Category Archives: Occupied Bahrain

Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Egypt, ethnic cleansing, Gulf states, Humor, Occupied Bahrain, Persian-American Gulf

Bahrain Opposition, Jordanian Fondlers, About Moroccan Humor, GCC Potentates, etc………….

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“And they’ve given me a name
The call me the fondler, yeah the fondler
I feel around around around around around…..” The Fondler (Bob Rivers)

Bahrain’s main opposition al-Wefaq “Society” issued a statement saluting Jordanians who protested against their government sending troops and security agents and torturers to help repress the people of Bahrain. Jordan is a major source of “interrogators”, also affectionately and fondly called “fondlers” by some extremely non-affectionate potentates, to certain regimes of the Persian-American Gulf. Jordan is the second source of mercenaries into Bahrain, after Pakistan (and not counting Saudi occupation troops and the foreign mercenaries that the UAE potentates have sent). I am not sure this is a major reason for the Saudi idea of Jordan joining the GCC, but it must have helped. Al-Wefaq notes that imported mercenaries also include Syrians (most likely anti-regime) and Yemenis and Baluchis. (Bahrain’s potentates prefer Sunni mercenaries and they prefer them third-world hungry, unlike the Abu Dhabi potentates who prefer white Blackwater types, and Colombians, and Australians and White South Africans, etc).
I still stick by my “extremely educated” prediction that Jordan will never be a full member of the GCC. It ain’t gonna happen, even if the peoples of the GCC and Jordan are never allowed to vote on this issue (nobody i going to vote on this issue, not even the Moroccan people who are probably more ‘with it’ politically). Besides, my Gulf region needs humor more than anything else these days of grim Salafi ascendancy, and Jordanians are not exactly known for their sense of humor (if any), as I have been at pain to point out here. I don’t know much about Moroccan humor, I assume it is better than Algerian humor (probably no contest here). Both countries may become toothless meaningless “associate members”, just a way to save face for the Saudi potentates from the embarrassment of their desperate invitation.
From a point of humor, Egypt would be the best candidate. Egyptians are almost the only Arab people, nay the only Middle East people, with some sense of humor. Even the 30 years of Mubarak could not completely get rid of it, even decades of the growth of Salafi Wahhabism could not do it.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Mercenaries, Occupied Bahrain, Persian-American Gulf

A Gulf of Mercenaries: Arab Potentates Discover the Joys of Hired Foreign Guns……….

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“Mercenaries from Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan are being recruited by officials in Bahrain to help restore security to the country, a Saudi scholar claimed. Bahrain is under increasing scrutiny for the response by the Sunni minority leadership to a Shiite uprising in the country. Doctors without Borders claimed that Bahraini security officials were using hospitals as torture chambers as part of a crackdown. Ali al-Ahmad, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, told Radio Australia’s Contact Asia program that the royal family was recruiting mercenaries from Asia to help with its crackdown. Ahmad said there were no Shiites in the national security forces. Given the fact that Sunnis are in the minority, he said, the country has a “need to import mercenaries” from other places. He claimed “the majority of them” are coming from Pakistan, though he said he’s seen reports of some from countries such as Somalia, Malaysia and Indonesia……..” U P I News

The hired guns and killers are pouring into the Gulf region: it is a gold rush for the dogs of war, mangy or otherwise. Bahrain has been hiring foreign mercenaries for some years: Pakistani newspapers often have advertisements for interviews with Bahrain National Guard officials (some al-Khalifa or another). The ruling Bahraini clan is now expanding the field of mercenary recruitment. They used to focus on Pakistan and a few Arab countries. Now they are expanding it to Indonesia and Malaysia, more impoverished Islamic countries that already have expressed some support for the Saudi role in Bahrain in exchange for a consideration (truly a coalition of the hired and the paid). The United Arab Emirates is already forming a large mercenary force of foreigners from as far away as Colombia, South Africa, and Australia, among other places, to keep its people from thinking rebellion. All under the leadership of Blackwater veterans. I once recommended that the ruling al-Nahayan clan of Abu Dhabi ought o consider hiring their killers and thugs from among the extremely ruthless Mexican drug cartels. I was not kidding: once you have no morals, why pretend to have limits? A hired killer is a hired killer, as the al-Khalifa of Bahrain have discovered. Meanwhile, Western media report that the al-Saud are arranging for Pakistani, Malaysian, and possibly Indonesian forces to help the regime in case of a serious uprising. If this continue I may change the name of my Gulf: from the Persian-American Gulf to the Gulf of Mercenaries and Hired Thugs.
Okay, these potentates should be ashamed of themselves for hiring foreign mercenaries to suppress their people, but they are not. Especially those in occupied Bahrain who use foreign money to buy foreign protection.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Human Right, Occupied Bahrain

1984 in Occupied Bahrain: a Ministry of Human Rights? Expatriates and Lackeys and Abe Lincoln and Bob Marley…………

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“You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time….” Abe Lincoln

“You can fool some people sometimes,

But you can’t fool all the people all the time.

