Bahrain’s Courageous Doctors ……

http://original.antiwar.com

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by Adil E. Shamoo, November 11, 2011 ,

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The United States continues to ignore the thwarted Arab Spring in Bahrain. Recently, a quasi-military court in the small Gulf state sentenced 20 doctors and nurses to up to 15 years in jail. The charge against them? Treating injured demonstrators opposing the regime.

Doctors and nurses in the Middle East have a long and proud tradition of treating the ill, regardless of the situation. In ninth-century Baghdad, for example, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was the Caliph’s physician. The Caliph asked this physician to prepare a poison to kill his enemies. The physician refused, risking his life, and was eventually jailed for one year. After serving his sentence, the Caliph inquired as to why he refused. The physician replied, “My profession is instituted for the benefit of humanity and limited to their relief and cure.”

So the doctors and other healthcare providers in Bahrain who treated the injured demonstrators were acting not only in the noblest tradition of the Hippocratic Oath but also in keeping with centuries-old Arab tradition. Medical ethics requires all physicians to be medically neutral toward those they treat.

Last February, Bahrain’s citizens joined the Arab Spring by holding massive demonstrations against the country’s corrupt, minority royal government. Bahrain’s security forces, assisted by Saudi-led troops sent by the Gulf Cooperation Council, brutally suppressed the peaceful demonstrations by force, resulting in the deaths of around 30 people, as well as hundreds of others wounded and arrested. At least 1,200 people were dismissed from their jobs. Opposition leaders were arrested, quickly tried, and sent to jail. Many detainees were tortured, and some women were sexually abused.

The government of Bahrain soon turned its attention to doctors and other healthcare providers, arresting, jailing, and torturing those accused of treating protesters. One female doctor told NPR that she was tortured and threatened with rape. In the same story, a man claimed that he was beaten unconscious. The authorities threatened the arrested individuals, saying that the security forces would arrest and torture members of their families if they didn’t sign a confession.

The doctors and nurses in Bahrain have called for support from the international community, especially from the United States. But the U.S. State Department has been muted in its comments about Bahrain’s abuse of hospital staff. This has led some medical professionals and other observers to lament that if such abuses had occurred in Syria or Iran, the United States would have condemned them vocally and emphatically.

U.S. policy toward the Arab Spring has been two-faced and unprincipled since its outbreak. When a hostile regime – in Syria or Iran, for example – has abused human rights, the administration has taken the moral high ground. However, in the case of friendly regimes – like those in Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia – the administration has toned down its criticism or remained silent altogether. In the case of Bahrain, the United States still maintains a naval base there with 15,000 personnel.

The British Medical Association (BMA) issued a statement strongly condemning Bahrain’s behavior, stating, “BMA is shocked that these doctors are being persecuted for acting in accordance with their code of ethics.” The World Medical Association issued a similar statement. However, the American Medical Association merely invited physicians, if they wish, to write directly to Bahrain’s rulers to voice their opinion. The U.S. bioethics associations are silent.

Over the course of history, humanity has carved out zones of ethical conduct, whether in the conduct of war or the treatment of the sick and wounded. Medical ethics has a long and honorable history that U.S. officials and medical professionals must uphold for the doctors and nurses in Bahrain. Otherwise, the Arab Spring won’t bloom for long.

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Bahrainis hold mass protest in Sitra

http://www.presstv.ir

Fri Jun 17, 2011 5:46PM

Thousands of Bahraini anti-government protesters have poured into the streets in the island city of Sitra, following a call by the country’s largest opposition group al-Wefaq.

The Friday rally was the second mass anti-government demonstration organized by al-Wefaq since the heavy mid-March government crackdown on protesters.

Witnesses say regime forces were closely monitoring the rally and a military helicopter was hovering over the city. But there were no reports of clashes or arrests.

The first protest rally was hold last Saturday under the banner “Bahrain, homeland for all” in the village of Sar 10 days after a state of emergency was lifted.

Al-Wefaq leader cleric Sheikh Ali Salman told protesters on Friday that the opposition was not against dialogue with the government if rights interlocutor and officials were involved.

