BAHRAIN TURNING VIOLENT – AT 7:57 A.M. ET:  Bahrain is headquarters to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.  It has been wracked with anti-government demonstrations in the last few days.  Now, a crackdown that appears to rival that in Iran.  From The New York Times:

MANAMA, Bahrain — Without warning, hundreds of heavily armed riot police officers rushed into Pearl Square here early Thursday, firing shotguns, tear gas and concussion grenades at the thousands of demonstrators who were sleeping there as part of a widening protest against the nation’s absolute monarchy.

At least five people died, some of them reportedly killed in their sleep with scores of shotgun pellets to the face and chest, according to a witness and three doctors who received the dead and at least 200 wounded at a hospital here. The witness and the physicians spoke in return for anonymity for fear of official reprisals.

The abrupt crackdown on what had been a carnival-like protest injected a new anger into demonstrations calling on King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa to enact reforms. “Death to Khalifa, death to Khalifa,” hundreds of protesters chanted on Thursday outside a hospital as women ran screaming through wards and corridors seeking lost children.

And in Yemen:

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- At least 20 people were injured in clashes between stone-throwing pro- and anti-government demonstrators in Yemen's capital Sanaa on Thursday, an opposition lawmaker told CNN.
Ahmed Hashid, the lawmaker, said police at the scene did not try to intervene.

The clashes came after anti-government protesters tried to find a place to hold their demonstration, the government opponents told CNN.

They had planned to gather at Sanaa University but found government supporters there, who forced them to leave, they said.

Libya:

(CNN) -- Unprecedented demonstrations sweeping the Middle East and North Africa spread Wednesday to Libya, where police clashed with anti-government protesters in the coastal city of Benghazi, an independent source told CNN.

About 200 protesters came out to show support for human rights activist and lawyer Fathi Terbil, who had been detained earlier, the source said. Several people were arrested after police confronted the protesters, the source added.

But Libya -- ruled by Moammar Gadhafi since 1969 -- is not Egypt, said a highly placed Libyan source close to the government who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

"There is nothing serious here," he said. "These are just young people fighting each other."

Driven by discontent and fueled by social media, protests in the region spread this week not just to Libya but to Iran and Bahrain. Anti-government sentiment has also manifested itself on the streets of Algeria, Jordan, Syria and Yemen.

COMMENT:  The United States kissed and made up with Libya, and Britain arranged for the mastermind behind the terror downing of PanAm 103, imprisoned in a Scottish jail, to be released and returned to Libya on compassionate grounds.  He was presumably scheduled to die, but hasn't followed the schedule.

Unrest appears to be spreading in the Mideast, and big, bad Hosni Mubarak, who left power without ordering his soldiers to fire on citizens, doesn't look all that evil any longer.  In other countries, crackdowns are the order of the day. 

Note the deep concern of the political left in America.  A few prisoners were humiliated in an American-run jail in Iraq and the left went crazy.  With all this happening, yawn, little interest.  I guess it's a cultural thing.,

February 17, 2011