Bahrain hospital overwhelmed with dead and injured as state cracks down with violence.

The uprisings in the Middle East against secular dictators like Mubarak or absolute monarchs like the Bahreini regime of Sheikh Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa and his family that has been in power for 200 years are causing real problems for their backers in the west.  Barak Obama was forced to condemn the violence in Bahrain today after dodging it for the past week.  The British government announced it is curbing some arms licensing agreements to the regime.

The US has its Fifth Fleet harbored there paying the king  at a cost to the US taxpayer of millions of dollars.  The propaganda for this argues that the US presence is necessary to curb any designs Iran would have in the area.  The absolute monarchy is a Sunni monarchy but Sunnis are a minority in the kingdom, ruling, with US backing, over a Shia majority who face religious discrimination.

But the propaganda is lies.  It is not so much to curb Iran's interests as to prevent the Iranian and Arab masses from taking collective ownership and control of just about the only natural resource they have; oil.  Bahrain isn't an oil producing state but serves as a base for the US military to defend the interests of Halliburton, Chevron and other corporations.  In other words to defend the interests of the capitalist class that own and control this vital human resource.

The US overthrew a secular democratic government in Iran in 1953 in order to prevent the Iranian people from having more democratic control of their own oil production. Most Americans are totally unaware of this, or the US government's role in the Iraq/Iran war.  For those readers who follow this blog who haven't read it already, we strongly recommend you read "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer.

For us as US workers it serves our interests to oppose these dictators and all antidemocratic regimes that the US government props up in the area.  We have to support the struggle of workers throughout the world for self determination and democratic rights. What are the workers of Iran or Iraq, or Saudi Arabia going to do if they control their own resource such as oil?  They can't eat it.

We on this blog while supporting such struggles point out that the capitalist class in the former colonial countries cannot introduce for any prolonged period of time democratic rights and a democratic society.  It is our belief that only the working class can win and sustain democratic rights by overthrowing capitalism, taking state power and building a democratic socialist society and a democratic federation of socialist states throughout the world.

The only losers if the working class controls a social necessity like energy production will be the likes of Dick Cheney, the global corporations and the few thousand billionaires that control the world's productive resources and wealth.The billions who have no water, no sewage system and no food will be able to live a decent and productive life.  That's progress.