Shocking video. Shocking and barbaric situation.
For all the naysayers, I don’t think that any sane person can even dream of condoning such action, under any pretenses:
In light of the effective political societies’ refusal to take up the Crown Prince on his offer for dialogue until the resignation of the government and the withdrawal of the armed forces and the riot police, the country is now at a critical fork in the road, the choice of which to tread must be decided before 3pm this afternoon when the street – not political societies – has decided to once again take to the streets from several locations and converge once again on the Pearl Roundabout.
Can you imagine the massacre awaiting your fellow compatriots there if the army is not instructed to stand down and get back to their barracks? The protestors – regardless of whether you agree with them, are Bahrainis just like you and me. They have legitimate demands and aspirations, again just like you and me, will you stand by the wayside, once again, and allow them to be mowed down and get their blood to flow on the streets of this country? How can we live with ourselves if we allow that to happen? Even animals have more compassion.
The ball is still in the air, I know, attempts must be continued to be made to just get actors around the negotiation tables to stymie the flow of blood and the loss of life. It is absolutely wrong and irresponsible to lay the blame on a single person or political society. No one operates in a vacuum and the responsibility must be shared.
Here are my suggestions to get things forward:
- Cease all atrocities
- Immediately order all army units back to their barracks and get them to stand down
- Immediately order all riot police units back to their barracks and get them to stand down
- As the government has lost any semblance of legitimacy and credibility, it must immediately resign
- CP must be named as a care-taker prime minister
- Dissolve parliament and call for elections within six months
- Immediately establish an elected council to draft a new constitution which must be presented for national referendum
The public went over the edge when they saw their compatriots killed by their very own army and have absolutely nothing to lose now. They have and will continue to offer their bodies to stop the bullets while shouting “سلميه سلميه” “peacefully, peacefully“.
Does anyone remember a young man called Mohammed Bouazizi?
Comments
Can’t think … Anyone know what is the procedure to migrate to US, UK or even Canada ????
You would not have free healthcare of any kind in the US, not to mention high taxes and no housing giveaway. I realize there are complaints about the quality of services in Bahrain and the wait to get housing but be careful what you wish for. You might find yourself facing an even greater struggle for survival.
Actually, every American who works has good healthcare. Those who don’t work still can get health care at public hospitals, though they have to wait in a long line. In America, you’ll never need health care to treat you for a gunshot because the government shot you down in a crowd of protectors as if you were rabid dogs. Accepting free health care in exchange for a tyranny that feels free to squash you like a bug is a bad bargain. I didn’t see any video of Bahrainis fleeing helicopters firing on them where one guy turned to the other and said, “But what about our free health care!”
Steve,
That isn’t true regarding all working people having good healthcare and I am sure you know it. I worked from the time I was 16 and never had free healthcare provided by an employer. And public healthcare is provided at a fee for the working poor (plenty of people in that category with me).
I am not saying that free healthcare is a trade-off for not being shot, but from my experience in the Gulf, I think people are very naive about what they want and think they should be provided with.
I didn’t claim you get your health care free in America. Working people pay for it. Any hospital in America is required to treat anyone who walks in their emergency clinic, whether they can pay or not. Many can’t and don’t. I don’t believe public hospitals charge a fee but even if they do, I doubt most poor people pay it. Public hospitals are heavily subsidized by the government to break even.
That said, health care you pay for will always be better than free health care, not only in quality but also politically. As long as you are dependent on government, it controls you. When you are independent, you control the government.
Also, for-profit health care innovates. Most of the life-saving medicine, machines, and techniques came from America or other for-profit health care systems. What medical innovations have sprung from socialized health care? Socialized health care systems are free riders on for-profit systems, the socialists slowly adopting some of the innovations made by faster, more nimble smarter capitalists.
WTF??? Many working Americans get *0* health care. The *only* reason I have any is because I’m a veteran – my wife has none. The recent “health care overhaul” hasn’t changed this yet, nor is it likely to given current Congress.
You have a choice to buy health care or not. You choose to spend your money elsewhere. Health care isn’t cheaper through the government but more expensive in taxes and liberty.
Go to Canada, go to Australia – if you must come stateside, we’ll see if we can make it work. US immigration is a labyrinthine, Kafka-esque process.
Minimum two years, but here’s the deal. In these places, you will NEVER be fired upon by the military. You will NOT be fired upon with police warning. If an officer of the law so much as unhooks the button on his gun he will be up to his eyeballs in six months of paperwork.
You will have due process.
You will have to work hard for your livelihood though, but there will be opportunities if you are willing to do what it takes.
I don’t think that this is too difficult a scenario for Bahrain.
