MIDEAST SIZZLES – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  Violence appears to be increasing in Mideast nations, as democracy demonstrators are set upon by government forces.  From The New York Times:

The severity of a Libyan crackdown on a so-called “Day of Rage” began to emerge Friday when a human rights advocacy group said 24 people had been killed by gunfire and news reports said further clashes with security were feared at the funerals for the dead.

Both Britain and America have tried to whitewash the Libyan regime in recent years.  After all, there are oil deals to be made. 

And, please note if you will the silence of the left on what is happening in these Mideast dictatorships.  Not much interest.  The left has been brainwashed for years that the only important issue in the Mideast is the "national rights of the Palestinian people."  They can't see anything else because they can't see beyond a party line.

That apprehension also seized Bahrain where five people died in a brutal assault on a democracy camp in the capital, Manama on Thursday. The violence has pitted a Sunni minority government against a Shiite majority in the strategic island state that is home to the American Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Thousands of Shiites gathered at a mosque in the windswept village of Sitra, south of Manama, on Friday for the funerals of two of the dead, chanting “The people want the fall of the government” before noon prayers.

In Yemen, for an eighth straight day, demonstrators for and against President Ali Abullah Saleh skirmished on the streets of the capital, Sana, until the president’s supporters routed their foes.

In Libya, defying threats of reprisals in several cities, thousands of protesters mounted one of the sharpest challenges to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s 40-year rule in a “Day of Rage” on Thursday modeled on the uprisings coursing through the region that have had toppled the authoritarian regimes of Tunisia and Egypt.

COMMENT:  There will also be a mass meeting of demonstrators in Egypt today, and they will be addressed by a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.  We'll follow that closely.

The United States appears to have absolutely no influence in anything happening in the Mideast right now.  That is, at least in party, the pathetic legacy of Barack Obama, whose greatest dream seems to be to limit American power.  He has succeeded in that.  At least he's succeeded in something.

February 18, 2011