McClatchy reports:
The United States pulled its human rights officer from Bahrain last week after he’d become the subject of a weeks-long campaign of ethnic slurs and thinly veiled threats on a pro-government website and in officially sanctioned newspapers.
Ludovic Hood left the island nation on Thursday. During his final days in Bahrain, Hood was given security protection equal to that of an ambassador, U.S. officials said.
“The safety and security of our diplomatic personnel is our highest priority,” the State Department in Washington said in a statement in response to inquiries from McClatchy. “It is unacceptable that elements within Bahrain would target an individual for carrying out his professional duties.”
Hood’s early departure from Bahrain — five human rights and U.S. officials confirmed that he had not been scheduled to leave Bahrain last week — underscores the serious tensions that have arisen between the U.S. government and Bahrain, the home port of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
If the U.S. hadn’t dawdled all these years, letting the Oil companies call the shots at home, instead built up its own alternative energy infrastructure, along with letting the business community defend their own interests, then there wouldn’t be these situations plaguing the Government/State Department all over the known world today. All I can say is, this country thinks ass backwards, when it comes to doing things. If anything shows the stupidity, it’s allowing the Military/Industrial complex wield so much power. Korea proved to be a stalemate, which is still going on today, Viet Nam a failure, as well as each succeeding military adventure to date. Use & abuse, is the American motto. Hooray!