Dear Desert Island Boy yes you are right, police dont fire in the US, but they also dont burn police alive there… there are no more facts in Bahrain, history over rides the facts.
Reem,
I’ll have to respectfully disagree. There is a reason why the Ice T song -“Cop Killa” was so controversial. Because there were genuine concerns that people would be gunning for police in retaliation for the escalating brutality.
And the riots a few days later in LA made that point.
What resolved that situation was a genuine change in LAPD culture.
Can we agree that Public Security might not have the requisite professionalism to serve the nation? Is that not a fair discussion?
How independent is the judicial system in Bahrain? How do we know that a young Bahraini will be judged on his actions and the law, and not whether he will just “be made and example of”?
And just to be clear, Majid Asghar Ali is just as much a martyr for Bahrain, and his justice was cheapened by “allegations” of tortured confessions.
dear desert island boy, martyr…
This is not a heroic act! this must stop! this is the exact idea of victomness that keeps escalating and will not work!
Communication, assertiveness, and hard work and good intentions work better. No one must assume the worst! we are human, we can all identify with each other!!! but martyr will not work!
No, i dont agree with martyrdom
I stand corrected on one point – Majid Ali, the undercover policeman who was burned in his car during a riot, has received NO justice, and absent any genuine evidence, his family will be denied justice.
The case was remanded because the “confessions” were deemed unreliable and prosecutors have yet to refile with reliable evidence.
Ms Al Khalifa,
Were the protestors on their way to burn police and army? The video shows them unarmed with their hands in the air.
Yet you do not express your sorrow or horror that such a massacre took place more than once in the space of a few days in Bahrain. Or that the government deployed an army to squash an unarmed people’s peaceful demand.
Regardless of where you stand on the reform issue and the demonstrations, you can’t possibly be ok with demonstrators (among whom are children) being fired upon.
Dear Wafa,
I am not ok with the killing nobody in their right mind can be. But i think copying Egypt is not the answer, everything was filthy in Egypt nothing worked there, this is not the same situation. I think the protesters should be adult men and women standing in front of a main government offices, responsible people who WANT their life.
but no one is interested in being mature, and I think you were met with the same immaturity that you were standing there with.
Let’s not go into the “they did” and “we did” scenario for your sake, because if you wish, I and thousands of your very own compatriots can bring out much dirtier laundry and throw those at your doorstep.
You are in a privileged position, hence your responsibility is greater than others. Use that responsibly and show some humility. This is what’s needed at this time.
Mahmoud is this aimed at me? sorry didnt know who are addressing…
“Bring out much dirty laundry and throw it at your door step?”
no matter who you are talking to this is blackmail…
sorry if you claim to be democratic this is not working…
you cant do democracy this point here is exactly why you cant do it.
you dont frankly know how to eradicate error… eradicating error cant happen…
I have been in a lot of protests in the US in the 70s, 80s and 90s, and indeed we were fired upon with tear gas and beaten — without due process. Not live ammo, that is true, but the picture some of you have of the US is not what I experienced for the first 40 years of my life. Just sayin’….
I have been to a dozen large protests in Washington, DC, some as big as 50,000 people, and they all went much like a carnival, even when the protectors were aggressive. Only a handful were arrested for disorderly conduct at most of them and they deserved it. At about a quarter of the protests, nobody was arrested. No tear gas, no shots fired, nobody shot dead with their brains splattered all over the street.
But then, America is a democracy where citizens have the right of free speech and assembly. Bahrain, by contrast, is a monarchy where the subjects have no rights except what the king allows.
Yeah, yeah, yeah… everything is so “civilized” in the US and so barbaric in the Arab world. You must live in a different US than I did. Or either you are talking about pro-Iraq war demonstrations during the Bush administration.
Same old Steve the American 🙂
That’s exactly true, peacefulmuslimah, everything is more civilized in America and more barbaric in the Arab world. The proof are those corpses of protestors laying dead on Bahraini, Egyptian, Yemeni, and Libyan streets for the simple act of public grievance with the government.
Dear desert island boy no country has killed more innocent people than your stateside…
I’m tempted to give a retort with a laundry list of victimization, but I don’t want to end up splitting hairs over the definitions of “killed” or “innocent” or even “people”.
Let’s table that for another day.
My question to you is, what did you hope to accomplish with a comment like that?
If you are trying to say that the United States has no legitimacy in the Arab Street, then I have no argument. We can chatter on until the cows come home about how and why we got there, but we won’t be anywhere else other than the fact that the US government has little to no ability to affect change in the Middle East, (short of evacuating the State of Israel and moving them all to Montana).
