Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Occupy Capitalism, Part II


Occupy Capitalism, Part II


We continue, but first a reaction to the last issue:


Occoupy...
Harvard
Oxford
Yale
The DMV
Silicon valley
Heck, Czar... 
Occoupy Anonymous!  Now that's a movement that takes some old-school balls to tackle.   The rookies after those kids are way out of their league.   And most of them can't swing a bat or know the correct way to tape it.   
But don't be misunderstood - those folks have a unique skillset which is publicly available!   They lack restraint and function as an autonymous collective.  Dangerous?  Sure.  From someone who started the first known international (non-disruptive) collaboration cutting the head off the Hydra goes beyond silly.   It's going to be a "now what did we learn?"  moment.   You brag you snitch.  Snitch? Ditch.  Easy as it is to be a big man behind a screen, but to their (Anonymous) military and federal targets, you look... very small.. from 800 yards...   
We know what happens when bureaucrats get overextended.    
Feel free to edit and share.  Just don't call me Anonymous :)
     One love.
So, I believe that is a reaction to the symbol or the mask, not the content.  In addition, I believe that it was directed at the hacker group.  Still, during the last piece, Chomsky does say that Assange should get a Presidential Medal of Honor for informing the American public.  The hacking group did conduct some activity against the major credit card companies that cut off funding to Wikileaks, however.  At any rate, I thought it was worth reproducting.
            I did think that there was to be a continuation of the interview, but apparently not.  However, there are two pieces worth attention anyway.
            The first is with Dr. Black, of UMKC, who discusses Wall Street and gives some valuable background as to why Occupy Wall Street is still important.  It seems that the crash and bailout has had no effect on Wall Street’s practices and the Obama Administration has been even weaker on it than previous administrations.
            One wonders why Wall Street is Republican.  Seriously!
            The second is about the nefarious doctors in Bahrain who actually treat people, clearly in violation of American Capitalist principles:

Crony Capitalism: After Lobbying Against New Financial Regulations, JPMorgan Loses $2B in Risky Bet

JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, is under fire after losing at least $2 billion in derivatives trading it was warned carried high risk. The loss has renewed calls for tougher regulation of Wall Street, with critics saying JPMorgan could have avoided it under regulations the bank opposed. We’re joined by former financial regulator, white-collar criminologist, and University of Missouri-Kansas City Professor William Black, author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One." Black says JPMorgan’s latest woes stem from the flaws endemic to "too big too fail." "Allowing [banks] to be this big, even conservative economists call this crony capitalism," Black says. "The only way this can work is to shrink the systemically dangerous institutions — this is the 20 largest banks in the United States — down to the point that they no longer pose a systemic risk, they are no longer too big to fail, and therefore, they will no longer have this implicit federal subsidy that completely distorts competition [and] ... destroys democracy, because these giant institutions have so much political power." [includes rush transcript]
Filed under  Financial Meltdown
Guest:
William Black, author of the book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. He is associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is also a white-collar criminologist and former senior financial regulator.

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AMY GOODMAN: As shareholders of JPMorgan gather in Tampa today, pressure is growing on bank CEO Jamie Dimon over the bank [losing] at least $2 billion in risky derivatives trading. The New York Times reports Dimon and other bank executives repeatedly ignored warnings about the bank’s risky bets. So far, three JPMorgan executives have resigned, including Ina Drew, the head of risk management at JPMorgan and the bank’s chief investment officer.
The loss has renewed calls for tougher regulation of Wall Street, with critics saying JPMorgan would have avoided the loss under regulations that it’s opposed. Speaking to ABC’s The View, President Obama said the JPMorgan crisis illustrates why Wall Street reform is essential.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is. Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we’ve got. And they still lost $2 billion and counting, precisely because they were making bets in these derivative markets. We don’t know all the details yet; it’s going to be investigated. But this is why we passed Wall Street reform. This is the best- or one of the best-managed banks. You could have a bank that isn’t as strong, isn’t as profitable, making those same bets, and we might have had to step in. And that’s exactly why Wall Street reform is so important.
AMY GOODMAN: JPMorgan was among a number of large banks to lobby against the Volcker Rule, which would prevent banks from certain kinds of risky trading. Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says he expects increased scrutiny from regulators.
JAMIE DIMON: We’ve had audit, legal, risk, compliance, some of our best people look into at all of that. We know we were sloppy. We know we were stupid. We know there was bad judgment. We don’t know if any of that is true yet. Now, of course, regulators should look at something like this, that’s their job. So, you know, we are totally open kimono with regulators, and they will come to their own conclusions. But we intend to fix it, learn from it, and be a better company when it’s done.
