Must Spread Demokracy

I am Barack W. Obushma

"Despite Bahrain’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the U.S. has continued to provide weapons and maintenance to the small Mideast nation.
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The Obama administration has stood by Bahrain’s ruling family, who are Sunni, during nearly two years of protests by the country’s majority Shia population. Bahrain is a longtime ally and the home to a large American naval base, which is considered particularly important amid the current tensions with nearby Iran."
http://www.propublica.org/article/americas-arms-sales-bahrain-crackdown

and today in Bahrain:
"A lower criminal court in Bahrain, headed by a member of the ruling family, has sentenced a 17-year-old boy to a year in jail for insulting the Gulf island's king on Twitter."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/2013629164825184368.html

Mind the Gap

"Since his first day in office, President Barack Obama's foreign policy has rested on outreach: resetting ties with Russia, building a partnership with China and offering a fresh start with antagonistic leaders from Iran to Venezuela.
But the global travels on Sunday of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden highlight the limits of that approach. Leaders Obama has wooed - and met recently - were willing to snub the American president."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-obama-analysis-idUSBRE95M0HL20130624

"[A] State Department official said Washington has told countries in the Western Hemisphere that he should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States."
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"In a major embarrassment for U.S. President Barack Obama, an aircraft thought to have carried Snowden landed in Moscow on Sunday, and Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino tweeted that Ecuador had received an asylum request from Snowden."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-security-flight-idUSBRE95M02H20130624

Beijing made the final decision in allowing fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden to leave Hong Kong on Sunday, as the United States was disappointed by Hong Kong’s “troubling” failure to arrest Snowden before he fled the territory.
http://www.scmp.com/