If you’re trying to say that American values, enshrined in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights are meaningless because the actions of the US government don’t live up to them, I agree to a point. US political dialog and judicial history shows a constant tension of living up to those ideals. There is nothing shameful in a government being held accountable for its actions and decisions.
If you’re trying to say that “hey, if the US can get away with Bekaa Valley or drone attacks in the NW Frontier Province, then a dozen busted heads and three premature burials are a drop in the bucket”, that saddens me, because we are better than that. We really are better than having to use that to justify bad behavior.
I really am trying to make sense of your statement. If you would, please clarify before the trolls sieze on this to hijack the conversation.
Hiroshima!!!
Your stateside is for sure smarter about their dirty work is what I am saying- everything is excusable in a war zone? Weapons of mass destruction should not even be invented!
I dont agree with the killing! I dont agree with the killing, and I dont agree with the approach everyone is taking, martyrdom is not good!
If people showed up wanting their work, wanting their life, wanting peace, it would work, but I really dont see this happening i think immaturity is met from both sides.
Reem
If you oppose the deaths of 300,000 in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki then you are implicitly endorsing the deaths of millions in the conventional war it would have taken to end Japan’s war of aggression. That is an immoral view.
question for reem, why is it that your country will not train your own young shia population to work as technicians in your Police helicopters our your F-16s and all Royal Bahraini Air Force aircraft but instead import hundreds of retired pakistani military personnel which do serve in uniform as soldiers. How is this productive to do ? These are facts so please answer honestly.
dear John Franklin, its a different concept, it takes time for one to get used to it.
Historical lack of trust.
All true facts Desert Island Boy. But you know what also is true; all opportunities for a free and prosperous life do exist in Bahrain as well. You talk about having to work hard for livelihood and good life. Again the same rule applies to Bahrain and in every thriving and successful society. Work hard and you will be rewarded.
“you will NEVER be fired upon by the military. You will NOT be fired upon with police warning. If an officer of the law so much as unhooks the button on his gun he will be up to his eyeballs in six months of paperwork.†I say wake up and smell the roses Desert Island Boy. If anything, discrimination started in the U.S., still continues to exist In the U.S. and will continue to exist for all eternity. Innocent people get shot at by the police on a daily basis for as much as merely being of a certain race. I am not condoning what has happened in Bahrain, I’m merely stating facts. Riot police were dispatched to control a situation, things went out of hand and they responded.
Violence was never the answer to solve issues and resolve matters. The situation in Bahrain is dire and I maintain what I have said that all parties should resort to reason. Having said that, it is unreasonable to demand the government withdraw its forces from the streets and turn a deaf ear to the flock of rioters to continue burning and destroying our beloved country. If calm and tranquility were to be achieved, rioters and rebels must withdraw and go home first; after all it is against the law and all common sense what they are doing.
Bahraini, there is little argument between us on the principles. Although I cannot help conclude that there was no provocation at 3am on Thursday morning.
All that aside, discrimination is part of human nature-but so is trust, so is reconciliation. HRH Sh. Salman is working as a good-faith negotiator and he is at the table right now. The ball is in Wefaq’s court.
Also, I reviewed my earlier comment I mean to say “You will NOT be fired upon withOUT police warning. If an officer of the law so much as unhooks the button on his gun he will be up to his eyeballs in six months of paperwork”. Sorry for the typo.
You have to be kidding with that comment. The ONLY way any Bahraini can make a decent living or make something of his or her life is due to wasta…whether they have it or not makes all the difference…and for the most part the average Bahraini doesnt have it.
It matters little whether you have the drive and ambition to make something of your life…if you havent got that magic touch of wasta…not only is it a longer harder battle…it can also work against you.
btw that was in reply to Bahraini…oops.
Wasta indeed Coolred. It works both ways. Shia’s only hire Shia’s and Sunni’s hire Sunni’s. Given the size of the Shia’s population, however, I would have to assume that things would be VERY difficult for the non-Shia in Bahrain.
Look I still maintain my stance, Shia’s, before all, carry the heavy burden of proof on their shoulders here. So far, destruction, burning, and chaos have been demonstrated for all to witness, for the past decade and more. Shia’s in Bahrain are treated MUCH better than any, of the same sect, anywhere else in the Arab world. Parliamentary elections and the freedom to vote alone is a giant milestone towards constructive dialogue in a prosperous society. Finally, so far I have only heard and read what is required of the government and the ruling family, whatever happened to two way discourse? Why isn’t anyone talking about what is required of the rioters and whoever is behind them?!
Bahraini,
Your statement is false that US police shoot black people for being black, a product of the biased environment you live in. The problem is that young black males between the age of 18 to 24 commit forty times the number of homicides as the rest of the population. That is why there are more confrontations between them and the police.