AMY GOODMAN: To discuss the implications of this latest Wall Street crisis, we go to Kansas City to speak with William Black, white-collar criminologist, former senior financial regulator, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. He’s also associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
William Black, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you please explain what happened at JPMorgan?
WILLIAM BLACK: Well, I can try. One of the things about this kind of derivatives is that it’s extremely opaque, and we only have JPMorgan’s side of the story at this point, without any real investigation, and JPMorgan’s story doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But here’s what the story that they’re telling is. They had about $15 billion in distressed European debt. As your, you know, listeners and viewers know, Europe has been in just a ton of trouble. And so, those investments were losing all kinds of value. Now, the story, which, again, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, is that they decided to hedge this position. A hedge is something where you invest in a second asset that is supposed to offset losses that you suffer in the first asset. In this case, the first asset was that distressed European debt, and the second asset, the supposed hedge, was a derivative of a derivative. In this case, it was an index of credit default swaps, which are a form of derivative that blew up AIG. Now then, the story gets even murkier, but it—the claim from out of JPMorgan is nobody was looking very carefully at the supposed hedge, and the hedge didn’t perform to offset losses, instead it increased the losses and increased the losses dramatically. And supposedly, no one was looking, and no one adjusted for this. And they woke up, and they had a $2 billion loss. So that’s the story from JPMorgan, as I said, that doesn’t make sense, and I can explain that, if you wish.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain.
WILLIAM BLACK: OK, so first, if you have distressed European debt, you’re supposed to have already reserved against the losses in it. So, why hedge the position at all? Just sell it. Get rid of these incredibly risky assets before they can suffer any additional losses. If you’ve already got loss reserves, you don’t even have to recognize a loss, because you’ve already reserved for it. So, you shouldn’t have had to hedge, period.
Second, if you were going to hedge, he should have hedged. And the way you would hedge something like this is to buy a credit default swap protection against the bad assets. That would hedge. In other words, if you lost on the value of the European debt, the credit default swap would go up in value, and you would be protected against loss. Instead, they have allegedly bet in the opposite direction by buying this derivative of a derivative. If the European debt lost value, the derivative of the derivative was also likely to lose value. Well, that’s not a hedge. That’s a double speculation in the same direction. You’re doubling down on the bet.
And the reason you’re calling it a hedge is because it’s illegal, under the Volcker Rule, to speculate in this fashion. So the story coming out of JPMorgan doesn’t make any sense as a financial matter. It seems reasonably clear that this is faux hedges. This is, you know, to hedging like truthiness is to truth. So this is hedginess: not really a hedge, but you call it a hedge to evade the law.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to play more of what JPMorgan Chase chair Jamie Dimon said this weekend on Meet the Press.
JAMIE DIMON: We support getting rid of "too big to fail." And it’s very important that—and this is not—this is a—not going to even remotely—we’re going to make money, we’ve got tons of capital. But we support "too big to fail." We want the government to be able to take down a big bank like JPMorgan, and it can be done. We think Dodd-Frank, which we supported parts of, gave the FDIC the authority to take down a big bank, and when it happens, I believe compensation should be clawed back, the board should be fired, the equity should be wiped out, and the bank should be dismantled, and the name should be buried in disgrace. That’s what I believe. We need to put that back in the system, and we’ll work with the regulators to try to get that back in the system.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s JPMorgan Chase chair Jamie Dimon. William Black, your response?
WILLIAM BLACK: Well, you can’t have a system work the way he is saying. So, if the institution is allowed to stay this large, it will be too big to fail, and its creditors will be bailed out. And that’s to prevent what is feared to be a cascade of failures, in which one big bank would then cause the failure of the next big bank, etc., etc., and you would have a global crisis. So, allowing them to be this big, even conservative economists call this crony capitalism, and they say that it creates such competitive advantage in it for the systemically dangerous institution—JPMorgan in this case—that it is the equivalent, when they compete with smaller banks, of — and I’m quoting — "bringing a gun to a knife fight."
So the only way this can work is to shrink the systemically dangerous institutions—this is the 20 largest banks in the United States—down to the point that they no longer pose a systemic risk, they are no longer too big to fail, and therefore, they will no longer have this implicit federal subsidy that completely distorts competition. And, of course, we’re not just talking about destroying market systems; this also destroys democracy, because these giant institutions have so much political power. And lastly, the statement is completely disingenuous because JPMorgan in fact opposes all efforts to get rid of "too big to fail."
