Borders

Last night it took us around 7-8 hours to get from Beirut to Amman. Our trip to Beirut only took us 5 hours, nice and comfortable...but coming back everything that could go wrong...well did.
First we got delayed at the Syrian borders, for a reason that I am still not quite sure about...could be because our driver had a problem...or that his friend who was in another car driving people to Amman also, was a bit drunk and was being an ass so the Syrian border people were making his life miserable (and ours by connection!)...all I know is that we stood at that border for over an hour.
Then there was the constant stopping at different Istirahat-rest stops-a long the way...around 11ish we finally arrived at the Jordanian border...felt better just crossing the border...thought ah khalas we will be home soon...how wrong was I!!! We get past the immigration, they see our passports, stamp them...joke around with us...we get into the car and head toward customs...here there is a HUGE queue...and it turns out that they had caught people smuggling drugs into the country...or at least that is what the driver said...he then changed the story to : someone had tried to bring in 20 cartons of ciggies (we are only allowed on carton per person)...so not quite sure about the story...anyho...why we wait in the car, a man in civilian cloths comes up and asks to look at our passport...the two Ahmads in the car were asked to come down, and they were taken to this room...now not sure what happened in this room...bas they were back in 15 minutes. Turns out that they were stopping ALL the Ahmads on that day coming into Jordan...and more specifically-so you don't think that they are being unprofessional or wasting people's time-all the Ahmads who had left Jordan on the Thursday! The Ahmads told us that one of the guys who was called in was asked to take off his trousers and his wallet was completely emptied out...how humiliating for him...why should this man be treated in such a brutal way? Also the question presents itself is why the two Ahmads who were from our car were not asked to take their trousers off? (don't get me wrong they are my friends and don't want them to be humiliated) But could it be that they come from certain families, that are known and thus could cause a fuss if they were asked to do this?
Looking around I realised that people were really being searched...this one Saudi car was literally being striped apart...by the time we passed him his back seat was on the sidewalk!!! Don't think he will be coming to Jordan any time soon.
I mean I understand that after what was going to happen in Mecca Mall...its good that they are being so cautions...makes you feel safer-even though I don't know if I agree with that-why would we feel safer if we know that there are people in our country who have the power to do that to people? I for one don't feel safer.