Mahmood, please tell everyone to stop all calls for demonstrations via twitter, more people will die this way.
We need the most influential religious figures to tell the youth to stop facing the army, to stop the blood shed. in Bahrain (Isa Qasim), outside (Al-Sistani, Khamenaee). Please please please, never ask them to face a tank with your bare chest, you saw what happens. STOP THE BLOOD SHED!
2- Al-Wefaq to back the dialog and not fear about their stand in the street, what’s at risk is the entire country, not the reputation of 18 MPs.
3- Army to be pulled out ASAP.
DIALOG PLEASE, DIALOG PLEASE, DIALOG PLEASE, DIALOG PLEASE.
FOR THE SAKE OF OUR CHILDREN!
Why you want Sistani and Khomaini to tell us what to do ???!
And to stop the blood; from scientific point of view; the cause of the blood is the bullets. So please resend the message to the one shooting.
I think Al-Sisitani has the power to influence his followers everywhere.
He didn’t ask Iraqis to fight American tanks with their bare hands.
Shia in Bahrain respect Al-Sistani, I have friends who were emailing his office for every matter of life, one friend emailed him for a fatwa regarding Kraft cheese! I think pushing yourself in front of a tank is a more critical decision to make compared to eating Kraft!
Isa Qassim, please please don’t push people.
Please leave out Sayed Sistani out of this
Many of you do not like him, but many Bahrainis if not all respect and follow him ( not in regards of politics or loyalty but in regards of everyday fatwas )
and please do not make fun of fatwas even if it is about kraft cheese. Kraft is a US company what do they care about Halal food ?
I’m not making fun, I’m just giving an example.
I just want people to listen to someone with the required wisdom we need,
If politicians can’t convince the youth, religious figures are alternatives.
A fatwa regarding someones life is more important that everyday fatwas.
Please let reason and wisdom spread.
reader911: “and please do not make fun of fatwas even if it is about kraft cheese. Kraft is a US company what do they care about Halal food ?”
Fatwas are for sheep who can’t figure the simplest things out for themselves.
American companies are far more attentive to the needs and desires of their customers, including the many customers wanting halal food in the US, than Arab companies. American companies make their profit depending on how well they satisfy their customers. Arab companies make their profits depending on how well they cut deals with their corrupt governments and how much baksheesh they hand over.
I didn’t see anyone wearing turbans shot down in the streets. It doesn’t look to me like the fundamentalists are at the heart of the protest movement, but rather seek to hijack it for their own ends.
You don’t need guidance from Sistani on Kraft cheese. You can just ask me. Steve’s Kraft Cheese fatwa is this: Don’t use it. If you must used processed cheese, stick to Velveeta and only use that for Rotel cheese dip:
http://www.ro-tel.com/index.jsp
Use real cheese for all other purposes.
Another insensitive American (as usual) who makes fun of foreign cultures because he thinks its weird and who thinks The American Way of Life (almost bankrupt) is the ONLY way to live
Make yourself a Favour .. Please do not speak
I did not see your war-mongering politicians fight and get killed in Iraq and Afghanistan
If you recall, Afghanistan attacked us by hosting Al Qaeda, even after we helped them liberate their country from the Soviets. Iraq attacked most of its neighbors, refused to abide by the UN peace resolutions, fired hundreds of missiles at US jets, tried to assassinate a former president, was producing chemical weapons, etc. How typical for a bigoted Muslim to get these things exactly backward.
This video is absolutely disgusting. And despite the sheer volume of footage showing exactly what is going on…I am still have debates with Sunnis in Bahrain about whether it is REAL or fabricated by Shiias to further their cause. Really? Is stupidity on this scale even possible???
Now you know how we Americans feel when the Muslims told us no Muslims perpetrated the Sep 11 attacks. Next thing you know, the Sunnis will be telling you that the Mossad and CIA did it. Or maybe you attacked yourselves.
i am kind of shocked.
but again,isn’t that area under ‘martial law’ lockdown which is kind of “shoot first, ask questions later ” *sad face*
my condolence for all those who died and suffered
No Martial Law nor curfew was EVER declared. Even with those, in a country like Bahrain, our very own army shoots US? Unarmed civilians carrying aloft the Bahraini flag?
The sad and obvious answer is that Bahrain is not really your country, that flag is not really your flag, that government is not really your government. You have no rights your king is bound to respect, not the right to protest, not the right to life, liberty, nor pursuit of happiness. The government has the monopoly on all the rights. You have none.
Steve,
George Carlin – Kennedy Center honoree, said in his last days that even in America,
We have no rights. We have privileges.