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of democracy, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, speaking on Meet the Press, said he understands the anger of the American people with Wall Street. He’s interviewed by David Gregory.
DAVID GREGORY: A lot of Americans are galled by the fact that the American worker is still struggling, and yet banks like yours are making a lot of money. Your compensation, north of $20 million, has been published in reports. Do you understand that frustration?
JAMIE DIMON: Sure. You know, people have asked me, "What are you doing about Occupy Wall Street?" And I’ve said that, surprisingly, if the average American has the right to say that the institutions of America let me down—and that’s true. I think if the average American says that’s predominantly Washington and Wall Street, broadly defined, I think that’s true, too. You know, Washington and Wall Street are the epicenter. I blame both of them. I mean, there are a lot of policies and procedures. I think when you go beyond that and start to blame every single bank or every single politician, every single bank, no, it’s not true. A lot of banks were a port in the storm. Not all the banks needed to be bailed out. A lot of them did things, like Bear Stearns and WaMu, Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, and did everything to help, financing cities, states, hospitals. So, that should be recognized, too. So—but I understand that frustration. I understand the frustration in inequity. I think the world, we’ve become a little more inequitable. I don’t think it’s a good long-term thing for society. And therefore, I’m in favor of progressive taxation. You know, you can get into specifics, exactly—
DAVID GREGORY: The Buffett rule, for instance?
JAMIE DIMON: Well, but I don’t understand the Buffett rule exactly, but if you said—
DAVID GREGORY: Or more taxes on capital gains.
JAMIE DIMON: Believe it or not, I think most people on Wall Street would be happy to pay—you know, to have the Bush tax cut go away and pay higher capital gains, if they thought it was part of a plan to fix everything. I do believe that. And that’s why, in fact, taxing them is—attacking is not the right thing, because they’re willing to do their part. Matter of fact, I think you should appeal to people’s better nature and say, "Listen, you’re well paid. You’ve benefited from this great country. We need you to give a little bit more for now to help lift the country up." So, anyway, I do understand the anger.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon. William Black, your response?
WILLIAM BLACK: Well, first, they didn’t make the world better off by acquiring Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual; they made themselves even more powerful and made it even more impossible to have them fail, and therefore vastly increased their political and their economic power.
The proof of the pudding is what the big banks actually did. And the big banks lobbied to create the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall had worked brilliantly. It separated commerce and investment. And it would have prohibited and prevented the losses that JPMorgan just suffered. They also, the big banks, pushed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, and if that act had not been passed, we would have avoided much of the entire financial crisis that we just went through, and we might well have avoided the $2 billion loss that JPMorgan has just suffered. The big banks fought tooth and nail, and continue to fight tooth and nail, to destroy the Volcker Rule, which, again, if the Volcker Rule had been in place, with real regulations, would have prevented this loss. The big banks also fought tooth and nail the requirement that derivatives, when they did invest in them, that they do so in a transparent way through a clearing house, which also would have prevented this $2 billion loss. But that rule is not in effect because JPMorgan led the effort to delay the adoption of these rules and to weaken these rules so much that they are completely unenforceable.
AMY GOODMAN: Elizabeth Warren, who’s running for Senate in Massachusetts but was one of the shapers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has said Jamie Dimon should resign from his position as director of the New York Fed. Explain what that position is and why this is significant.
WILLIAM BLACK: Yeah, the Federal Reserve banks—there are 12 of them, regionally—have as their directors, overwhelmingly, industry. So these are overwhelmingly executives from the banks that they’re supposed to regulate. Most regulation in the Federal Reserve is done through the field, through these regional Federal Reserve banks. So, Timothy Geithner was supposed to be the top regulator in New York in his role as president. But no real regulation occurs, of course, because you can’t expect people to regulate their bosses. It doesn’t work. Congress recognized this in a completely analogous situation. In 1989, in the FIRREA legislation to deal with the savings-and-loan crisis, it looked at the Federal Home Loan Bank System, which was set up in a parallel way to the Federal Reserve banks. And it said this is an impossible conflict of interest. You cannot regulate your bosses. And so, it removed all governmental authority from the Federal Home Loan Banks. The same thing desperately needs to be done in the Federal Reserve, where it is far more damaging because these are much bigger players and much more destructive players.
