…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end
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Bahrain misdeeds get spin as “police training problem”

[cb editor: The BICI report is about what I expected it to be, a political tool for the regime. The Human Rights focus of the BICI has provided an expedient distraction away from the narrative for Democratic reform. The reform dialogue of the hour is all about abusive behavior of security forces – similar to what we are used to in the West when the police get out of hand in a local community. King Hamad has already hired a cadre of Western consultants to help him put his “police state” in order. “quid pro quo” – bribes masquerading as consultant fees. And now the narrative shifts and is focused on dealing with “policing reform”, giving it the neoliberal language that Washington likes to regurgitate. It’s all designed to lose the dialogue of Human Rights abuse and Democratic Reform. Corrective action and respect for a dictator that the US knows as a “vertically integrated trading partner”. Surely King Hamad is due to win some kind of “excellence awards” along the way. It’s how these bastards operate. There is a dissonance in the West and how the Neoliberals relate to the world, they can only hear the voices in their own head, just like the psychopath that hears “god” telling him to murder children on the play ground. ]

Bahrain taps ex-Miami chief for police training
(AP) – 01 December, 2011

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Bahrain’s Interior Ministry says a former Miami police chief will lead training programs for the Gulf kingdom’s forces as part of reforms after an independent report detailed abuses against pro-reform protesters.

The announcement Thursday says John Timoney will head a team of law enforcement advisers from the U.S. and Britain.

Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy has promised to address shortcomings noted in last month’s independent commission report, which cited examples of torture and excessive force against Shiite-led demonstrators demanding greater rights.

Timoney served as Miami police chief from 2003-2010. He previously was commissioner of Philadelphia police and held various posts in the New York City Police Department. …source