So now we see the light,

We gonna stand up for our rights!…...” Bob Marley

“His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa today issued
decree 60 for 2011 renaming the Social Development Ministry as Human Rights and
Social Development Ministry. The Social Development Minister will also be known
as Human Rights and Social Development Minister. Under the same decree, the
ministry has been restructured to include an undersecretary for human rights, an
undersecretary for social affairs developments, a public and international
relations directorate and other affiliated departments. HM King Hamad also
issued decree 61 for 2011 appointing Osama Abdulla Al-Absi as Labour Market
Regulatory Authority Chief Executive Officer for a three-year term……” Bahrain “News” Agency

King of Bahrain has now changed the name of one ministry to a “Ministry of Human Rights”. This is like Hitler establishing a ministry for Jewish Welfare, or Stalin establishing a ministry for prisoner rights. Or the American Republican Tea Party advocating for labor unions. Some slick, but not smart enough, publicists/lobbyists in Britain or the United States must be behind this desperate attempt at a face-lift for the al-Khalifa ruling clan. Transparently Orwellian.
It started with a call for a so-called “national dialog” to be headed by al-Dhahrani, a semi-educated Salafi-connected head of the mostly appointed legislature, and an al-Khalifa lackey. Then they called to include the “expatriate”, largely South Asian laborers and housemaids, community in the national dialog. On the face of it an admirable call, but a publicity window dressing aimed partly at watering down the majority of the Bahrainis. If they cared for the expatriate community they would allow them access to public education and other benefits, which they do not.
Bahrain’s rulers had become masters at deceiving the West, especially willing American officials, with their public relations stunts, including fake and meaningless elections and a few very public appointments (including one ambassadorial). This time the Arab Spring has caught up with them.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain, Occupied Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Political Nirvana: Hillary Clinton Writes to the Saudi People about Freedom for Syrians…….

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has penned a column for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat (owned by Prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud). Her topic is the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime and is titled “No return to the Status Quo Ante in Syria”.
She assures the Saudi people, and any other Arabs who might read that daily, that the Bahraini Saudi Syrian people deserve freedom and the right to choose their own government, that they deserve dignity and freedom from fear. She also said that Bahrain Syria deserves a government that respects the people and seeks a unified and democratic nation…..
Like Mr. Obama in his last speech, she neglected to mention Saudi Arabia and the people of the Arabian Peninsula. They both believe in the principle of selective non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, and hence she did not mention Occupied Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or the UAE where many people are languishing in prison for expressing their opinion. Or maybe they believe that the peoples in these absolute tribal monarchies have already attained political Nirvana or, worse, they don’t believe these people deserve what the peoples of other Arab countries (and Iran) deserve.
It is true, not as many people have been killed in most the Gulf states than in Syria or Libya or Egypt. Except for Bahrain where proportionally as much if not more have been killed than in some of the others, given the small population of native Bahrainis and the 33 killed and dozens still “missing”.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Occupied Bahrain, US Foreign Policy

Bahrain Website Reports on American-Khalifa Contacts………..

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A new Bahrain news site (Miraat al-Bahrain) reports from diplomatic sources that the Bahraini government knew two days in advance what President Obama was going to say about Bahrain. It reports that the US State Department notified the al-Khalifa regime of the contents. The report says the delegation led by Deputy Sec of State James Steinberg reached four points of agreement, and four points of disagreement, with Bahrain. It says the points of agreement included the right of the regime to enforce “stability” and to call in Saudi forces, and to agree that Iran has a hand in the unrest. That means the US administration summarized the demands of Bahrainis largely into an Iranian plot.
The main point of disagreement was about who are the opposition. The US saw the opposition as all the various political parties and civil organizations, many of whose members are in prison. The al-Khalifa regime saw the “opposition” as its own toadies (Salafis, Muslim Brothers, and others) who are now left as the only members of the ‘parliament’. The regime now defines its own supporters as the opposition. The regime wants negotiations done inside and through its own parliament while the US wants negotiations done on a round table. There was also disagreement on why all those (Shi’a) mosques were vandalized and destroyed.
I did speculate here last week that the American visit just two days before the speech was to reassure the al-Khalifa regime. I also speculated that Mr. Jeffrey Feltman has been in Manama so often that he may qualify to form his own pro-regime mercenary militia. I was barely kidding.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right, Occupied Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

The Assault on the King of Bahrain……….

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The al-Khalifa regime and their Saudi occupation masters have now borrowed from the rape playbook of others in Bosnia and the Congo. They are using rape and the threat of it against the men and women in their custody. Here are afew tweets on the latest:

“NickKristof 
Our close ally, #Bahrain, has a consistent record of using sexual abuse of male and female detainees as a form of torture.”