I mean, what we haven’t mentioned to this point is why there is a Volcker Rule. And there is a Volcker Rule because it was these derivative positions that caused the global financial crisis. They caused hundreds of billions of dollars of losses to the largest banks. The list of systemically dangerous institutions that Jamie Dimon went through that failed, they all failed in large part because of these financial derivatives, what we call the green slime. So, that’s what brought down Fannie and Freddie and Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, Lehman, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia. After those catastrophic disasters that caused the Great Recession, cost six billion Americans their jobs directly, prevented another five to eight million jobs from being created, helped lead to a global crisis called the Great Recession—after that, the banks still fought to be allowed to do exactly the same kind of derivative trades. And even when the Volcker Rule was adopted, over their opposition and over the opposition of the Federal Reserve and of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who remains true to his former boss, Jamie Dimon, after that, they gutted the rule—at least the draft rule to implement the Volcker Rule. And unless it is changed, the Volcker Rule will be essentially unenforceable, because you’re allowed, under the current draft, to simply call something a hedge, even though it operates in the exact opposite of a hedge. And voilà, this hedginess is OK, and the losses just mount up and produce the next disaster.
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Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: Now, William Black, I wanted to end by asking you quickly about the economic crisis in Europe. In Spain, over 100,000 people took part in anti-austerity rallies Sunday. In Greece, anti-bailout parties won the nation’s recent election. And in France, François Hollande was sworn in today as France’s new president, becoming the first French Socialist in power since the ’90s. He recently said his enemy was the world of finance.
FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE: [translated] My real enemy doesn’t have a name or a face or a party. He’ll never run as president, and so he’ll never be elected, although he does govern. My enemy is the world of finance.
AMY GOODMAN: That is François Hollande, France’s new president. William Black, your final response?
WILLIAM BLACK: Finance is supposed to simply be a middleman to help the real economy. It in fact now completely dominates and is a parasite on the real economy. German austerity has pushed the entire eurozone into recession and the periphery into Great Depression-level unemployment. And the same arguments are being made in the United States and are used as a pretext to try to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It is economically illiterate, but politically attractive.
AMY GOODMAN: Your assessment of President Obama versus President Bush?
WILLIAM BLACK: Well, less bad on this subject, but President Obama is also—feels that he must politically say there’s a vital need to balance the budget, which is to say, to have austerity, even though he’s looked at Europe and seen that the worst possible thing you can do in a great recession, or the attempted recovery from a great recession, is to start reducing the spending and such.
And Obama needs to go back to what he originally proposed, which was brilliant. It was a Republican idea: revenue sharing. We all knew that the states and localities, unlike the federal government, cannot run significant deficits, and that there was going to be a financial holocaust that was going to reduce vital services and throw hundreds of thousands of public workers out of work when they were most needed and exacerbate the great recession and dramatically slow the recovery. So, the recovery bill that—the stimulus bill that President Obama proposed had that provision. The Blue Dog Democrats, the conservative Democrats, and the Republicans got together to kill that. And unfortunately, the Obama administration didn’t fight for it.
Here’s what we know. The Wall Street Journal just ran an op-ed saying, don’t allow the federal government to help the states. That tells you that’s what they’re scared of. It would be economically brilliant, it would be politically brilliant, to bring back the revenue sharing provisions, which are, after all, a Republican idea, and make the Republicans make the call that they want a financial holocaust throughout America, and they want us to slip back into a recession.
AMY GOODMAN: William Black, I want to thank you for being with us, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, also a white-collar criminologist and former senior financial regulator. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
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As Obama OKs Weapons to Bahrain, Neurosurgeon Tortured by Regime Faces Trial for Treating Protesters

Human rights organizations are criticizing the Obama administration’s decision to resume military sales to Bahrain despite the ruling monarchy’s ongoing repression of pro-democracy protests. The State Department has said it will allow a multi-million-dollar weapons shipment to the Bahraini government, citing "national security interests." The announcement came just days after the Bahraini government vowed "tougher action" in its crackdown on protesters. We’re joined by Dr. Nabeel Hameed, who is one of Bahrain’s only neurosurgeons and among dozens of Bahraini physicians and nurses who have been arrested and tried for treating anti-government protesters. After a three-month prison stint that he says included abuse and torture, Dr. Hameed is expected to be tried by a Bahraini court soon after he returns home. "There is this silence, this deafening silence, from the world governments [about Bahrain]," he says. "There is a situation which is really getting worse and worse. And if you don’t really stop it here, it may get really, really bad in the future. ... You don’t have to wait until the violence propagates out of control." [includes rush transcript]
Filed under  Bahrain
Guest:
Dr. Nabeel Hameed, neurosurgeon at Salmaniya Hospital in Manama, Bahrain. He was arrested and allegedly brutalized for treating an injured protester. He resumed work at Salmaniya last month after a year’s suspension.

