THE MIDEAST STILL BURNING – AT 10:26 A.M. ET:  While "progressives" in the United States and Europe show a marked indifference, the Mideast is in flames.  Most stunning, perhaps, are the revolts in Libya:

CAIRO – Libyan special forces stormed a two-day-old protest encampment in the country's second largest city, clearing the area early Saturday, said witnesses, as a human rights group estimated 84 people have died in the harsh crackdown on days of demonstrations.

Internet was also cut around 2 a.m. removing one of the few ways of Libyans can get out information about the waves of anti-government protests in one of the most isolated and repressive nations in North Africa.

Contrast please the silence of the elites with their deep anguish and pain over the inappropriate humiliation of some Iraq prisoners in an American military prison in Iraq.  No one died, no one was even badly injured, but that outraged the delicate political palate of the effete left.  The hypocrisy is sickening.

Thousands of protesters are calling for the removal Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's leader for the past 42 years, mainly in the cities of the country's impoverished east. Their demonstrations have been brutally suppressed with a combination of armed militias and elite forces.

Oh, by the way, one of Gadhafi's African pals over the years has been Nelson Mandela.  (You remember him, the "great moral voice of Nelson Mandela," don't you?)  Now, Mandela has been a great man in some respects, and one must respect his years of imprisonment at the hands of the apartheid South African regime.  But his devotion to human rights is, at best, spotty, and his anti-Americanism is sickening.  Another worthy to watch is Desmond Tutu ("the great moral voice of Desmond Tutu"), the hypocritical Nobel peace laureate who seems a bit silent these days as people are gunned down in the streets of the Mideast.  Tutu spends much of his time bashing Israel.  Maybe he's just too exhausted to denounce the Arab dictators.

The beat goes on:

Protesters in Bahrain fought past riot policemen who sprayed them with tear gas and shot at them with rubber bullets Saturday, retaking a central square and leading the country’s crown prince to say he had ordered the army out of the area. The announcement set off a wave of jubilation among the thousands of protesters in Pearl Square, the heart of the country’s uprising, and added new pressures for shaken governments in Libya, Algeria and Yemen as they made new moves to stifle protests.

And...

In Yemen, about 1,000 protesters demanding the ouster of President Saleh gathered for another day in Sana, the capital, squaring off against pro-government demonstrators, who held posters of Mr. Saleh The pro-government group moved closer, and the two sides began hurling bottles, shoes and rocks at each other, even as some antigovernment protesters called out, “Be peaceful!”

The pro-government demonstrators fell back, but then a larger group returned, firing automatic weapons, at first into the air, and then at the antigovernment marchers. One man fell into the street and was carried away by other demonstrators, his chest covered in blood.

COMMENT:  Yemen is headquarters to what some American observers consider the most dangerous of the Al Qaeda franchises.  The government is often described by the mushy voices in the State Department as our "ally" in the war on terror.  Yeah, right.

February 19, 2011