Excerpted from a Nicholas D. Kristof OpEd, N.Y. Times
It is heartbreaking to see a renegade country like Libya shoot pro-democracy protesters. But it's even more wrenching to watch America's ally, Bahrain, pull a Qaddafi and use American tanks, guns and tear gas as well as foreign mercenaries to crush a pro-democracy movement -- as we stay mostly silent.
In Bahrain in recent weeks, I've seen corpses of protesters who were shot at close range, seen a teenage girl writhing in pain after being clubbed, seen ambulance workers beaten for trying to rescue protesters -- and in the last few days it has gotten much worse. Saudi Arabia, in a slap at American efforts to defuse the crisis, dispatched troops to Bahrain to help crush the protesters. The result is five more deaths, by the count of The Associated Press.
One video from Bahrain appears to show security forces shooting an
unarmed middle-aged man in the chest with a tear gas canister at a range
of a few feet. The man collapses and struggles to get up. And then they
shoot him with a canister in the head. Amazingly, he survived. (Full article continued HERE)