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AMY GOODMAN: Human rights groups are criticizing the Obama administration’s decision to resume military sales to Bahrain despite the ruling monarchy’s ongoing repression of pro-democracy protests. The State Department has said it will allow a multi-million-dollar weapons shipment to the Bahraini government, citing, quote, "national security interests." The announcement came just days after the Bahraini government vowed "tougher action" in its crackdown on protesters.
Meanwhile, prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab remains in prison. So does Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who has been on hunger strike for more than three months. Bahrain is a key strategic ally of the United States in the Middle East, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
As the United States confirmed the weapons sale, thousands of Bahrainis marched near the capital Manama to call for the release of political prisoners.
PROTESTER: [translated] Of course, our demands in Bahrain, demands of all the people, are the demands of everybody for years: democracy, change of regime, the release of prisoners. These are the demands by everyone else in the world. We want the same things.
AMY GOODMAN: Over the past year, dozens of Bahraini doctors and nurses have been arrested and tried for treating anti-government protesters. One of the doctors is joining us here in studio today: Dr. Nabeel Hameed, one of Bahrain’s only neurosurgeons. After he was arrested, he was detained for three months. During this time, he said he was beaten and tortured. He is expected to be tried by a Bahraini court soon after he returns home.
We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Doctor. Explain what happened and what is happening to day in Bahrain.
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: Well, what happened, I think, that after the Arab Spring, the Bahraini people wanted reforms, and inspired by the Arab Spring, they started asking for it. The government cracked down on them very harshly. And the doctors got entangled in the middle. And—
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what happened.
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: Basically, we were at the hospital, most of us on call, and when the crackdown happened, there were a lot of injuries, which needed us to intervene in. And we saw those injuries, we saw the atrocities that were committed to some of these patients, and we treated them. And just for treating these patients, they came back and—I mean, they came on us very harshly, painting us with a traitor image.
AMY GOODMAN: That you treated them. And the name of the hospital?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: Salmaniya Medical Center.
AMY GOODMAN: And they suspended you first or arrested you first?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: No, they arrested us first. And I’m speaking in a group, because, like, we’re 48 medics or doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulance drivers. They arrested us first, and then they suspended us.
AMY GOODMAN: This was last April?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: This was last year, starting from March. I was arrested on 11th of April.
AMY GOODMAN: And then what happened to you in jail? Where were you taken?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: I was taken to an interrogation center—it’s called Adliya—kept there for three to four days. It’s very foggy; I cannot tell you precisely—four days or three days—because what I suffered there was horrible. They make you stand for days together, not allowing you to sleep, beat you up. They push you into this room where they beat you up with a whip or a hose on your back, throw you on the ground, abuse you verbally. They even threatened to kill me by a gun, putting a gun to my head. After that three or four days, they throw me in a prison cell. And surprised that I find two of my doctor colleagues there in that prison cell. It’s a five-by-six-meter prison cell with nearly 13 prisoners among them—engineers, university professors, fishermen—I mean, a cross-section population of Bahrain.
AMY GOODMAN: Last month, Al Jazeera English’s May Ying Welsh won the George Polk Award for her documentary, Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark. In it, she describes what you were just describing, what happened to the doctors at Salmaniya Hospital.
MAY YING WELSH: Any uniformed medic caught trying to save protesters at Pearl Roundabout was attacked. Dr. Saadiq Al Ekri, a senior surgeon, was handcuffed and beaten.
DR. SAADIQ AL EKRI: I was wearing the uniform for the doctors. You know, that one would be with the—with the Crescent. Then they tie me, and they attack me, while I’m crying. Then, I don’t know how many people, maybe 10, maybe 20—I don’t remember—are beating—from everywhere, I was being hit by sticks, by legs. Then, I don’t know. Then they—they told me, "Get up, or we will kill you."
MAY YING WELSH: After breaking Dr. Ekri’s nose and ribs, he says police pulled his pants down and threatened to rape him. Four had died at Pearl Roundabout.
AHMED ABU TAKI: My brother, he was sleeping next to the roundabout. Then, the policeman, he’s coming. Then they shoot him, when he was asleep. He’s going there because he’s looking for work. He’s only 22 years.
