West’s damning silence over Bahrain

West’s damning silence over Bahrain
1 October, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham – PressTV

Obama probably felt obliged to make some mention of Bahrain in his UN address only because the human rights situation there is so dire, for him not to throw a few token words of concern would have left him open to derision, especially since the US Navy Fifth Fleet is stationed there and Washington plies the regime with millions of dollars worth of weaponry and commerce.”

Bahrain’s despotic Al Khalifa rulers have gone into a huff over US President Barack Obama’s comparison of the Persian Gulf island state with Syria.

In his address to the UN General Assembly last week, Obama made vague mention of sectarianism in Syria and Bahrain in the same sentence.

The funny thing is that the Bahraini dictatorship is right in a way, but for all the wrong reasons. Bahrain is nothing like Syria.

That’s because Bahrain represents a genuine case of a peaceful pro-democracy movement being crushed by a despised tyrant. That’s the narrative that the Western governments and their propaganda mainstream media apply erroneously to Syria; but when it comes to Bahrain, where the narrative is truly applicable, the West turns a blind eye and develops a curious speech impediment.

Obama probably felt obliged to make some mention of Bahrain in his UN address only because the human rights situation there is so dire, for him not to throw a few token words of concern would have left him open to derision, especially since the US Navy Fifth Fleet is stationed there and Washington plies the regime with millions of dollars worth of weaponry and commerce.

Nevertheless, the US president’s contemptibly few words on Bahrain, betray a disgraceful complicity of silence by Washington and the West generally towards the Khalifa regime’s crimes against its long-suffering people.

Yet, such is the arrogance of the buffoonish Bahraini autocrats they went into a huff over Obama’s pathetic paucity of criticism.

This week, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa tried to go on the offensive, telling the UN assembly that the so-called kingdom is a society “based on cooperation, not confrontation.” Sheikh Khalid deserved a standing ovation for brazenness.

As his name indicates, the Bahraini diplomat is a royal member of the Khalifa monarchy. This family has ruled over Bahrain ever since the island gained nominal independence from Britain in 1971. The Khalifa appointed itself as a monarchy and assigned grandiose titles, such as “king” and “crown prince,” “prime minister” and “foreign minister.”

And they have held on to these baubles through hereditary cronyism, becoming super rich in the process, without any form of democratic accountability.

Bahrain is an oil-producing minnow when compared with the natural endowments of Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Iran. But the modest oil and gas wealth of Bahrain has been enough to make the Khalifa family and its hangers-on incredibly enriched. For example, the unelected prime minister since 1971, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman, also known as “Mister Fifty-Fifty” because of his notorious penchant for bribes and backhanders, is reckoned to be one of the wealthiest individuals in the world.

That is something of an achievement for a clan of imposters that the majority of indigenous Bahrainis have time and again repudiated. The Khalifas originally invaded Bahrain 230 years ago as a marauding tribe of sea pirates. They subjugated the Bahraini population and its proud Persian culture under the sword and with the brute help of the British Empire. …more