Bahrain dictatorship in bed with Lockheed Martin and Washington Times

From POLITICO.com in the USA:

Bahrain lobbied for Washington Times op-ed

1/4/12 1:35 PM EST

Salon’s Justin Elliott reports on some international media-lobbying intrigue involving Bahrain, a Lockheed Martin executive and the Washington Times:

“A top executive at Lockheed Martin recently worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to place an op-ed defending the nation’s embattled regime in the Washington Times — but the newspaper did not reveal the role of the regime’s lobbyists to its readers. Hence, they did not know that the pro-Bahrain opinion column they were reading was published at the behest of … Bahrain, an oil-rich kingdom of 1.2 million people that has been rocked by popular protests since early 2011.

The episode is a glimpse into the usually hidden world of how Washington’s op-ed pages, which are prized real estate for those with interests before the U.S. government, are shaped. It also shows how Lockheed gave an assist to a major client — Bahrain has bought hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons from the company over the years —as it faces widespread criticism for human rights abuses against pro-democracy protesters.”

The Times‘s deputy editorial page editor, David Matio, argues that readers were sufficiently informed of the op-ed author’s connections to Bahrain but claimed no further knowledge of the relationship between the author, David Moore, and Bahrain’s “strategic communications” firm, Sanitas International.

A good read, if you’re into that sort of thing.

See also here. And here.

Lockheed Martin are among the biggest war profiteering corporations in the world. They became infamous, eg, by paying bribes to Prince Consort Bernhard of the Netherlands and others.

The Washington Times far-Right daily is owned by the Moonie cult.

U.S. lobbyist manages to plant pro-Bahrain article in Washington Times: here.

Bahrain: Crushing Pro-Democracy Protests. American and British Police Chiefs Step Up State Repression: here.

Bahrain student alleges torture in detention: here.

Bahrain’s Protesting Footballers: here.

Australian deported from Bahrain over Facebook posts: here.

Following reports that Nabeel Rajab of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights was been severely beaten a few hours ago by security forces and is presently being detained in Manama’s Salmaniya Hospital, Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley issued the following statement: see here.

Lockheed: The Ultimate Pay-to-Play Contractor. Dina Rasor, Truthout in the USA: “Loren Thompson is one of those people in Washington, DC, circles that wears several hats…. He is an unabashed promoter of Pentagon contractors and wrote a disturbing article this week for AOL Defense talking about how Lockheed has not only survived the most recent defense cuts, but actually has set itself up to be the most successful defense contractor despite the cuts”: here.

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