“The success of dialogue, reform and transition to democracy need officials that believe in it. One of the problems of the past was that many officials did not believe in democracy and reform,” AFP quoted Salman as saying to the crowds.

Similar protest rallies were also held in some other Bahraini villages and towns. Witnesses say regime forces fired teargas at protesters in Karzakan village, west of the country.

Bahraini opposition demands the release of detained anti-government protesters, the suspension of trials against opposition activist and a halt to the dismissal of students and workers before the beginning of the national dialogue set for July 1.

Thousands of anti-government protesters have been staging demonstrations in Bahrain since mid-February, demanding political reforms and a constitutional monarchy, a demand that later changed to an outright call for the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa family following its brutal crackdown on popular protests.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds, including doctors and journalists, were arrested in the Saudi-backed crackdown on peaceful protesters in Bahrain.

Human rights groups and the families of protesters arrested during the crackdown say that most detainees have been physically and mentally abused, while the whereabouts of many of them still remains unknown.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have bitterly criticized Manama for its brutal crackdown on civilians.

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No democracy whatsoever for Yemen and Bahrain

Posted by EU Times on May 30th, 2011

Why would NATO not bomb Bahrain and Yemen? It would seem than their leaders, from a Western point of view, are no better than Gaddafi or al-Assad. According to the Western elites, they allegedly are rigidly oppressing their people.

What about the behavior of the Bahraini King and the Yemeni president? The former, unable to cope with people’s anger, brought in the Saudi troops for the suppression of the unrests. After the mass beatings and shootings of the protesters, the authorities have banned doctors from providing assistance to the opposition. King al-Khalifa was unaffected by the fact that there were no weapons in the hands of the protesters.

In turn, the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh continues to destroy those who oppose his regime. The mass protests demanding his resignation have been going on since the beginning of February. The opposition accuses him of the appalling corruption.

The authorities responded to this by a brutal repression. Peaceful demonstrations were shot by police. Even at the lowest estimates of the Western media, the assistants of Saleh killed over 150 people during their dispersal. However, judging by the data of several local human rights activists, hundreds were dead among Saleh’s opponents.

According to the information from Sanaa, during the last week the Yemeni president has surpassed all his previous achievements. In the recent days the situation has deteriorated markedly for Saleh. He spoke out against a number of important clans, including the country’s largest tribe Hashid, whose fighters are now fighting against the National Guard loyal to the president.

Head of State made a great mistake refusing to conduct a dialogue with the leaders of the Hashid, his native tribe. According to Yemeni sources, the rally was preceded by an attempt to arrest the clan leader Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar. The reason for this was his statement about his transition to the opposition.

In fact, we are now talking about a popular uprising. The president fears that it could turn into a full-scale civil war. This is not surprising as from time to time the country gets immersed in a real chaos. This time, the chaos is created by the President’s actions.

The cause for the armed actions that commenced on May 23 was the third failure of Saleh to immediately resign. Now he explains it by an alleged threat posed by the insurgents and militias of al-Qaeda to transform Yemen in the failed state as it happened with Somalia.

If this is the case, he said, then he would not make any concessions to his opponents and would fight those who threaten the security and stability in the country. Apparently, this is why one of his last speeches was made in the spirit of “I will leave when the violence stops.”

Saleh, who has been raining the country for 33 years, refused to sign an agreement on his resignation with the opposition on three occasions, each time putting forward new conditions. It is worth mentioning that the members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) that works closely with representatives of Western countries also tried to persuad him.

On May 25, British Foreign Secretary William Hague was begging Saleh to sign the “road map” as quickly as possible to save the situation. Now the attempt of a peaceful transfer of power has failed miserably.

The Yemenis, tired of his 33-year rule and repression, have taken up arms. Each new act brings closer a catastrophe for Saleh. The prosecutor’s office of Yemen issued another warrant for the arrest of ten leaders of the Hashid. Thus, Saleh finally signed his own death sentence. It was his fighters who tipped the scales in favor of the opposition. In particular, they seized the building of the news agency SABA, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, as well as the national airline Yemenia.