Thank our founding fathers for an independent unbiased judiciary who will enforce those privileges in a court of law. Of course your good buddies, Alito Scalia and Thomas will do everything they can for the courts to not have to respect any privileges for anyone they deem unworthy of respect.
If you can afford to camp out in a court of law that is.
See-dan snyder vs. The City Paper
George Carlin was a comedian and his views were a joke. Our rights are not privileges, but an inherent feature of being human, not something to be granted by others. The false idea that the government grants your freedom is an authoritarian idea, a product of degraded thinking by liberals who promote the state’s power over the individual.
Mohammed
Your country needs you in the long run. Please stay, change will come only from within, from people like you
The smart play is to flee Bahrain because the government is more likely to crush you than you are to crush the government. The problem, of course, is that Arab Muslims who flee their dysfunctional nations want to replicate that dysfunction in Western nations, making themselves ever more unwelcome. Frankly, the last thing any Western country needs is more Arab Muslim immigrants. The door is closing.
Mahmoud,
I can’t agree more. Unfortunately, it is not me who needs to agree
“Anyone know what is the procedure to migrate to US, UK or even Canada ????”
The UK is full up.
Deepest sympathies to all in Bahrain.
please feel free to migrate to better health care in the United States, and better Taxes in the UK.
I did that already.. I don’t mind Taxation with representation that are returned to people as decent services.
what if we had a thriving entertainment industry do you think we would have these problems?
why doesnt anyone sing? and i’m not talking islamic songs…
it will change your mood… u might even make a buck or two…
“All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.â€Â
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.â€Â
This video is just an example and I think that what is not being uncovered or caught on camera is more worse… Doctors and Medics are talking about bodies being missing and others being put in refrigerator trucks after the clamp down on 17 February!
We cannot talk about mistakes! We’re talking about crimes in the scale of “War Crimes”!!!
And I suggest , before any dialogue, that the Govt. with the ruling family recognize that a massacre had been committed and all those responsible are to be brought to justice. All those responsible need to admit what they’ve, whoever he is.
And about the mentality of the people right now, they will continue to protest, and the will continue to face the bullets, and they will continue to face whoever it is out there. The scale of the crime is huge !!
Look at this here…
Tear gas was been shot at a family in this car…
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=76297&id=110142232396157
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=87987&id=110142232396157
One of the problems is that we have all seen photographs that have been doctored or taken from an old source and passed off as something going on now (and I don’t just mean in Bahrain). FB groups and Twitter can easily hype people up and by the time the record is set straight, the indignant have spread the hype further. I was a victim of such a thing a few years ago and I no longer trust all this “proof” without checking and rechecking. I also abstain from spreading it further.
But that’s just me….
Be brave Mahmood but not beyond the call of duty. Your country will need many voices of reason when this violence ceases. I read your blog often and am impressed by your candor, it is a rare commodity in the Arab world. The rather extreme reaction from your government to peoples concerns shows they have a long way to go to reach the 20th century, or even the 19th let alone the 21st. That all people are born equal is a given by god, your government obviously thinks they are more equal. Whomever ordered this violence against unarmed civilians is a monster.
Mahmood,
I wish you and your country the best of luck. I greatly admire your bravery.
Steve,
I worked at many places that had no healthcare options — even for paying for it. And public hospitals do charge Steve. Believe me, as I spent almost 20 years in Richmond and many times had to use MCV (the public hospital of last resort). I was given a bill every time. Btw, they do try to collect and don’t just write it off. I had to claim bankruptcy due to not being able to pay my medical bills at this public hospital.
The first time I ever had healthcare offered for free or at an affordable rate was when I came to Qatar 12 years ago.
I don’t want to divert this anymore but wanted to set the record straight.
Salaam.
Mahmood,
What you suggested to move things forward is exactly what we need at the moment; if the ruling family are clever enough and to keep their standing in the country, they would do exactly that and immediately and may be then the people will start trusting them.
The ruling family of Bahrain is not clever. They have exacerbated the situation with heavy-handed violence. Besides being evil and wrong, it’s stupid. Did they really think that shooting peaceful protestors down en masse would improve the situation? They didn’t realize that however tactically effective slaughtering people might be in stopping a single protest that it would be a strategic defeat? That it would spawn dozens of protests and be a festering sore for years?
You are ruled by incompetent fools who are easily stampeded into violence, the first resort of low brutes.
“You are ruled by incompetent fools who are easily stampeded into violence, the first resort of low brutes.”
Funny you should mention that…
Kent State
Jim Crow
Birmingham Police Department
Alabama National Guard
Chicago Democratic National Convention
Daryl Gates
In fact, that was OBL’s entire premise that eventually some fool would take his bait and that in governor shrub, that’s exactly what he got.
