Top EU official defends Bahrain crackdown http://euobserver.com/9/32038

A senior advisor to EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton has defended Bahrain's security forces after they opened fire on protesters with live ammunition last week.Speaking to MEPs in the foreign affairs committee in Brussels on Tuesday (22 March) after visiting Bahrain, Robert Cooper, Ashton's top advisor on the western Balkans and the Middle East, said the island is normally "a rather pleasant, peaceful place."

Bahrain security forces on Friday launched a crackdown on protesters in the capital's Pearl Square reportedly killing four and injuring over 200.Amateur video footage showed heavily-armed balaclava-wearing men shooting at civilians. Shots were also fired into the crowd from convoys of jeeps and tanks were brought onto the streets in a level of violence described by the United Nations as "shocking." Government forces later blocked off the main hospital, preventing doctors from treating casualties.

[Robert Cooper is of course,a Founding Council Member, European Council on Foreign Relations.Cooper is best-known for his exposition of the doctrine of "new liberal imperialism", as expressed in his The Post-Modern State (2002). This contains such ideas as the designation of countries as "Failed States", "Modern states" and "Postmodern states", and statements such as "The challenge to the postmodern world is to get used to the idea of double standards". His world-view is said to have been influential in the political thinking of Tony Blair as well as the development of European Security and Defence Policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cooper_(strategist)

The new liberal imperialism http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/07/1

The challenge to the postmodern world is to get used to the idea of double standards. Among ourselves, we operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security. But when dealing with more old-fashioned kinds of states outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era - force, pre-emptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary to deal with those who still live in the nineteenth century world of every state for itself.

Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle. In the prolonged period of peace in Europe, there has been a temptation to neglect our defences, both physical and psychological. This represents one of the great dangers of the postmodern state.

[this guy is a real rabid imperialist...he should eb removed from post immediatly,course in his capacity ,its that kind of predatory drive that gets him elected or rather appointed...