The situation for Saleh has markedly deteriorated as a result of the armed action of the Arhab tribe, led by the famous Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani, who is considered a prominent fundamentalist, allegedly supporting terrorism, by the U.S. and Israel. The soldiers of the Arhab have blocked the international airport of the country.

The seriousness of the situation is confirmed by the fact that the Americans have begun emergency evacuation of American citizens from Yemen, including part of the state embassy in Sanaa.

Why did the West that so zealously protects the armed Islamists who opposed al-Gaddafi and Assad have not noticed the mass killings by Saleh, as well as highly reactive, in terms of democracy, monarchy in Bahrain? It would seem that there is not much difference between the Arabs of Libya and Syria and the Arabs of Bahrain and Yemen. After all, in terms of the Western values ​​of protection of different kinds of democratic freedoms, Saleh and Al-Khalifa are begging for democratization much more actively than Qaddafi and Assad.

However, the answer is simple enough. Bahrain is economically connected mainly to the United States and Saudi Arabia. Due to the fact that much of the Bahraini oil goes to the Americans, it would be foolish to expect them to refuse to support the local king who is successfully plundering the national wealth with their help.

The Bahraini Al Khalifa dutifully agrees to the conditions lucrative for the West and Saudi Arabia. This is his main difference from the obstinate Gaddafi. He did not want to give up his oil and gas fields for a pittance to multinational corporations.

Saleh is also considered one of their own. He was skillfully fooling the West, claiming that he is the only one capable of preventing the triumph of al-Qaeda in his country. In return he received astronomical sums of money to fight the terrorists amounting to half billion dollars a year.

However, the Western approval did not save Yemen from destabilization. Moreover, the fire that started in Tunisia and Egypt and flung to Libya and Syria thanks to the West, seized those Arab countries whose regimes were the U.S. allies. The fall of Saleh threatens to become one of the main shortcomings of the West after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979. Instability in Yemen poses a serious threat to all Arab oil producers in the entire Gulf region.

Source

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Bahrain Escapes Censure by West as Crackdown on Protesters Intensifies

http://www.commondreams.org

Published on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 by The Independent/UK

Saudi troops’ demolition of mosques stokes religious tensions

by Patrick Cockburn

Bahraini government forces backed by Saudi Arabian troops are destroying mosques and places of worship of the Shia majority in the island kingdom in a move likely to exacerbate religious hatred across the Muslim world.

Mourners carry the body of Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer, who died in police custody. The harshness of the government repression is provoking allegations of hypocrisy against Washington, London and Paris. Their mild response to human rights abuses and the Saudi Arabian armed intervention in Bahrain is in stark contrast to their vocal concern for civilians in Libya. (AP) “So far they have destroyed seven Shia mosques and about 50 religious meeting houses,” said Ali al-Aswad, an MP in the Bahraini parliament.

He said Saudi soldiers, part of the 1,000-strong contingent that entered Bahrain last month, had been seen by witnesses helping demolish Shia mosques and shrines in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

Mohammed Sadiq, of the Justice for Bahrain organisation, said the most famous of the Shia shrines destroyed was that of a revered Bahraini Shia spiritual leader, Sheikh Abdul Amir al-Jamri, who died in 2006. A photograph taken by activists and seen by The Independent shows the golden dome of the shrine lying on the ground and later being taken away on the back of a lorry. On the walls of Shia mosques that have been desecrated, graffiti has been scrawled praising the Sunni King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and insulting the Shia.

The attack on Shia places of worship has provoked a furious reaction among the 250 million Shia community, particularly in Iran and Iraq, where Shia are in a majority, and in Lebanon where they are the largest single community.

The Shia were already angry at the ferocious repression by Bahraini security forces of the pro-democracy movement, which had sought to be non-sectarian. After the monarchy had rejected meaningful reform, the wholly Sunni army and security forces started to crush the largely Shia protests on 15 and 16 March.

The harshness of the government repression is provoking allegations of hypocrisy against Washington, London and Paris. Their mild response to human rights abuses and the Saudi Arabian armed intervention in Bahrain is in stark contrast to their vocal concern for civilians in Libya.