AMY GOODMAN: That was May Ying Welsh’s excerpt of a documentary, Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark. These are your colleagues.
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: Yeah. They’re on trial, and I’m on trial, still on trial.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what, Dr. Hameed, you’re on trial for.
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: When they took me, they interrogated me, basically, about one of the protesters I treated, and they accused me actually of killing him. They accused me of smashing his head and operating on him just to show, you know, a tarnished image of Bahrain in order to topple the regime. The victim I treated got a bullet to his head, and his injury was really not life-sustaining. And I did my best, couldn’t save him, unfortunately. So we were tried as witnesses, actually. We witnessed certain things, and they want to take our credibility out. That’s why they accused us of these crimes. Other doctors also are accused of the same thing, with—in addition to that, occupation of the—occupying the hospital, stealing equipments from the hospital. All of these things are really nonsense and untrue.
AMY GOODMAN: Last week I spoke with Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth and asked him why the U.S. has not pressured Bahrain to release pro-democracy activists.
KENNETH ROTH: There are two minor reasons and one big reason. You know, the minor reasons are the military base in Bahrain, which the U.S. doesn’t want to lose, concern about Iranian influence just across the Persian Gulf, in the fact that Bahrain has a majority Shia population, like Iran. There’s fear of influence there. But I think the dominant reason is Saudi Arabia. Bahrain is a little island linked by a causeway to Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia simply is not going to tolerate a genuine democracy immediately off its shore, particularly one in which Shias, if there were free elections, could easily prevail. That would set a precedent, in particular, for Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the oil-producing province which itself has a very substantial Shia population. And the monarchy in Saudi Arabia simply is drawing a line and saying, "No way." And the U.S. is deferring to that.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth. Dr. Nabeel Hameed, can you talk about what it meant to have the Crown Prince of Bahrain in Washington this past week meeting with the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and the resumption of multi-million-dollar sales of weapons to Bahrain, as you go back on trial?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: Yeah, I’ll start to say that I still have an admiration for the Crown Prince. I mean, I first—I saw him in 2002, actually, on TV saying that he is looking for a Bahrain where every Bahraini is proud, and then I really saw in him a future leader. But what happened in the last week was basically asking for more support from the state to continue this impunity, this culture of impunity in Bahrain, where the torture, the forced—or the use of violence in dealing with protesters just continues. And the Americans, by allowing this arms deal to go on, is actually indirectly empowering these acts of increased violence against protesters.
AMY GOODMAN: Were government officials willing to meet with you, a doctor from Bahrain who faces charges among scores of others?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: Government doctors—I mean, government—in U.S. government—
AMY GOODMAN: U.S. government officials. Have you met with Congress members, senators?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: We met—I have met with some, even met with State Department officials.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, finally, about what it means to be here in the United States at the time that these weapons sales are going through to your country? You are one of three neurosurgeons in Bahrain?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: I’m one of the three, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Uh-huh.
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: Two are suspended.
AMY GOODMAN: Two of you are suspended.
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: I’m back—I’m back now, for the last three weeks. They lifted my suspension, and I’m back to the hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is the sentence you face?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: I told you, when they took me, they interrogated me for, actually, and they told me that I’ll be charged with killing. But later on, this thing just disappeared, and I’m actually charged now with the misdemeanor charges of illegal gathering, propagating lies, or something like that.
AMY GOODMAN: And Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, one of the leading human rights activists, on hunger strike for three months, do you know him?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: I don’t know him personally, yeah, but I know him now, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel this hunger strike and the situation in Bahrain is getting the attention that it deserves?
DR. NABEEL HAMEED: It is getting attention. He—by doing this hunger strike, he took the voice of Bahrainis to a more global viewing. But the problem is, there is this silence, this deafening silence, from the world governments that—you know, what’s happening in Bahrain is so small compared to other countries, like Syria or Libya. And it is—I’m not denying that what happens in Syria is much, much worse, but also in Bahrain there is a situation which is really getting worse and worse. And if you don’t really stop it here, it may get really, really bad in the future. So you have the chance now to treat it and treat it quite nicely, and so you don’t have to wait until the violence just propagates out of control.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Nabeel Hameed, I want to thank you very much for being with us, neurosurgeon at Salmaniya Hospital in Manama, Bahrain, arrested, brutalized for treating an injured protester. He resumed work at Salmaniya last month after a year’s suspension, but continues to face trial with other doctors, nurses and medics for treating pro-democracy activists.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we’ll talk about GMOs, and we’ll speak with the grandson of the founder of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap. Stay with us.
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