“maryamalkhawaja
My father, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, was told that they were going to find me and rape me. #bahrain #Feb14”

“kristenchick Kristen Chick
Another defendant, Mohamed Hassan Jawad, tried to show marks of torture on legs during hearing today, was silenced, say witnesses “

“kristenchick Kristen Chick
“Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja’s wife crying on the phone as she recounted her husband’s story of attempted rape in #Bahrain govt custody”

“kristenchick Kristen Chick
Khadija Mossawi, wife of Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja, just told me how 4 men attempted to rape her husband in govt custody friday “

“maryamalkhawaja 
3. Court was adjourned until the 22nd of May and alkhawaja is supposed to get a head scan for possible injuries #bahrain”

“maryamalkhawaja Maryam Alkhawaja
2. They were 4 men and it was in a diff room than were they tried to force him to apologize #bahrain…”

“maryamalkhawaja 1. Corrections to former tweets: alkhawaja banged his head against the floor, he was taken out of the court when he tried to s #bahrain…..”

“maryamalkhawaja 
5. When he tried to tell the judge about this in court hearing today, he was silenced. #Bahrain…..”

“maryamalkhawaja 
4. They began to take off his pants; he was handcuffed & couldnt resist. He began banging his head against the wall until he was unconscious..”

“maryamalkhawaja 
3. He said show me what I have done wrong, and I will apologize. At that point the men took of their pants, he said, as if to rape him cont..”

One of the tweeters is the daughter of one of the threatened victims, which makes it quite agonizing for her to recount all this. Which makes me wonder if there is something ‘Freudian’ in this: if anyone ever raped or threatened to rape the shaikh (king) of Bahrain and his uncle Khalifa bin Salman (the prime minister).
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Corruption, ethnic cleansing, Occupied Bahrain

Île du Diable: Healthcare in a Gulf Penal Colony……….

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"The light that fills my lonely cell,
Is blocked out by the key,
That locks the door to this hell,
The place they wanted me.
Time's racing like the wind,
Execution's near,
Oh lord, I wait for death,
And, yes, I have no fear......"  Megadeth (DFevils Island)

“Q: Why are medical personnel being detained?
A: They helped the injured and they are witnesses. If the government wants to destroy all the evidence, it’s one answer — you accuse medical staff because the main witness of what happened in Salmaniya Hospital, the number of figures of the injured and what kind of weapons were used at that time, was the medical staff. The medical staff know everything.

Q: Have you spoken with any of the medical personnel?
A: We did not speak with them but we spoke with some people who were with them. They said the police, they were tortured. We talked with the ones who were released.

Q: How many people did you speak with?
A: More than 30. Six talked about the doctors.

Q: Were the doctors treated differently than other detainees?
A: Yes, they get more torture. Some doctors, a very famous doctor, we don’t want to announce his name, they forced him to dance to music and they filmed.

Q: Was that meant to shame him?……...”

Doesn’t exactly sound like something out of House, does it? But then Bahrain is not a normal country. The ruling clan and the Saudi occupiers and the imported mercenaries are turning the island into nearly a penal colony.
He asked: “Was that meant to shame him?” Arab despots are shameless, and none of them more so than the rulers of Bahrain. Yet what is even more shameless are our palace self-styled “thinkers”, royal “intellectuals” and opinion makers on my Gulf. Most have been either completely silent or shamefully cheer leading the absolute tribal polygamous monarchies committing genocide on their people. A few, a very few, have spoken against this, and those few are mostly in my own hometown. The rest of the Gulf has gone deathly, cowardly silent when not joining the Salafis in cheering the despots.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, ethnic cleansing, Occupied Bahrain

The Jews of Manama? Drowning the revolution in Shia blood………

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“Bahrain is trying to drown the protests in Shia blood. “Let us drown the revolution in Jewish blood” was the slogan of the tsars when they orchestrated pogroms against Jews across Russia in the years before the First World War. The battle-cry of the al-Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain ever since they started to crush the pro-democracy protests in the island kingdom two months ago might well be “to drown the revolution in Shia blood”. Just as the tsars once used Cossacks to kill and torture Jews and burn their synagogues, so Bahrain’s minority Sunni regime sends out its black-masked security forces night after night to terrorise the majority Shia population for demanding equal political and civil rights. Usually troops and police make their raids on Shia districts between 1am and 4am, dragging people from their beds and beating them in front of their families. Those detained face mistreatment and torture in prison. One pro-democracy activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, brought before a military court last week with severe facial injuries, said he had suffered four fractures to the left side of his face, including a broken jaw that needed four hours’ surgery……..It soon became clear that the government is engaged in a savage onslaught on the entire Shia community – some 70 per cent of the population……..”


