John Yates says it's fine, so who are we to disagree?
Considering the amount of adverse comment on the holding of the Bahrain grand prix earlier in the year, it's fascinating to learn that our glorious government decided it was fine for officials from the Bahrani government to visit the DSEi arms fair in September of 2011. By contrast, those lily-livered Americans only gave the go ahead for weapon sales to resume in May of this year, and then supposedly they wouldn't be supplying anything that could be used for "crowd control".
We of course couldn't care less about the citizens of countries whose governments are just one step removed from major allies like Saudi Arabia, while we pretend to care deeply about the civilians in Syria, closely allied as the Assad regime is with Iran. It's not exactly surprisisng then that there has been almost no coverage whatsoever of the protests in Qatif in the House of Saud's happy kingdom, this New York Times piece a notable exception. When there's tens of thousands protesting against the most tyrannical ruling class in the whole of the Middle East, it's about time those who have been romanticising the Free Syrian Army changed the record.
Labels: Arab spring, arms deals, Bahrain, foreign policy, Middle East intifada, politics, Saudi Arabia, Syria
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