Any FP article that brings the glaringly ugly, vile aspects of Islam to light has to come with a heavy dose of deflection and pandering. Simple fact - Islam is a religion that is openly, flagrantly, hostile to women. I personally prefer my world religions to be covertly hostile to women, keeps the crime down at least.

As for Ms. Logan, the victim-blaming is unreal. I've been reading so many negative stories and comments either implying or openly stating she was somehow at fault rather than the barbarian hordes who did this to her. The poor woman, what happened is unfathomable.

I will comment here specifically on the rates of sexual harrassment and assault experienced by Western women in the Middle East, although this article raises many valid and worrying points.

As a young woman who has lived for much of her life in the Middle East; Egypt, mainly, Syria and the UAE, and travelled widely within the region, I can say with conviction that unfortunately attitudes to women are not simply backward - they are holding back the societies within the Arab World from developing and progress as they should.

I agree with Mr. Ebert when he says that the incident involving Lara Logan has brought "Middle East attitudes toward women into sad focus", but I fear for all too brief a time. Being watched, cat-called, verbally abused, touched and followed was a daily part of my life as a student in Syria. The irony was, on the one occasion I wore hijab, I was almost - almost - invisible. My only saving grace being a very blonde, petite teenager living in Egypt was that I spent most of my time in a car, or indoors. I did not have such luxuries in Syria.And, generally speaking, I felt more welcome and safe even in some of the more unsavory areas of Cairo than in the most tourist-dominated areas of Damascus.

"Egyptian culture is by no means the only one where rape, sexual assault, and harassment are embedded and pervasive." Of that there is no doubt. The malaise has spread broadly and penetrates the region deeply. But one must make distinctions between countries. Although Egypt has much higher reported rates of sexual harrassment and assault among foreign women, Egyptians have a much greater knowledge, understanding and respect towards Western cultures and nationalities, so one will experience less blind racism and bigotry than in Syria, for example, which has a much lower penetration of tourism and general acquaintance with peoples not from Arab states (or even). I would have conversations with Syrians in which I would be attacked for being a citizen that Mr. Blair (o, your legacy will never be forgotten) once ruled - whilst also being salivated over.

The Syrian government's anti-Western rhetoric in years gone past has not helped its image in the eyes of possible Western aid donors - but nor has it exactly made foreigners welcome visitors in the eyes of its countrymen. The Syrian government is desperate for the income provided by tourist receipts. However its previous policies have left Syrians wondering, if we never needed foreigners in our country before, why do we need them now? The Syrian authorities need income from the tourism sector in order to fund its building of the infrastructure of that sector. At the moment, facilities are abysmal - and attitudes to foreigners will need to change to aid that.

Generally, it appears that the derogatory attitudes, to Western women specifically, are fueled by the Arab interpretations of much of our media - specifically films and music videos. The film one constantly returns to is "American Pie", in any discussion with Arabs on the source of harrassment of Western women in Arab countries.

Being called a "russiyyeh" or "Russian" (i.e. prostitute. It seems the Eastern European nationalities are predominantly represented in what I can hardly call a profession if one is working in Syria; and the Syrians either are not able to, or merely can't be bothered, to tell the difference between a Polish and Russian woman), because I was blonde and Caucasian, was almost taken for granted. What with "American Pie" apparently representing all of a Western woman's aspirations, it is expected that one sleeps around. Syrian men would do their best to get to know male friends of ours, in order to hopefully one day meet a Western girl, attempt to woo her (with the worst chat-up lines in the world), to ultimately get her into bed. A young man is expected to prove his virility well before marriage. However, any women not a virgin is immediately considered worse than soiled bed-clothes.

As the friend of a girl who was raped in an Arab country during her time as a student, I heard with horror of her experiences in the hospital and during the ensuing police investigation. The overwhelming attitude is "well, you encouraged it," a view I had hoped had been eradicated from the world. However we forget that even 40 years ago in Britain, and I have no doubt in the United States, such attitudes were the norm. It will take a very, very long time for such a view to change in the Arab world. I hate to say it, but many interpretations of Islam, even those broadly liberal, proscribe women to the place of second class citizens. Even if, by what ever stretch of the imagination, that in the next five years all Arab countries were to become liberal democracies, attitudes to women would still remain the same.