The US and Britain have avoided doing anything that would destabilise Saudi Arabia and the Sunni monarchies in the Gulf, to which they are allied. They are worried about Iran taking advantage of the plight of fellow Shia, although there is no evidence that Iran has any role in fomenting protests despite Bahraini government claims to the contrary. The US has a lot to lose because its Fifth Fleet, responsible for the Gulf and the north of the Indian Ocean, is based in Bahrain.

Sunni-Shia hostility in the Muslim world is likely to deepen because of the demolition of Shia holy places in Bahrain. Shia leaders recall that it was the blowing up of the revered Shia shrine of al-Askari in Samarra, Iraq, by al-Qa’ida in 2006 that provoked a sectarian civil war between Sunni and Shia in which tens of thousands died. They see fundamentalist Wahhabi doctrine, upheld by the state in Saudi Arabia, as being behind the latest sectarian assault and attempt to keep the Shia as second-class citizens. Mr Sadiq believes Saudi troops are behind the attacks on mosques and shrines. “What is happening comes from the ideology of Wahhabism which is against shrines,” he said. To the Wahhabi, the Shia are as heretical as Christians. Mr Aswad said soldiers in Saudi uniforms had been seen attending the destruction of Shia religious sites.

Yousif al-Khoei, who heads a Shia charitable foundation, said he could “confirm that reports of desecration of Shia graves, shrines and mosques and hussainiyas [religious meeting houses] in Bahrain are genuine and we are concerned that Saudi troops, who believe that shrines are un-Islamic and are trying to enforce that Wahhabi doctrine on the Shia of Bahrain, will undoubtedly result in heightened sectarian tensions.”

Some 499 people in Bahrain are known to have been detained during the current unrest and many are believed to have been tortured. Four who died in detention this month showed signs of severe abuse and appeared to have been beaten to death.

In the case of Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer, who had turned himself in to the security forces after threats to detain his family if he did not do so, photographs showed signs of whipping and beating. The Bahraini human rights activist who photographed the body was later detained and accused of faking the picture, but the same injuries were witnessed by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

There are continuing arbitrary arrests of people who took part in the pro-democracy protests that began on 14 February. Even waving a Bahraini flag is considered an offence, and a doctor who was shown on television shedding tears over the body of a dead protester was detained.

The aim of government repression is evidently to terrorise the Shia and permanently crush the protest movement. Doctors who treated injured demonstrators have been arrested and on 15 April the authorities detained a lawyer, Mohammed al-Tajer, who defended protesters in court. Human Rights Watch says the families of many of those detained have no word on what has happened to them. The authorities do not seem concerned about providing plausible accounts of how detainees died. In the case of Mr Saqer, who was detained on 3 April and whose body was released six days later, the government said he had “created chaos” in the detention centre and had died while the disturbance was being quelled.

Human Rights Watch, which saw his body during the ritual before he was buried in his home village of Sehla on 10 April, said “his body showed signs of severe physical abuse. The left side of his face showed a large patch of bluish skin with a reddish-purple area near his left temple and a two-inch cut to the left of his eye. Lash marks crisscrossed his back, some reaching to his front right side. Blue bruises covered much of the back of his calves, thighs, and buttocks, as well as his right elbow and hip. The tops of his feet were blackened, and lacerations marked his ankles and wrists.”

The fighting in Libya and unrest elsewhere in the Arab world has drawn attention away from Bahrain, and the authorities have also arrested pro-democracy journalists and prevented several foreign journalists entering the country.

Timeline of unrest

14 February Anti-government protests dubbed the “Day of Rage” attract thousands, prompted by demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia. One person is killed.

15 February Bahrain police open fire on crowds at the dead protester’s funeral. King Hamad attempts to appease the demonstrators, pledging to hold an investigation into the “regrettable” deaths.

26 February The ruling al-Khalifa family makes concessions to Bahrain’s majority Shia population. Hardline Shia dissident Hassan Mushaima is allowed to return from voluntary exile.

3 March First clashes between the Sunnis and Shia Muslim communities since February’s protests.

15 March Martial law is declared one day after Saudi troops enter Bahrain in an attempt to end the unrest. The United Arab Emirates vows to send 500 police.

