US set to protect naval base in Bahrain

The protesters also denounced the ongoing crackdown by Saudi-backed regime forces.

Bahrain's brutal crackdown on protests has killed scores of people since the eruption of the popular revolution in the Persian Gulf kingdom in February.

There is an interview with Don DeBar, anti-war activist and journalist, to share his opinion on this issue.

Following is the text of the interview:

Q:  How much has the revolution in Bahrain progressed so far?

DeBar: Well it started and then it was squashed by the entry of Saudi and Qatari troops into Bahrain with the backing of United States and the European powers. It's interesting, different from the way those powers have behaved in the other countries where the so-called Arab Spring has taken place which you could look at that term and wonder when the Arab Winter began and ended or has begun to end and exactly who is responsible for that winter but that is something different.

The Bahrainis have been trying to govern themselves now for a very long time. Now 14 years ago the Saudis also sent troops into Bahrain to crush protest against the Shiite majority, against the monarchy.

The United States and Qatar have been paying a lot of attention. Of course we know that the US has a huge military base in Bahrain and that is kind of the most important thing in terms of the attention that the media in Europe and United States is paying to what goes on there and also in terms of what folks look at locally in terms of the rights of the Bahraini people. Outside there are a very few places including Press TV which I am grateful for.

Q: Of course you are speaking on the differences between the progress that the US has towards Bahrain compared to other countries. What's in it for the United States when it comes to Bahrain?

DeBar: There is the naval base. There are huge naval bases there, one of the largest naval bases that the US has on the planet and it's certainly the largest one in the region.

That's all by itself enough because the US has to project military power into the Middle East, into the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and Southwest Asia because all the resources there are under the control of the West, under the control of United States, Britain, France, various places where the well-off corporations in the West are domiciled and if they don't act to protect those then they lose them and if they lose them, they lose them to the people and of course the price goes up.

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