{"id":3189,"date":"2011-09-22T18:28:12","date_gmt":"2011-09-23T01:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3189"},"modified":"2011-09-22T18:28:12","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T01:28:12","slug":"president-obama-no-more-blood-money-for-weapons-sales-to-prop-up-the-broken-us-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3189","title":{"rendered":"President Obama no more blood money for weapons sales to prop up the broken US economy!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>US: Stop Proposed Arms Sales to Bahrain<br \/>\nDon\u2019t Give Kingdom a Pass on Protester Crackdown, Repression<\/strong><br \/>\nSeptember 22, 2011 &#8211; Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n<p>This is exactly the wrong move after Bahrain brutally suppressed protests and is carrying out a relentless campaign of retribution against its critics. It will be hard for people to take US statements about democracy and human rights in the Middle East seriously when, rather than hold its ally Bahrain to account, it appears to reward repression with new weapons.<br \/>\nMaria McFarland, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n<p>(Washington, DC) \u2013 The United States should delay a proposed arms sale to Bahrain until it ends abuses against peaceful critics of the ruling family and takes meaningful steps toward accountability for serious human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today.<\/p>\n<p>The US Defense Department notified Congress on September 14, 2011, of a proposed sale of armored Humvees and missiles to Bahrain worth US$53 million. The sale would appear to be the first since the start of Bahrain\u2019s crackdown on protests earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is exactly the wrong move after Bahrain brutally suppressed protests and is carrying out a relentless campaign of retribution against its critics,\u201d said Maria McFarland, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cIt will be hard for people to take US statements about democracy and human rights in the Middle East seriously when, rather than hold its ally Bahrain to account, it appears to reward repression with new weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The proposed arms sale would, according to the notification from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, include 44 \u201cArmored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs),\u201d wire-guided and other missiles and launchers, as well as related equipment and training.<\/p>\n<p>In mid-February, on the tenth anniversary of King Hamad Al Khalifa\u2019s major political reform proposal and following uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Bahrainis took to the streets in massive numbers demanding democratic reform. The government initially responded by opening fire on peaceful protesters, killing seven and wounding hundreds. In mid-March, after several weeks of continuing protests, the government declared a \u201cstate of national safety.\u201d  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2011\/09\/22\/us-stop-proposed-arms-sales-bahrain\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D3189&amp;text=President+Obama+no+more+blood+money+for+weapons+sales+to+prop+up+the+broken+US+economy%21+&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US: Stop Proposed Arms Sales to Bahrain Don\u2019t Give Kingdom a Pass on Protester Crackdown, Repression September 22, 2011 &#8211; Human Rights Watch This is exactly the wrong move after Bahrain brutally suppressed protests and is carrying out a relentless campaign of retribution against its critics. It will be hard for people to take US <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=3189#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1792],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}