The West's 'double standards' in Middle East

The West's 'double standards' in Middle East On March 14, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, King of Bahrain, invited Saudi Arabia and other GCC forces into his tiny island kingdom to aid a crackdown on pro-democracy protests that had been going already for precisely one month. The protests, launched on February 14 to coincided with the tenth anniversary of the King's issuance of the "National Action Charter", a text that was supposed to lead his country towards greater democracy. But the terms were subsequently betrayed by the King, leaving the parliamentary system he established with little power actually to enact laws and shape the country's political future. The non-violent spirit of the protesters was very much in line with that of the Egyptian pro-democracy movement that only days earlier had managed to remove Hosni Mubarak from power. Protests had in fact begun last year, before Egypt and Tunisia exploded, surrounding the October 2010 parliamentary elections. One month later, Egypt's vote saw the government arrest prominent human rights activists and according to observers, move the country back towards the days of "full blown authoritarianism". It seems the Egyptian government was over-confident about its ability to more or less openly suppress a fair vote, and in response the political consciousness of the people was heightened rather than further beaten down. An assessment one month in One month into the uprising in Bahrain, the warnings of last fall have come to fruition. Bahrain has returned to absolutist rule, with the King declari.............................http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201132710224885390.html