Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, the King of Bahrain, is a murdering thug

The royal family of Bahrain is murdering the people of his country. This is beyond stunning, especially from a close U.S. ally. Al Khalifa's government is trying to prevent coverage of the carnage, but the story is getting out.

Nicholas Kristof is in Bahrain -- and he's witnessing the carnage first-hand. His column today is especially compelling

:A column of peaceful, unarmed pro-democracy protesters marched through the streets here in modern, cosmopolitan Bahrain on Friday. They threatened no one, but their 21st-century aspirations collided with a medieval ruler — and the authorities opened fire without warning.

There are many people in Bahrain who want this story told:

It turns out that members of Bahrain’s medical community have been reading my Twitter postings, and doctors and nurses rushed me from patient to patient so I could see and photograph the injuries and write messages to the world and get the news out right away. They knew that King Hamad’s government would wrap its brutality in lies.

The doctors spoke in enormous frustration about what they termed butchery or massacres, but they encountered evidence of the danger of speaking publicly. In the midst of the crisis, a democracy activist staggered in for treatment from a fresh beating by security forces. He had made public statements about police brutality he had witnessed, and so, he said, the police had just kidnapped him and brutalized him all over again.

The hospital’s ambulance drivers had been beaten on Thursday morning by Bahrain’s army and police for attempting to rescue the dead and injured, and some had been warned that they would be executed if they tried again to help protesters. But they showed enormous courage in rushing to the scene of the carnage once again.