Hi George,

I moved this post to the Politics & Current Affairs forum.

Oded

WASHINGTON -- The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has hired the founder of private security firm Blackwater Worldwide to set up an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater. The Times said it obtained documents that showed the unit being formed by Erik Prince's new company Reflex Responses with $529 million from the UAE would be used to thwart internal revolt, conduct special operations and defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from attack.

The newspaper said the decision to hire the contingent of foreign troops was taken before a wave of popular unrest spread across the Arab world in recent months, including to the UAE's Gulf neighbors Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

The UAE itself has seen no serious unrest. Most of its population is made up of foreign workers.

(from: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/15 )

By PATRICK COCKBURN

"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 World War One.

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 on its black-masked security forces night after night to terrorize the majority Shia population for demanding equal political and civil rights.

Usually troops and police make their raids on Shia districts at 1-4 am, 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 required four hours surgery.

The suppression of the protesters came after Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council – also known as the ‘kings’ club’ of six Gulf monarchs -- sent 1,500 troops to Bahrain to aid repression which began on  March 15. 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 – in Bahrain. (from: http://counterpunch.org/patrick05162011.html )

The Arab league dominated by Saudi Arabia also allowed the UNSC in a vaguely worded "NO FLY' resolution, gave NATO (and the US) the green light to bombard the legitimate government of Libya (governed by a bit of a kook but who has given development assistance to African countries and rules over a country that has some of the highest living and other standards such as GDP and HDI in Africa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya)

The dogs of war are at it again collaterally damaging innocent civilians all in an effort to install pliant puppets who have relations to the CIA and America.  This humanitarianism resembles the US bombardment of Serbia and their support of the KLF all in an effort to destablise and tear apart Yugoslavia.  Even American and European journalists played along with the charade, faking photos to make it look as if people were in concentration camps and exagerating the so-called Srebrenica massacre while ignoring ethnic cleanisng by The KLF and others: http://www.srebrenica-report.com/politics.htm

The humanitarian interventionists also include those on the left who must feel a need to pursue the white man's burden: http://counterpunch.org/lalieu04212011.html

The dogs of War

It is a good thing that we do not live in the 1950  > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy < , or the 'Homeland Security would have us on a black list... or do they?  

Well I've got you on my list (black or not).  And being a pale faced Anglo I assume I'm safe (for now), realising though any colour can be painted black.

J. Stalin McCartney

A little light relief (and sympathy and shuffle)

Interview with Jeremy Scahill on the deal between Blackwater and the UAE interestingly timed just weeks after UAE Crown Prince met with Obama. Obama administration officials give their blessing!

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/18/jeremy_scahill_on_blackwater_founder_erik