Saudi Arabia sends troops to Bahrain to squash protests

Hundreds of Saudi troops have entered Bahrain to help protect government facilities there amid escalating protests against the government....

Nabeel Rajab, from the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera that the Saudi troops would be opposed by the protesters.

"This is an internal issue and we will consider it as an occupation," he said. "This step is not welcomed by Bahrainis. This move is not acceptable at all. It is a repressive regime supported by another repressive regime."

Already, as reports circulated about the Saudi force's arrival, hundreds of protesters had gathered behind makeshift checkpoints around the Pearl Roundabout, the scene of much of the protest in Bahrain.

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Monday’s action, in which more than 2,000 Saudi-led troops from gulf states crossed the narrow causeway into Bahrain, demonstrated that the Saudis were willing to back their threats with firepower.

The move created another quandary for the Obama administration, which obliquely criticized the Saudi action without explicitly condemning the kingdom, its most important Arab ally. The criticism was another sign of strains in the historically close relationship with Riyadh, as the United States pushes the country to make greater reforms to avert unrest.

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billythrilly7th said:

I still have hope for Egypt. Good to hear.

Never even heard of Tunisia until like a month ago. So ..good. But...

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Senior opposition leader Abdul Jalil Khalil said the monarchy's steps indicated it has decided to 'give a military solution to a political problem.'

'They want to talk with a gun on our head, and saying, you either take this or you die,' said Khalil, a leader of Bahrain's main Shiite group, Al-Wefaq.

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"Our advice to all sides is that they must take steps now to negotiate toward a political resolution. The security issues are obviously important, because there has to be an environment of stabilty and security in order for these talks to proceed," Clinton said, speaking in Cairo one day after Saudi troops intervened in Bahrain to quell protests.

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There’s a fear of the rabble, a distrust of full democracy, a sense of entitlement. Apartheid isn’t exactly the right metaphor, because there isn’t formal separation (although neighborhoods are often either Sunni or Shia), and people routinely have very close friends of the other sect. But how can a system when 70 percent of the population is not eligible for the army be considered fair? How can a system in which the leading cabinet positions are filled by one family be considered fair?

The government talks about “unity” and complains that the opposition is encouraging sectarianism. Please! An American friend was on the roundabout Thursday morning when police attacked. They caught him but when they saw he was American they were friendly and said they were hunting Shia only. My friend said the experience left him feeling icy, as if they were hunting rats. And several people I talked to who were there said that the police used anti-Shia epithets and curses as they were beating prisoners.

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In the midst of the violence, Human Rights Watch called upon the United States and other international donors to immediately suspend military assistance to Bahrain. The British government announced that it had begun a review of its military exports, while France suspended exports of any military equipment to the kingdom. Though the Obama administration, too, has begun a review, money talks as loudly in foreign policy as it does in domestic politics. The lobbying campaign by the Pentagon and its Middle Eastern partners is likely to sideline any serious move toward an arms export cut-off, leaving the U.S. once again in familiar territory -- supporting an anti-democratic ruler against his people.

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I am old enough to remember the days when the entire world stopped dead in its tracks as one Middle East autocracy invaded a tiny neighboring state, and the US corralled a massive coalition to repel it. From that moment on, because in part of the threat Saddam's invasion of Kuwait posed to the Saudi oil fields, the US was far more deeply enmeshed in the Middle East's military and political equation than ever before.

Now fast forward to a thousand troops with tanks streaming over the causeway that connects Saudi Arabia with Bahrain. Now, obviously this is different in as much as the Sunni Bahrainian royalty invited the troops to come in to protect them from the protests of the Shiite majority. But to my mind, that makes it just as bad. A military from one Sunni country has invaded another to suppress democracy, because it might reflect, for the first time, the wishes of the Shiite majority, rather than Sunni despots.

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billythrilly7th said:

There's way too much going on.

Is Obama still President?

Doesn't seem to be doing much on ANYTHING.

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Don Allen said:

Bravo, I would like to know exactly what your views on the geo-political idiosyncrasies of arab-sini relations during the Victorian puritanical purge of the middle class in relation to to the Russian exile and ultimate assassination of the royal family.
A minimum of 20,000 words would be appreciated.

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Security forces with tanks have overrun a square in the centre of Bahrain's capital Manama where anti-government protesters have been camped for weeks.

At least three civilians were reportedly killed after police fired on mainly Shia protesters. Officials said three police also died.

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"We deplore the use of force against demonstrators, and we deplore the use of force by demonstrators. We want a peaceful resolution," she said in an interview with the BBC in Cairo.

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TomDispatch analysis of Defense Department documents indicates that, since the 1990s, the United States has transferred large quantities of military material, ranging from trucks and aircraft to machine-gun parts and millions of rounds of live ammunition, to Bahrain's security forces.

According to data from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the branch of the government that coordinates sales and transfers of military equipment to allies, the U.S. has sent Bahrain dozens of "excess" American tanks, armored personnel carriers, and helicopter gunships. The U.S. has also given the Bahrain Defense Force thousands of .38 caliber pistols and millions of rounds of ammunition, from large-caliber cannon shells to bullets for handguns. To take one example, the U.S. supplied Bahrain with enough .50 caliber rounds -- used in sniper rifles and machine guns -- to kill every Bahraini in the kingdom four times over. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency did not respond to repeated requests for information and clarification.

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