A home-grown tech initiative in Egypt (seems Egyptians find a tech solution for everything) is helping to use SMS to track sexual harassment of women. Hopefully this can bring attention to the problem and empower individuals to help prevent it:

http://www.mobileactive.org/harassmap-plan-track-sexual-harassment-egypt

Has the author even lived in Cairo? much less anywhere in the Middle East for any length of time? Why are we comparing apples and oranges? Such superficial and useless comparisons make this is a terribly amateur and poorly thought out blog.

Do you have a blog? Your firsthand accounts of your experiences are certainly timely, and very interesting to read. I would love to hear more and am curious as to whether you believe there is any real hope for the Muslim world. Between the psychological oppression of a religion requiring total submission and a faith that is so destructive to women I've completely written off the Islamic world. The fruits of this civilization are self evident - lack of progress, primitivism, superstition, fatalism, brutality and corruption. Through direct exposure to Islam I shifted from sympathy for Muslim causes and opposition to western meddling in ME affairs to total support for overt and covert warfare with Muslim nations and more broadly Islamic civilization in general. Having shown so little ability to positively impact humanity and strong tendencies to destroy the human spirit, the Islamic world appears (in my opinion only) to have no merit, to be unworthy of equality or respect, and basically fit for plundering. In a time when non-western nations (China & India) are at the beginning of their dawns as superpowers the Islamic world remains suspended in idiocy and primitivism. I'd be curious as to whether your much more extensive experience living in Islamic nations has lead you to a different conclusion.

This clearly is no longer about an accusation of sexual assault of Logan. This is yet another Western imperial cultural attack on Muslims and Islam to justify the amoral, imperious, diabolical scheming of Western nations.

Logan was sexually assaulted by the Western imperial backwash that is Egypt.

Egypt, like Syria, has been controlled by a regime brought to power by the CIA. Not the Muslim Brotherhood and NOT according to Islam and not representative of Islam.

In fact, before the CIA brought the Free Officers regime and Baathists regimes to power, both Egypt and Syria were under colonial occupation for decades. In fact, Egypt has been under direct and indirect occupation since Napoleon invaded in 1789 under the pretenses that controlling Egypt would enable France of controlling the Holyland- a strategy first considered by Louis 14th in the 7th Christian Crusade.
Britiain followed in France's place and after WWII, America replaced Britain.
During all of this time, colonial powers have engaged in political machinations to utterly decimate any political forces that would liberate Egypt. That has meant controlling al Azhar university- the seat of Islamic cultre in Egypt. And it has meant controlling mosques as much as possible.

As well, colonial empires instituted Western cultural standards, norms, etc. Dress, conduct, language, law, even art, were all Western in both Egypt and Syria. In response to such colonization, the colonized masses put of varying degrees of resistance. One of the degrees of resistance was misygyny towards Western type women.

It is NOT an Islamic tendency.
Islam strictly FORBIDS all sex outside of marriage. Any man who engages in it looses his standing in society: his testimony becomes inadmissible, his credibilty is broken, and if found convicted, he is punished.

Rather, its a tendency of a colonized people's resistance to the imperial usurpation of power which Western culture and troops, and plots, have brought forth for over 100 years in countries like Egypt and Syria.

That is the ORIGIN of the conflict. It was prevalent during the wars for national independence throughout the world for decades. Kenya, South Africa, etc.

Egypt never experience liberation from colonial power. The Western empires retained control of Egypt through the military and managed to continue colonization through modern medias such as TV, movies, music. Today, Egypt is inundated with secularized, liberalized, Western style Egyptian culture which has flourished solely by the protection of Mubarak and his 30 years of emergency martial law. So the same laws that enabled Mubarak to arbitrarily arrest, torture, and rape men and women, empowered him to bring nude and semi nude, immoral men and women dancing, kissing, and simulating sex into every household with a TV in Egypt. And while the actors may speak arabic, it can be identified that they are portraying, and advocating, and representing Western power and culture.

Just as you people have attacked the hijab and Muslim women who dress conservatively as political and religious, so too do people see women who dress promiscuously, who reflect Western culture of sexual permissiveness, as a political and cultural affront.

And Syria is another, Orwellian dimension to state controlled culture and norms. You in the West cannot escape culpability for creating the Syrian regime which has tortured, imprisoned, and executed countless numbers of people to uphold liberalization and secularization of the region. Israel's protection has been only part of the equation- utter systemic repression of Islam and Islamic culture and its political and strategic significance have to be measured as critical factors as well.
Syria IS a liberalized secular culture mimmicking Western cultures in various ways and having matured over the past 100 years in the shadow and sputum of Western mastery.

