and deal with whatever consequences there may be later. Ask yourselves this, would you rather live in the world where all these wrongs happen, and the world loves the "politically correct" US, or where the wrongs are corrected but the US is not loved as much because it chooses to do what is right and not what is politically correct?
 
I think that they should leave them to do what they want in their country, but in western countries they need to stop the from letting us celebrate Christmas, and also stop them from walking into banks ect, with their whole face covered. If they come to a western country they must abide by our way of life, otherwise go back home.