This policy of apartheid has been going on in Bahrain since the ruling al-Khalifa clan reneged on its promise at independence to hold free elections. That was in 1975 when they dissolved the first and last freely elected legislature. Like in most Arab despots they managed to keep the people at bay through fear, prison, and exile. The difference is that now in Bahrain, like in other Arab states, the fear is gone. Now the al-Khalifa clan and their Saudi Wahhabi masters and their Pakistani and Jordanian mercenaries are trying to restore that old fear into the hearts of the Bahraini people. They are trying the old method of unbridled violence.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Occupied Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

SS Bahrain: Normal Life under Occupation………

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“In the back alleys and streets of this Shiite Muslim town, a police crackdown looms at any hour of the day, but never more so than at nightfall, when even innocuous civil disobedience can lead to jail and perhaps torture. The angry young men here know from experience that the police will use helicopters, blunderbuss rifles, and tear gas to confront them, but they plot their next nighttime protest march nevertheless, in what’s become a cat-and-mouse game under Bahrain’s state of emergency, imposed to crush what remains of the country’s protest movement. The police, mainly Sunni Muslims recruited from Pakistan’s Baluchistan province as well as Yemen, Syria, and other Muslim countries, deploy three or four vans at the entrances to this town’s residential neighborhoods. Inside are 12 to 20 men ready to pounce the first moment they hear of a demonstration – even a candlelight vigil – against the government…….. Still, every night in many Bahraini villages and towns, residents gather on their rooftops at 8:15 and again at 10 to issue what’s become a protest cry: “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.” Police deploy helicopters to try to drown out this protest, and to drop tear gas canisters on the rooftops………”

They have stolen almost everything there is to steal from Bahrain. The rapacious tribal party of the Al Khalifa had to keep most of their people impoverished in order for the shaikhs and shaikhas (princes and princesses) to live in the style of their richer neighboring royals in Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Gulf states. They have spent the thirty-five of suspended politics robbing the poor island blind, its native villages nearly destitute.
Now they are also stealing the rest: their freedom, their right to speak for themselves, and they are trying to steal their faith through the systematic destruction of Shi’a mosques and shrines.
Backed by unlimited money and troops from the al-Saud despots, supported as usual by the Salafi sycophants, and possible promises not to worry about the Obama administration, the Al Khalifa feel they can do whatever they want to the captive country.
(FYI: nobody seems to worry about the Obama administration. It is focused like a laser beam on the 2012 elections, which means it is focused like a laser beam on Osama (dead), al-Qaeda, and Pakistan. It is also focused on keeping the Palestine-Israel issue unresolved until after 2012. Why do you think Mitchell gave up? They are also focused on keeping the al-Saud and al-Nahayan despots happy and pumping oil and buying more weapons that they can’t use. Bahrain’s vile al-Khalifa clan don’t count: they are just an appendage of the al-Saud dynasty and they are just happy to remain in control of the finances of the captive islands.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Gulf states, Occupied Bahrain

On My Gulf: Brave Women and Cowardly Princes………..

     
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                                                                       My BFF          Missing poet Ayat
“In Bahrain, human-rights workers say at least 50 medical staff are still missing after a crackdown on hospital care for injured anti-government demonstrators. There are fears that some of the detained staff could face stiff sentences for treating protesters. Among them is Dr al-Dallal, a prominent physician arrested on March 17 during a military raid at Salmaniyah hospital in Manama. His wife, Fareeda al-Dallal, was also arrested and beaten under custody last Tuesday. Al Jazeera spoke to her about her arrest and the fears she has about the safety of her husband……”

Dr. Fareeda was interrogated for some time then released. Marks on her face clearly show the results of beatings she endured by the imported mercenary interrogators of the al-Khalifa clan. Dr. Fareeda faces more trouble: she is being called for more interrogation after talking on Aljazeera of her torture. They will likely charge her with “slandering the state” and torture her some more, possibly sentence her.

In my Gulf region, which seems suddenly empty of men, except for some in Bahrain, she stands tall. There are many other women of Bahrain who have stood up for their rights and are enduring the wrath of the despots and invaders: they are doctors, nurses, students, teachers, reporters, and others. She, like the poet-student Ayat al-Qormezi, are a thousand times better than the fat corrupt strutting princes, mentally flatulent potentates and their retainers on my Gulf. Ayat was arrested several weeks ago for reciting one of her poems (video) at Lulu (Pearl) Square: she was arrested after the Saudi invasion. Her whereabouts are unknown. They are both, they all are, certainly braver than all the men in my Gulf, braver than Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama and European leaders who have gone silent about the torment of Bahrain even as they make the right noises about Libya and Syria. (I do not mention Arab leaders here because it is given that they are “what” they are).
Cheers
mhg



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