Heartrending detail on the Bahrain crackdown here
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Dreadful, ghastly, events in Bahrain. One wonders if the people will accept fuedal rule now, or will they seek to find a way to arm themselves and fight back? What's certain is that any idea that they don't live under brutal and autocratic rule, has been revealed as a myth, and now there can be no compromise with the tyranny imposed on them with such force.
Doubt they can fight back unarmed against the whole Bahraini police force, Bahraini army and Saudi army units. Their only chance is for enough people to bring it up in the media that there's pressure for foreign governments to demand it end – or for Bahraini army units to take the protesters' side.
Heartbreaking, indeed.
More from Siun:
Bahrain Hospital Still Under Siege, Journalists Kicked Out of Country; Siun; FDL; 3/16/11 [4pmEDT] http://firedoglake.com/2011/03/16/bahrain-hospita…
The people of Bahrain don't have a choice. Either they fight back, one way or another, or they will remain slaves crushed by an autocratic regime. Of course it's easy to sit in safety and talk about what unarmed people should do. But the people are in the majority. Of course there are going to be tremendous sacrifices and much bloodshed ahead. The regime has revealed its true colours and intentions. Hopefully the Shia in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, where they are the majority, will see this attack on the Bahraini Shia, and begin to react in solidarity with the Shia in Bahrain. Now the only way for the opressed people's of the Gulf, Shia and Sunni, is to topple the regime in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi regime has taken sides in the conflict and they have shown themselves to be just as much an enemy of equal civil rights and democracy as the regime in Bahrain.
I'm sorry to use these sectarian labels, which are rather crude. To make it crystal clear. The Shia demonstrators in Bahrain have to keep up the fight and not back down, forcing the regime to employ more and more force against them, but not enough force to crush them completely and utterly. Then, hopefully, their struggle and sacrifice will provoke a regional backlash from other Shia who will rally to support their "brothers." Already in Iraq there have been demonstrations condemning the Saudi takeover. The Shia in Bahrain have to adopt an escalation strategy designed to pull in other Shia on their side and create a regional conflict, otherwise they will be crushed.
Twitter is an excellent means of following and publicising events. I have been following several legitimate people on the ground in Bahrain, Egypt and Libya who are providing excellent information on events, including @angryarabiya who is in Bahrain and who's father is human rights activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja (currently fearing arrest and subsequent torture at any moment).
I can list some other reliable sources if anyone is interested, or you can look for me on Twitter @stephenuk1 and see at who I am following (ahem, obviously Shakin' Stevens is not based in Bahrain). It appears 'Government' sources are trying to get a confusing picture across by having other people Tweet saying everything is ok and that the protestors are the ones causing the trouble, so it is useful to have access to some more reliable Tweeters.
A bare face of ‘realpolitik’. Something like this happens in Iran and FCO represented by d…khead looking Hague will cry loud of major brutality and will call for immediate stop of any violence. But this is happening in Bahrain and if they let it go it may spread to the Saudi Arabia which lead to losing billions of oil contacts and stock deals. How would you expect US and UK (major players in this business) to demand anything but brutal Human Right Violations from Bahraini king, whose billions I am sure somewhere in London.
Tonight, as America leads the rush to try to get a UN Security Council resolution passed which will allow for a no-fly zone to to be established to protect those brave souls fighting for freedom and democracy in Libya, (and is even now calling for intervention on the ground), the silence over events in Bahrain is deafening, despite the violent suppression of its own citizens with the support of a foreign invader. Obviously where Gaddafi went wrong was in not providing the port of Tripoli as a base for the US fleet. Having learned one thing from its mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the USA is trying to ensure that it has the active support of other Arab states this time in its proposed action against Libya, Therefore we may see the use of Saudi forces in support of a democratic uprising in Libya while simultaneously helping to quash one in Bahrain! It seems a new word will have to be invented to describe this because "hypocrisy", even with such qualifiers as "massive" and "rank", seems insufficient to express the level to which Western democracies have sunk. As the Russians saying goes, "sometimes quantity has a quality all of its own", and that much hypocrisy surely qualifies as something altogether different again.
The word for which you are searching might be 'imperialism'.