{"id":5419,"date":"2012-01-30T12:27:39","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T19:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5419"},"modified":"2012-01-30T12:36:45","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T19:36:45","slug":"questions-to-president-obama-regarding-weapons-for-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5419","title":{"rendered":"Questions to President Obama regarding Weapons for Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isaiah 29:15-16 – woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” they turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!… Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing?”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

U.S. Arms Sales to Bahrain: 4 Questions for the Obama Administration<\/strong>
\nby: Sanjeev Bery – 30 January, 2012 – Human Rights Now<\/p>\n

As I wrote on Saturday, the Obama Administration has authorized a new U.S. arms sale to the Bahraini monarchy. This comes just months after a Congressional and public outcry that led the administration to suspend a prior $53 million arms sale to Bahrain.<\/p>\n

Members of Congress, journalists, and Amnesty International were all outraged over the last proposed arms sale. That\u2019s because Bahraini protesters continue to be tear gassed, beaten, and even killed while exercising their human rights of free speech and association \u2013 rights that include the freedom to criticize one\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

Regarding this new arms sale, here are the top four questions that the Obama administration must answer immediately:<\/p>\n

1. Why was the arms sale kept secret from the public?<\/p>\n

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy leaked the news of the arms sale on Friday. He also reported that U.S. arms sales under $1 million don\u2019t have to be publicly disclosed. So the Obama administration didn\u2019t publicly mention it. But why? At a time when the Bahraini government continues to crack down on protesters, why did the Obama administration keep the contents of this arms sale \u2014 or multiple arms sales \u2013 secret?<\/p>\n

2. What is in the arms sale?<\/p>\n

U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said that the arms sale \u201cincludes spare parts,\u201d arms for Bahrain\u2019s \u201cexternal defense\u201d, and that \u201cnone of these items can be used against protesters.\u201d But the last time the U.S. State Department said that arms were being sold to Bahrain for \u201cexternal defense\u201d \u2013 the arms package contained humvees. This came after the Bahraini government had already used tanks to surround a hospital where wounded protestors had been treated. The public needs to know what the Obama administration is selling to Bahrain. Ammunition? Replacement parts for ships? Vehicles to transport soldiers? Landing gear for cargo planes? Tanks?<\/p>\n

3. How many secret arms sales are there?<\/p>\n

In his above mentioned piece, Rogin implied that the Obama administration could hypothetically turn the suspended $53 million arms sale into 53 or more separate arms sales under $1 million each \u2014 and that none of them would have to be reported. Is that what is happening? How many unreported U.S. arms sales to Bahrain are happening now \u2014 or are slated to happen in the future?<\/p>\n

4. How does this secret arms sale square with the President\u2019s State of the Union address?<\/p>\n

In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama referred to the \u201cwave of change\u201d in the Middle East. He also described what U.S. foreign policy would be: \u201cWe will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings \u2013- men and women; Christians, Muslims and Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen what is in this latest arms sale (or sales) to Bahrain. But at a time when Bahrainis are experiencing human rights violations at home, it doesn\u2019t look good to be handing their government additional military equipment. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Isaiah 29:15-16 – woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans, who do their work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” they turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!… Can the pot say of the potter, “He knows nothing?” more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[1498],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5419"}],"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=5419"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5422,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5419\/revisions\/5422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}