[COMMENT: The whole of Muslim theology denies any personal relationship to God. We know, they say, only Allah's law, and submit. Islam.
That means that predatory and promiscuous sexual behavior will be a continuing and major factor among Muslims --- because it is in healthy relationship alone that such addictions can be overcome. And if we do not have our relationship with God at the center, we will never be able to get our human-level relationships in non-compulsive order.
We really are in a spiritual war, not a political war, primarily.
Much about this matter can be found in Homosexuality: Good & Right in the Eyes of God? E. Fox]
By P. Parameswaran
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS
July 4, 2005
AIDS threatens to overwhelm many predominantly Muslim countries, whose
leaders remain in a state of denial of crisis, doing little to stem the deadly
problem.
In one of the most comprehensive reports on AIDS covering the Muslim
world, analysts warned of serious repercussions if governments continued to
ignore the crisis.
A report released by the Seattle-based think tank, the National Bureau of
Asian Research, said: "If leaders continue to ignore the problem, AIDS could
debilitate or even destabilize some of these societies by killing large
numbers of people in the 15-to-49-year age group."
"What is especially troubling to behold is the reluctance to admit that
Muslims engage in exactly those same dangerous behaviors that support the
transmission and spread of HIV/AIDS elsewhere," the report said, blaming
"deeply rooted cultural and religious attitudes."
"This reluctance even to recognize the problem will only accelerate the
epidemic and make it more difficult for the international community to provide
meaningful support and treatment."
This would deprive the Muslim countries of some of their best, brightest
and most economically productive members, say Laura Kelley and Nicholas
Eberstadt, authors of the report.
An infectious-disease specialist, Miss Kelley previously had undertaken
AIDS research for the U.S. National Intelligence Council and had studied other
diseases for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the principal
foreign-aid agency of the United States. Mr. Eberstadt is a scholar at
American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
"An important take-home message for all Muslim nations is that real
behaviors on the streets are sometimes in marked contrast to the expected
behaviors of good Muslims, and that is something that leaders in these
countries must deal with," Miss Kelley said.
The report said that even though the Muslim world was riven by premarital
sex, adultery, prostitution, homosexuality and intravenous-drug use -- which
help spread the HIV virus that causes AIDS -- many governments have been slow
to respond to the rapidly spreading disease.
"We would have thought the Muslim world was in a sense vaccinated from
this kind of pandemic, but in fact, the dreadful news is that it is not," said
Michael Birt, the director of the Center for Health at the National Bureau of
Asian Research. "Now with the Muslim world becoming involved, it is truly a
global crisis."
Miss Kelley proposed "sweeping legal changes" to reduce the social stigma
associated with the disease and protect the AIDS sufferers in Muslim nations
"to ensure them medical treatment, employment and discourage suicide."
The Muslim world of more than 1 billion people covers three continents --
from Albania and Turkey in Europe, across countries bordering the Sahara in
North Africa, and through the Persian Gulf and South Asia to Malaysia and
Indonesia in the East, the report said.
Officially, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
estimates the total HIV population of North Africa, the Middle East, and
predominantly Muslim Asia at nearly 1 million people.
At the end of 2003, UNAIDS estimated that as many as 420,000 people in
Mali, 180,000 in Indonesia, 150,000 in Pakistan, and 61,000 in Iran had
HIV/AIDS.
"Those numbers, however, are severely understated," Miss Kelley and Mr.
Eberstadt said in a separate report in Foreign Policy magazine, published by
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
They said UNAIDS figures depended upon surveillance data -- "thus a lack
of information can be taken as a lack of infection."
UNAIDS data on the number of people living with HIV/AIDS is completely
missing for Afghanistan, Turkey and Somalia, "all nations with large numbers
of at-risk populations," they said.
The study cited Iran and Bangladesh as having Muslim governments that seem
to be combating the problem effectively.
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