A recent Syrian Arab TV show which has aired for 5 years during the month of Ramadan each year, Babul Hara, has been a powerful cultural image in contrast to modern Syria. It is based in 1910s Syria under French colonial occupation where traditional Syrian culture and values: family, village, brotherhood, kinship, are being undermined by those seeking power, or those seeking to overcome their deep personal weaknesses.

Logan's presence in the riotous streets of Cairo at night was in part, an extension of pervasive, continual Western imperial influence and dominance in Egypt.

Most certianly, she was NOT deserving to be assaulted or victimized in any way.

But she was NOT there simply for herself. She was working for CNN, America's major international news company. And she was a major player in the reporting of the American occupation of Iraq. Having built relations with American commanders in Iraq, she played varying roles influencing America's opinion of the occupation of Iraq for years. She was a component of the American imperial machine. Not simply an innocent bystander. And sadly and true to America's common clumsiness in aclimating ot different cultures, she appeared NOT to dress like a local woman, by chance this might enable her to blend in or appear less conspicuous and less of a target for marauding riotous types.

And that speaks to the nature of the confict in the Muslim world in general. The reality has to be exposed that the Muslim world remains repressed as a result of Western imperial designs. It goes deep.
The Muslim world is NOT free of Western imperial power which supports and depends on repression and subjugation.

Logan was victim of this dynamic as have been millions of others. Its WRONG for ALL of them. It was also wrong for the Uzbeki youth who was boiled to death by Islam Karimov, president of Uzbekistan who has recently signed a new security arrangement with the EU.
It was wrong for countless numbers of men raped in torture cells by police funded and supported by the West.

Like it or not, but liberation of the Muslim world from Western power will also mean liberation of YOU from supporting evil.

Well written!Commendable.Shame on NSC LOS ANGELES for the ignorance,showing he is probably a disciple of Fox Entertaintment.

Ah yes, that same tired old excuse – Islam’s failings are solely due to western interference. Hey, I’ll be the first to say how vile colonialism was/is. I don’t agree with it at all and it represents the worst of human nature. But… wait a minute… speaking of a majority oppressing a minority, what about the Kurds, the Copts, the Sikhs, the Cypriots, the black Sudanese, and so on and so on and so on? Islam’s got a legacy of brutality as vile and as a long as any western imperialist nation. But should that be surprising at all when the taking of slaves and the sexual abuse of the conquered is sanctioned by the faith? As for the treatment of women, the hijab and the burka are both representative of male ownership and control of women, and both reflect the faith’s inbuilt hatred of women by placing the burden on them to cover up so as not to tempt men. If, god forbid, she fails, often times she is tried for the crime of being raped. Under Sharia her testimony is worth a fraction of a man’s. How nice and “peaceful.”

In an age when FORMER COLONIES like India and China are rising up to lead the world the Islamic civilization lags by decades, and in some countries, centuries.

Shame on me for the ignorance? Yeah, tell that to my Kurdish friends, my Coptic friends. Tell that to any right thinking human being on this planet who doesn't think women and children should be traded like livestock.

Im not sure I've had such a negative experience with Islam that Im willing to blame an entire religion for the actions of a few. However, that said, I think ALL organized religions are the absolute definition of stupidity and ignorance. Religion will lead us nowhere, it never has...ever. Science, on the other hand...

However, NSC's claims about the middle east not producing any real progress for the past thousand years (excluding Israel) is dead on. They have regressed (until recently), while the rest of the poor world has progressed. And The thing about India and China is that while they are poor, and still messed up (China aint no peach) they REALIZE they have problems, and are actively seeking productive ways to address them. Also, they regularly produce some of the greatest minds on the planet, and are productive members of the national community. Muslim countries of teh world have a real problem with this in general. Notable exceptions would be Turkey, Malaysia, Oman, and to a lesser extent Jordan...outside of that, they pretty much all suck big time.

and here's the real kicker. It's not the U.S's fault, it's not the CIA's fault, and it's not the fault of some jewish shadow conspiracy. that's bin laden talk. The fault lies solely on the people and leaders of the region, who always pass the buck when they go in search of blame, and thus never improve their own condition. The US and europe has not been very helpful, and has at times been straight up malicious, but that is NOT an excuse.

Cut aid to Egypt now. All of it. Before everyone gets hot and bothered, if the Israelis can freak out when one, and I repeat, one IDF member is captured by Hamas, then we should be allowed to react to one case of sexual assault. Now tell me how I'm wrong without making excuses for Israel.