How The Tiny Kingdom Of Bahrain Strong-Armed the President Of The United States

The men walking down the street looked ordinary enough.  Ordinary, at least, for these days of tumult and protest in the Middle East.  They wore sneakers and jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts.  Some waved the national flag.  Many held their hands up high.  Some flashed peace signs.  A number were chanting, “Peaceful, peaceful.”

Up ahead, video footage shows, armored personnel carriers sat in the street waiting.  In a deadly raid the previous day, security forces had cleared pro-democracy protesters from the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain’s capital, Manama.  This evening, the men were headed back to make their voices heard.

The unmistakable crack-crack-crack of gunfire then erupted, and most of the men scattered.  Most, but not all.  Video footage shows three who never made it off the blacktop.  One in an aqua shirt and dark track pants was unmistakably shot in the head.  In the time it takes for the camera to pan from his body to the armored vehicles and back, he’s visibly lost a large amount of blood. 

Human Rights Watch would later report that Redha Bu Hameed died of a gunshot wound to the head.

That incident, which occurred on February 18th, was one of a series of violent actions by Bahrain’s security forces that left seven dead and more than 200 injured last month.  Reports noted that peaceful protesters had been hit not only by rubber bullets and shotgun pellets, but -- as in the case of Bu Hameed -- by live rounds.

The bullet that took Bu Hameed’s life may have been paid for by U.S. taxpayers and given to the Bahrain Defense Force by the U.S. military.  The relationship represented by that bullet (or so many others like it) between Bahrain, a tiny country of mostly Shia Muslim citizens ruled by a Sunni king, and the Pentagon has recently proven more powerful than American democratic ideals, more powerful even than the president of the United States.

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