So let’s be careful throwing condescending judgments and labels around. But you’ve been told that enough times-I don’t expect you to pay any heed. This is for everyone else to know to stand up to ignorance with information.
I’ll pass on the errors on your examples and concede some of them are true, like Kent State. The difference between America and the Arab world is that we recognize such events as wrong and fix them. The Arab world does not. In this very thread you have posters who deny anyone got shot, that the videos of protestors getting shot are phony. That’s just nuts.
Denying the reality of a problem is the first failure of Arab cultures. So problems never get fixed but recycled endlessly. In the US, there is a process for addressing problems and fixing them. We eliminate our problems while Arabs keep a death grip on their problems and never let go, always blaming somebody, anybody, else.
Well, denial is a river in Egypt, and as far as Arabs are concerned, it is OUR river.
Steve and Peacefulmuslimah,
Please stop filling the page with small stuff and concentrate on the important issues like what Mahmood suggested.
times like these are when every thing you have fought and suffered for in the name of “free speech” over the years makes total sense. i humbly pray for you and your country, Mahmood.
Well its lucky that the Ruling Family and government in Bahrain reads Mahmood.tv and are able to avail themselves of Steves pearls of wisdom. Without it I am sure the CP would have continued a policy of extermination of all opposition.
Its also fortunate that all Bahrainis have access to his wise council. Otherwise they would all still be cowering at home waiting to be squashed by the dictators boot.
Without his commentary I am sure the Military would still be in Pearl Roundabout and the people and their aspirations would still be excluded.
Thankyou for solving this problem Steve.
Mahmood,
Any news or words about the freezer truck(s) and their contents (these are the trucks that the military refused the medics access to them); and any news about the missing protesters;
nothing yet I’m afraid, but I can tell you that this issue is very high on the priority of tasks to be addressed.
Dear Mahmood
I am so shocked to see this video. Nothing in the world can justify shooting and massacring protesters in this way. I have shown it to everyone so that they are aware what Bahrainis are going through. This is really unacceptable. May God be with you and your brave nation, sunni and shia.
WOW … it was a war here … any way it was a moment of disappointment, but to resolve this issue (healthcare and taxes) I am glad to announce that I have no plans to leave my country
Almost of the response I think have went beyond the topic. Bringing in different divisionary statements like Us welfare, different leaders and the Tunisian revolution in not the matter right now what is more important is the Bahraini citizens !! Examples could be great but where are the actions ! As a citizen of Bahrain am deeply distressed about the events going on, rumours are spreading like fire. People dying of the streets is the main image that internet media is implying on. More ever Mahmood not to be rude or anything am seriously questioning the quality of this video. I am not an expert with the video creations but the gun shots and image presented do not make sense to me.
Were you present during any brutal scenes today? Or did you witness any attacks against the civilians?
Almost all of the respones** Error ^^
Ok, so why – when the death count isn’t finalized, the missing are not accounted for, and many people are in jail, possibly awaiting torture or even rape, when Saudi and Iran are poised to pick up the pieces if the CP (God help him) can’t pull this hot potato out of the fire, when injured protesters were denied medical attention – ARE YOU FOOLS WITTERING ON ABOUT BLAH BLAH BLAH TAXES AND HEALTH CARE!!
Incredible.
Thanks for the eyewitness reports and thoughtful commentary.
When you say that the govenment must resign, does that mean the king? Or just the prime minister and the cabinet?
If I were you, I would add one more demand: immediate firing of all foreign mercenary soldiers and police. Get those weapons out of the hands of foreign mercenaries ASAP. Demand that Bahrainis staff the police and military.
My thoughts are with the Arab people. Stay safe, Mahmood.
Government is the Executive branch. If the legislative really care for this country, they have to resign too. They shamed us anyway, especially their chairmen.
1. Who did the shooting in the video above? Like I said before, “Order out of Chaos.” The New World Order will hire any thug to shoot someone or blow something up just to stir things up. Perhaps they were hired or coerced into doing the shooting just to create chaos. Perhaps this shooting was NOT about ideology at all.
Here in the United States, the government often blows things up using false flag terror to get legislation passed and to manipulate public opinion. The UNITED STATES’ bloody massacres of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City and destroying WTC 1,2,and 7, as well as attacking its own Pentagon, on 9/11 are examples of what Americans must live with…in the name of “truth, justice, and the American way.”
Right now we just get our penises and vaginas fondled by the TSA at airports but the same is coming to the streets and highways.
