The Arab Spring, Bahraini Autumn and the US

 How do the US officials keep a straight face when they preach democracy?

The Crackdown

How the United States looked the other way while Bahrain crushed the Arab Spring’s most ill-fated uprising.

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After massive protests shook the tiny Gulf state last February and March, Bahraini authorities swept in with the backing of foreign troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, clearing the streets of demonstrators and imposing martial law. Since then, government forces have engaged in a long and ruthless crackdown, effectively burying hopes of real reform. If any Arab Spring revolt can be pronounced a failure thus far, this is it.

Not coincidentally, Bahrain’s ill-fated uprising stands out in another way, too. The United States, which took a forceful stance on other Arab revolts, remained relatively passive in the face of the kingdom’s unrest and crackdown. To many who are familiar with the region, this came as no surprise: of all the Arab states that saw revolts last year, Bahrain is arguably the most closely tied to American strategic interests. The country hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, a key watchdog in some of the world’s busiest oil-shipping lanes, waters that also border Iran. In the past five years, the U.S. has sent close to $100 million in military aide to Bahrain—a hefty amount for such a small country—much of it earmarked for “stabilization operations” that include training and equipping police and paramilitary forces. And Bahrain’s leadership is intimately linked to that of Saudi Arabia, America’s greatest ally in the region.

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“If there is a place globally where there is not just distance but a huge gap between American interests and American values, it’s in the Persian Gulf. And its epicenter is in Bahrain,” says Toby Jones of Rutgers University.

Distance, hug gap, gaping void.  How does it matter?

Why Is The West So Hypocritical?

Actually, the question asked is:  

Why is the West silent about Algeria?

Johan Galtung, Feb 13,2012, IPS:

Since the military seized power, a quarter million people have been killed in Algeria.

The killing of nonviolent demonstrators and civilian bystanders is escalating in Syria. Assad should resign immediately, a coalition government should be formed, and hundreds of mediators should hold dialogues with the many parties, to try and form a federation.

But the situation in Algeria is even worse. Since the military seized power and cancelled the second round of elections in January 1992 — with Western consent — when the Islamic Salvation Front was headed for a victory, a quarter million people have been killed.

Why is there no Algerian Spring?  Maybe because the repression is too atrocious. Why have there been no protest from the West? 

The answer is not pretty.  From the same article:

Maybe because the Algerian government did what the West wanted: granted access to oil and gas, to bases, and a made a promise of possible recognition of Israel. Syria did none of this.

Thus, the real question is:  Why Is The West So Hypocritical?  Especially the US which never stops going on about supporting democracy and opposing repression against the citizenry when it suits it.

BJP - A Party With "Shady Shades"

For which nice turn of phrase, credit goes to the Deccan Herald editorial team: BJP’s porngate

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) liked to boast itself as a ‘party with a difference.’ The BJP, which was voted to power in Karnataka in 2008, is proving to be not only ‘different,’ but a party with many shady shades. 

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For all the high moral pitch the BJP and its fountainhead, the RSS adopt publicly, the quality of legislators the party has got elected this time, is indeed shocking. If excise minister Renukacharya’s name figured in a sex scandal before he became a minister, another minister Hartal Halappa was forced to quit after rape charges were levelled against him. 

Then there is this - the other strong wicket on which the BJP likes to bowl, corruption: Citing BJP pressure in Jayalalithaa case, Karnataka AG quits

The BJP government in Karnataka suffered another setback on Wednesday, with Advocate-General B.V. Acharya preferring to resign from his post rather than give in to “pressure” from the State government to quit as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the disproportionate assets case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

Talking to The Hindu, he said: “For some time, there has been terrible pressure on me to resign from the position of SPP, and I have been resisting it.”

Ms. Jayalalithaa's AIADMK is not part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, but senior BJP leader L.K. Advani described her, at a function in Chennai last month, as a “natural ally” of his party.

Bio-Terrorism And The US

US puts lid on flu experiments over terror fears

Fear of misuse as a lethal bio-terrorism agent has prompted the US government to ask two of the world's leading scientific journals – “Science” and “Nature” – not to publish technical details on the creation of a deadly avian influenza strain which has the potential to transmit easily among human and cause millions of deaths.

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity created after the Anthrax scare post 9/11 on Wednesday has asked the editors of the journals to withhold certain technical details showing how an avian influenza virus (H5N1) can wreak havoc among humans.

“Editors at Science are taking very seriously a request by the NSABB to publish only an abbreviated version of a research report related to a strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus, Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of the journal said in a statement.

NSABB emphasised the need to curtail publication of the details of research to ensure that it does not fall into wrong hands.

The deadly genetically altered virus was created Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center and colleagues in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Another team at the University of Wisconsin in Madison  came out with comparable results. 

Both were funded by the US National Institutes of Health, which backed the censorship.

Emphasis mine.  This is the country which accuses other countries of wanting to wage various forms of chemical, and biological warfare at the drop of a hat.  'Wrong hands'?  Which country is killing other people day after day through drones, dropping bombs, is holding people without trial for indefinite periods etc?  The US?  No, can't be.  They have their heart in the right place.  

Wrong hands indeed.

American Hypocrisy

As I was reading this 

Arab leaders have given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad three days to halt his ''bloody repression'' of protests or risk sanctions, but activists said security forces shot dead a nine-year-old girl on Thursday.

and thinking how the killing of the 9-year-old will cement the Syrian government's status as the most horrible government that has to be overthrown immediately, this came to my mind: The killing of Awlaki’s 16-year-old son:

Two weeks after the U.S. killed American citizen Anwar Awlaki with a drone strike in Yemen — far from any battlefield and with no due process — it did the same to his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, ending the teenager’s life on Friday along with his 17-year-old cousin and seven other people. News reports, based on government sources, originally claimed that Awlaki’s son was 21 years old and an Al Qaeda fighter (needless to say, as Terrorist often means: “anyone killed by the U.S.”), but a birth certificate published by The Washington Post proved that he was born only 16 years ago in Denver. 

 ... Every now and then it’s worth pausing to reflect on how often we talk about the killing of people by the U.S. Literally, the U.S. government is just continuously killing people in multiple countries around the world. Who else does that? Nobody — certainly nowhere near on this scale. The U.S. President expressly claims the power to target anyone he wants, anywhere in the world, for death, including his own citizens; he does it in total secrecy and with no oversight; and this power is not just asserted but routinely exercised. The U.S., over and over, eradicates people’s lives by the dozens from the sky, with bombs, with checkpoint shootings, with night raids — in far more places and far more frequently than any other nation or group on the planet. Those are just facts.

 That is one hypocritical government.

US Senator: ‘Let’s Get In On The Ground. There’s A Lot Of Money To Be Made In The Future Of Libya’

Link:

Sixty-thousand Libyans have been wounded, 3,000 maimed, 25,000 killed. Let’s get in on the ground. There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles.

Democracy. It is always about democracy.