Washington wrong to endorse suppression of democracy in Bahrain

Washington wrong to endorse suppression of democracy in Bahrain
By Husain Abdulla, March 18, 2011

It is shameful of the Obama administration to acquiesce in the brutalization of the people of Bahrain.

When peaceful protesters gathered in the country’s capital for weeks and demanded democracy, Washington continued to back the monarchy. When security forces and gangs sent out by the monarchy engaged in bloody attacks on demonstrators, Washington barely said a peep. And the day before Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain to help the Bahraini ruling family suppress the protests, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates actually visited Bahrain. The Saudis would not have made this incursion into their neighboring country if they had sensed that the Obama Administration, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, would disapprove.

Once the Saudis invaded, the State Department urged only that they show “restraint.” That’s not the usual way the United States responds to foreign invasions. The Obama administration won’t even call it an invasion, for some reason.

Meanwhile, appalling repression continues in Bahrain. …more