16 March Bahraini forces arrest six opposition leaders and crack down on protesters.

18 March The geographical focal point of the mainly Shia protests, Pearl Roundabout in Manama, is demolished in an attempt to quash the rebellion. At least seven people die.

3 April Authorities lift a ban on the main opposition newspaper.

4 April Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls on Saudi Arabia to pull out of Bahrain.

10 April The body of Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer is buried, seven days after he was taken into custody. His body showed signs of whipping and beating.

13 April A Shia opposition party claims that another protester has died in police custody – the fourth so far.

16 April Tensions rise further with new arrests and the alleged death of a female student.

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Video: Highlighting The Importance Of Agility When Avoiding Bahrain SUVs Trying To Kill You

http://dailybail.com

Video – Bahrain police trying to run over protesters

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From the >http://dailybail.com< archives…

The Satellite Photos That Caused Revolution In Bahrain

Raw Video Bahrain: State police pushed back by protesters

GRAPHIC VIDEO: Bahrain Police Killing Protesters In Drive By Shootings

RAW VIDEO: The Massacred Entering Bahrain Hospital

Protester Shot At Point Blank Range By Bahrain Police

Bahrain Army Uses Automatic Weapons To Gun Down Peaceful Protesters

‘US orders media silence over Bahrain’

http://dprogram.net

(PressTV) – President of Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab says the US media have been ordered not to cover news on the government’s brutal crackdown on Bahraini people.

Reports from the Center’s colleagues in the United States say “In the US some news agencies and TV stations were asked not to report on Bahrain and not to embarrass [President Barack Obama’s administration,” Rajab told Press TV.

He went on to say that the US and the Western governments have chosen to keep silent over ongoing atrocities in Bahrain due to their support for the country’s authoritarian regime.

According to unconfirmed reports, over 420 people have been arrested during ongoing protests in the kingdom, Rajab pointed out.

The Bahraini protesters continue to demand the ouster of the 200-year-old-plus monarchy as well as constitutional reforms.

At least 25 people have been killed and about 1,000 others injured during the government-sanctioned crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators.

Joined recently by police units and troops from Saudi and the United Arab Emirates, the Bahraini government forces have launched a deadly crackdown on the popular revolution that began to sweep the Persian Gulf island on February 14.

The Saudi-backed forces have recently been sighted while destroying religious and historical monuments of the Muslim Persian Gulf state.

On Wednesday, the Human Rights Watch accused Bahraini forces of using violence against people that had already received injuries during earlier attacks.

The rights body said it had documented several cases in which the forces had “severely harassed or beaten” patients under medical care in the country’s Salmaniya hospital in Manama.

Source: Press TV

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Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal

http://www.commondreams.org

Published on Friday, April 1, 2011 by Asia Times

by Pepe Escobar

You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a “yes” vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya – the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates (front L) is greeted by Saudi field marshal Saleh al-Muhaya (C), the Chief of Generals staff of the Saudi Arabian Army, upon his arrival at King Khalid International Airport on March 10, 2010 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Days later, the Saudi military entered Bahrain. (PHOTO BY Jim Watson-Pool/Getty Images) The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, “This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner.”

As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the US-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to “seduce” three other members to get the vote.

Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with an eye to become the next Egyptian President.

Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably, came the US-Saudi counter-revolution.

Profiteers rejoice
Humanitarian imperialists will spin en masse this is a “conspiracy”, as they have been spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical massacre in Benghazi. They will be defending the House of Saud – saying it acted to squash Iranian subversion in the Gulf; obviously R2P – “responsibility to protect” does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will be heavily promoting post-Gaddafi Libya as a new – oily – human rights Mecca, complete with US intelligence assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy contractors.

Whatever they say won’t alter the facts on the ground – the graphic results of the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia Times Online has already reported on who profits from the foreign intervention in Libya (see There’s no business like war business, March 30). Players include the Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Saudi Arabia, the Arab League’s Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and the usual neo-liberal suspects eager to privatize everything in sight in the new Libya – even the water. And we’re not even talking about the Western vultures hovering over the Libyan oil and gas industry.

Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the Obama administration, selling a crass geopolitical coup involving northern Africa and the Persian Gulf as a humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US war on a Muslim nation, that’s just a “kinetic military action”.

There’s been wide speculation in both the US and across the Middle East that considering the military stalemate – and short of the “coalition of the willing” bombing the Gaddafi family to oblivion – Washington, London and Paris might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a northern African version of an oil-rich Gulf Emirate. Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style Tripolitania.

But considering the latest high-value defections from the regime, plus the desired endgame (“Gaddafi must go”, in President Obama’s own words), Washington, London, Paris and Riyadh won’t settle for nothing but the whole kebab. Including a strategic base for both Africom and NATO.

Round up the unusual suspects
One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media. BBC America news anchor Katty Kay at least had the decency to stress, “they would like that one [Bahrain] to go away because there’s no real upside for them in supporting the rebellion by the Shi’ites.”

For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, showed up on al-Jazeera and said that action was needed because the Libyan people were attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera journalists could have politely asked the emir whether he would send his Mirages to protect the people of Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.

The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a bunch of Sunni settlers who took over 230 years ago. For a great deal of the 20th century they were obliging slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not live under the specter of a push from Iran; that’s an al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.

Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being part of a sort of Shi’ite nation led by Iran. The protests come a long way, and are part of a true national movement – way beyond sectarianism. No wonder the slogan in the iconic Pearl roundabout – smashed by the fearful al-Khalifa police state – was “neither Sunni nor Shi’ite; Bahraini”.

What the protesters wanted was essentially a constitutional monarchy; a legitimate parliament; free and fair elections; and no more corruption. What they got instead was “bullet-friendly Bahrain” replacing “business-friendly Bahrain”, and an invasion sponsored by the House of Saud.

And the repression goes on – invisible to US corporate media. Tweeters scream that everybody and his neighbor are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over 400 people are either missing or in custody, some of them “arrested at checkpoints controlled by thugs brought in from other Arab and Asian countries – they wear black masks in the streets.” Even blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to fears that the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged, tweeted, or posted Facebook messages in favor of reform.

Globocop is on a roll
Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter Unified Protector – led by Canadian Charles Bouchard. Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the “kinetic military action ” to itself (as in NATO, which is nothing but the Pentagon ruling over Europe). Africom and NATO are now one.

The NATO show will include air and cruise missile strikes; a naval blockade of Libyia; and shady, unspecified ground operations to help the “rebels”. Hardcore helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak – with attached “collateral damage” – should be expected.

A curious development is already visible. NATO is deliberately allowing Gaddafi forces to advance along the Mediterranean coast and repel the “rebels”. There have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.

The objective is possibly to extract political and economic concessions from the defector and Libyan exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) – a dodgy cast of characters including former Justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, US-educated former secretary of planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia resident, new “military commander” and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter. The laudable, indigenous February 17 Youth movement – which was in the forefront of the Benghazi uprising – has been completely sidelined.

This is NATO’s first African war, as Afghanistan is NATO’s first Central/South Asian war. Now firmly configured as the UN’s weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is on a roll implementing its “strategic concept” approved at the Lisbon summit last November (see Welcome to NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).

Gaddafi’s Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean – the mare nostrum of ancient Rome – becomes a NATO lake. Libya is the only nation in northern Africa not subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the myriad NATO “partnerships”. The other non-NATO-related African nations are Eritrea, Sawahiri Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Moreover, two members of NATO’s “Istanbul Cooperation Initiative” – Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – are now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist time. Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are fighting a war in Africa. Europe? That’s too provincial. Globocop is the way to go.

According to the Obama administration’s own official doublespeak, dictators who are eligible for “US outreach” – such as in Bahrain and Yemen – may relax, and get away with virtually anything. As for those eligible for “regime alteration”, from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO is coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

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Riz Khan – Intervention in the Arab world

AlJazeeraEnglish

Why are Western nations so keen to intervene in Libya and why are they not coming to the aid of other Arabs facing similar violence?