Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, "The Islamic State’s Bahraini Backers": Obama's Bullshit Coaltion Against the Islamic State

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In a blog item yesterday, I observed regarding Obama's coalition against ISIS :

"His 65-nation coalition against the Islamic State includes such big guns as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, Panama, Singapore, Slovenia, Somalia, and Tunisia. The coalition also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, whose wealthy citizens have been busy funding the Islamic State."

I failed to mention that the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain is also one of Obama's partners in his "struggle" against the Islamic State.

Well, in case you missed it, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, declared in a New York Times guest op-ed entitled "The Islamic State’s Bahraini Backers":

"While Bahrain imprisons political activists and rights advocates at home, it also participates in the American-led coalition against the Islamic State. The bitter irony of this is that the Islamic State’s Bahraini recruits come not from among the government’s opponents, but from within its own ranks.

Unlike the United States, Britain and France, where typically the Islamic State recruits among alienated young people, in Bahrain the group finds willing jihadists in the establishment. The most prominent Bahraini member of the Islamic State, the terrorist preacher Turki al-Binali, comes from a family closely allied with the Khalifa royal family. Other recruits have come directly from the security forces of Bahrain. (Mr. Rajab, the human rights advocate, was imprisoned for six months recently for pointing out links between the Bahraini military and the Islamic State.)

Another Binali family member who has defected to the Islamic State, Mohamed Isa al-Binali, is a former Interior Ministry officer. He worked in Jaw Prison, a facility notorious for overcrowding and harsh conditions. One former prisoner told me that he’d witnessed Mr. Binali overseeing the ill treatment of juvenile Shiite inmates, not long before Mr. Binali disappeared in 2014 to join the Islamic State."

A fitting testament to the quality of Obama's coalition and his administration's dedication to human rights? I think so.