“One of the largest contracts the (Bahrain) regime had was with the DC-based PR firm Qorvis Communications. As Time reported last November, the firm, which also does extensive PR work for Bahrain’s close allies, the Saudi regime, “has a branch dedicated to rehabilitating the reputation of unsavory governments, a niche practice that has seen great demand in the wake of the Arab spring”. Qorvis often led the way in complaining to CNNi about its Bahrain coverage. An internal email from CNN at the beginning of 2012, seen by the Guardian, records the firm’s calling to complain about excessively favorable mentions of Nabeel Rajab, who had been arrested and charged over an anti-regime tweet, and was just this month sentenced to three years in prison for an “illegal demonstration”…………….”
So the GCC Gulf states donate money to Bahrain. The ruling clan, the al-Khalifa potentates, distribute the money this way:
- X% to hire mercenaries from Pakistan and Jordan and Syria and Yemen and other places to crackdown on their people, raid their homes, and torture them.
- Y% to hire expensive PR firms and lobbyists in London and Washington and other places to try and polish the image of the ruling al-Khalifa clan. They also influence the Western media, as the case of Amber Lyon and CNN shows.
- Except that “a pig with lipstick is still a pig’: it also looks like and it especially smells like a pig. Even in Bahrain.
- Z% to import specialists and weapons from the West and Turkey and Jordan to be used for “crowd control”. Turkey and Jordan are used as fig leaf for Western powers.
- W% for the purchase of palaces and properties in Europe, Britain being the favorite destination of Bahrain kleptocrats.
- U% to donate to Sandhurst Academy (RMAS: The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Surrey, UK) in order to continue graduating the sons of the ruling clan, reportedly at an easier-than-normal special curriculum for the scions of Gulf and Arab potentates.
Not a bad racket, by these Bin Technocrat Bin Kleptocrat shaikhs and potentates, recycling Gulf petro-money around the world, far away from their rebellious protesting captive people.
Cheers
mhg
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