2. The reason that things are not MUCH worse in the United States is because there are over 100,000,000 firearms in public hands…and considerably more ammunition. Give it some time.
3. As for “free medical care”…a little Ayn Rand: http://plasse.biz/resist/TheForgottenManofSocializedMedicine.htm
Paging Steve the American…
…Steve the American, white courtesy phone…
Why don’t you handle this one, eh?
I’ll pass. American conspiracy theorists are as chock full of nuts as Arab conspiracy theorists. Arguing with them feeds their psychosis.
I was the guy who missed the “Old Mahmood.”
I do not know if your local video store
has 2001 or 2010: The Year We Make Contact
on their shelves.
Watch them both. In 2010, Heywood Floyd
(Played by Roy Shieder)is visited by the
ghost of of an astronaut from 2001.
The ghostly apparition warns Floyd that he
must depart the orbit of Saturn because
“Something is about to happen.”
Floyd asked repeatedly “What is going to
happen?” Finally, the ghost replied
‘Something wonderful!”
@Reem Al Khalifa: yes it is.
more respect shouldnt come from my side…
I will still expect it from your side.
we’re in polite society here so I won’t tell you where to go and what to kiss of course, but suffice it to say that this sort of attitude is exactly what got this great country to where it is today.
Respect is earned and not demanded. So far, you have fallen very short of that mark, Reem.
@Reem Al Khalifa re Martyrdom: It worked, it works and will continue to work. The ultimate sacrifice any human can do is to offer his own life for change he or she believes in. Recent examples? 7 of your compatriots. A bit earlier than those? Mohammed Bouazizi.
I think this is a Muslim cop-out. What happened to us using our brains to correct what is wrong in the world??? Instead we want to embrace martyrdom with the notion that we will get some great reward for it. I don’t mean to insult anybody or disrespect the dead but I seriously don’t see how getting killed to depose the government is what is meant by being a shaheed. And I think the fact that we claim it in what are POLITICAL skirmishes is one of the things that keeps us down.
Well, martyrdom is NOT by choice, but by force. And the force is that of an aggressor. I’m afraid one cannot help but die if shot with a tear gas canister projected into one’s brain, you know.
Those morons who blow themselves up don’t count in my book.
[WARNING: link extremely graphic]
Mahmood could you not have passworded that pic or something? Kids log on here.
Please forgive my ignorance but who was this poor individual and when was he killed?
To be clear: glorifying losing your life in a political struggle as martyrdom is what I am against. And people who write here (or elsewhere) about their willingness to “martyr” themselves are in my view not using the brain Allah gave them. They just might have the right words or ideas to move change forward and we can’t afford to lose good minds and good hearts.
I don’t need pictures of the way we humans can destroy each other. I grew up during Vietnam and saw enough, plus have lived in the Gulf long enough to see a lifetime’s share of graphic images that generate powerful emotions.
@Reem Al Khalifa: oh boy. You’re so off the mark that it doesn’t warrant a reply. But I’ll attempt to anyway, for the sake of dialogue: People in Bahrain were demonstrating just as you wish it be done since 1920 and they were never listened to. Now they are. Take a guess as to why.
I appreciate your clarification, but you dont need to add remarks like “oh boy you are so off the mark”… I know what is going on here is what the matter is
as long as you agree with martyrdom I cannot agree with you, we we will have to agree to disagree on that one.
and as long as one is blinded by a goal, even if its negative, and especially if its negative, there is no chance to see anything else.
Martyrdom is completely and utterly avoidable dear Reem, if the aggressor chooses not to shoot! So in that context I am completely in agreement with you. Stop the regime (any regime) from using violence against unarmed civilians simply wanting their voices heard.
So reem tells it like it is, for the last 35+ years they have been importing geriatric pakistanis to serve in Royal Bahraini Air Force instead of training there own shia youth. Yoo are pathetic reem, you train a small percent of sunni youth then import Pakistanis because you do not trust your own people. You were given everything as a child and have no clue. Go to the helicopter base our isa base then the navy and practice your urdu it is pathetic as a So called educated bahraini you should be ashamed your own shia population is not filling these positions.
Since when did Reem become the government of Bahrain? It’s really unfair and doesn’t reflect well on you Norbert to presume you know this woman’s life and blame her for all your complaints about Bahrain. 🙁
@Reem Al Khalifa: blackmail? Are you even on this planet?
Ok, please explain to me how that thought came to you about anything that I said. Unless you’re suffering from amnesia, I trust that you have selective memory or are completely mis-informed.
<note: I am NOT being confrontational or unreasonable here>
@Reem Al Khalifa:
Ok, I’ll bite. What’s this “concept” you’re talking about then?
I agree that getting yourself killed for your cause should not be your aim. The more blood shed, the more polarized your society becomes, and the more difficult it becomes to reconcile everyone to a solution. Do you want to become Yemen, a country of perpetual feuding? Iran produced hundreds of thousands of martyrs of young boys sent out in waves to detonate mines with plastic keys to paradise strung around their necks. What good result came of that?
Arabs have a win-lose mindset when it comes to dealing with other people. In this particular confrontation, that is exacerbated by the blood shed, which drives everyone to extreme positions.
Michael Ovitz, a Hollywood talent agent, said that the reason why he was so successful in negotiations is that he picked a fair position to all parties at the outset and stuck to it. Being reasonable has a moral authority and a political force when everyone is losing their heads. Your opponents look unreasonable in refusing it. It also is a better long term strategy for producing trust, which is the ultimate guarantee of the welfare of all parties.
Look beyond the horizon to your ideal destination and drive there rather than fighting for immediate advantage. Work for the long term rather than fighting for the short term.
“Steve the American,†at the request from “Desert Island Boy,†has chosen to respond to my post of Sunday, 20th February ’11 at 5:14.
Steve the American has responded to my post by insulting me and calling me names rather than posting any information contrasting or disproving the things I posted, or for that matter even addressing the things that I posted.
Steve the American has called me a “conspiracy theorist†as if Steve’s usage of that phrase somehow negates and invalidates the facts that I put forth without Steve even having to put forth any of his own.
When Steve the American calls someone (in this case ME) a “conspiracy theorist,†what Steve is really saying is that Steve would rather his reader NOT examine ANY facts other than the one’s that Steve wants his reader to examine and Steve is offering no facts at all: zip, zilch, zero, nada.
By calling someone a “conspiracy theorist,†Steve is hoping and intending that the reader of that phrase will submit their mind totally to Steve the American’s will and accept whatever Steve the American wants the reader to believe without requiring Steve to proffer ANY evidence at all.
In using the phrase “conspiracy theorist,” Steve is expecting you to suspend your reasoning ability and to stop the input of the evidence of your senses and to stop using your rational faculty instantly agreeing with Steve no matter how far-fetched [19 people with box cutters and a guy with a laptop computer in a cave in Afghanistan managed to land one in the Pentagon. I wonder what kind of WIFI connection the mountains of Afghanistan have?] Steve’s beliefs may be.
To accentuate, Steve the American calls me psychotic even though a quick gander of the above five paragraphs will show that Steve is obviously psychotic according to his own words and his own (implicit)definition.
Steve’s use of the phrase “Arguing with them feeds their psychosis.†Arguably being based on a false premise as explained above is intended as a mind-control mechanism to SHAME AND SCARE the reader of that phrase into NOT examining any facts for themselves as well as to exempt the reader from any moral condemnation by the reader’s conscience not to.
Since I have been called out to validate what I put forth, below are two fine examples.
One shows interviews of, among others, multiple uniformed Pentagon Security officers inside and outside the Pentagon saying that they saw the plane fly OVER the pentagon as well as Lloyd England (that’s the taxicab driver who never hit Light Pole Number One) saying that his wreck was staged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FhQc-LJ-o
The second is a trailer, much shorter than the above, for a documentary being put together in the town I live in and should prove quite an eye opener.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZt4SACTIq8
One can only lead a horse to water but one can NOT make it drink, of course.
“There are none who are so hopelessly enslaved as those who think that they are free and yet they are not.â€Â
Calling ‘Desert Island Boy.’ Calling ‘Desert Island Boy.’ It’s the Red phone, sir…And it’s for YOU!
No matter how tightly you cinch them down, the conspiracy nuts keep chewing through their leather restraints to return to the keyboard.
You, “Steve the American” would initiate the use of physical force to bind those you choose not to answer?…those who disturb you by pointing out that you refuse to acknowledge reality and refuse to observe facts and to reason?
Of course you would.
Is that your response, “Steve the American?” Of course it is.
You would strap down those who ask you to think, to reason, and you would physically restrain them. Yet you would NOT answer them except by initiating physical force against them no different from the physical force initiated in the video above…except that those 100,000,000 firearms in American hands severely limit your ability to “cinch them down.”
Yes, those troublesome 100,000,000 firearms in American hands are extremely frustrating to you because you and your ilk know that you will be on the receiving end of those muzzles; and that that hour draweth nigh. It is THOUGHTS that you want to stifle,”Steve the American.”
It is obvious to me that you are nothing but a government shill and an antagonist. I can tell by your responses that you are reading off the answer sheet that they provide for you.
Have we made it off page one yet, Steve…”the American?”