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Topic: U.S. to sell $20 billion in arms to middle east
| Author | Message |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/29/2007 8:46:54 PM | show profile ...Just what the middle east needs, more instruments of death and destruction. According to this article "This is great business for the U.S., and this is a huge amount of money that benefits American corporations." And why are we providing military aid to Israel and Egypt when we're the most indebted country on the planet? ***** The Bush administration will ask Congress next week to approve an arms-sale package to Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf countries that may total more than $20 billion... Included in the package are advanced satellite-guided bombs, fighter-aircraft upgrades and new naval vessels. The administration also plans to announce a new 10-year military aid package to Israel and Egypt. The steps are part of an effort by the Bush administration to counter Iran's rising influence. ...While there will likely be congressional opposition to the arms sale, "This deal will go through,'" said Samer Shehata, a Middle East political analyst at Washington-based Georgetown University. "This is great business for the U.S., and this is a huge amount of money that benefits American corporations." Shehata said the potential dissent in Congress will likely come from "the anti-Saudi group that feels Saudi Arabia is a source of terrorism, and the pro-Israel group who see any arms sales to friendly or moderate Arab regimes as a potential threat to Israel." ...The $20 billion price tag on the package is more than double what officials originally estimated this past spring, and would be one of the largest arms deals negotiated by the Bush administration. It would likely include air-to-air missiles and Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which guide bombs to their target. The military assistance agreements would provide $30 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over a decade, Goodrich-Hinton said. ... Bloomberg |
| Iron Eagle | Posted – 7/29/2007 9:04:23 PM | show profile It boggles the mind. You ask 18 year old girls and boys to walk into a region of the world where they are hated and arm the enemy and let them die or be maimed so some blood sucking arms manufacture can profit through tragedy. No person should be crazy enough to don a uniform and parade through that world. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/29/2007 9:42:02 PM | show profile crimedog I totally agree, but the sad thing is that only a minute fraction of 18 year olds has even the slightest clue what the U.S. does around the world -- yet they wonder why other countries hate us so much. Let me add that it's not just the 18 year olds who are clueless, the same applies for the rest of us. |
| Iron Eagle | Posted – 7/29/2007 9:59:50 PM | show profile There are unspeakable crimes being committed. I just wished the young kids had as much courage to stand up against the criminals as the ones did during Vietnam did. They are hurting their own cause by lumbering about like sheep. |
| chucho | Posted – 7/30/2007 3:59:24 AM | show profile What's kinda funny to me is the idea that there would ever be such thing as a Saudi submarine captain :) Israel and Egypt have been sucking from America's teat for decades, consistently being some of the top military welfare queens on America's list of countries it deems worthy of arming. The Gulf countries have been for years the go-to region for military arms manufacturers, where they sell these weapons and they rarely get used (except for the vehicles and the training to spy on their own citizens -- the US has poured millions each year for over a decade into Uzbekistan's police state, too. YAY FREE-DIM!). As has been reported recently: Britian's BAE bribed the Saudi royals to buy a bunch of shit they'll never use, too. It's funny how Saudi Arabia has become the trough for arms dealers to suck down those petrol dollars. Look at it this way, every big piece of military hardware bought is kinda like repatriating your gas money into the bank accounts of company CEOs and Northrop Grummon shareholders! Globalization is neat that way. I read that the reason why Israel's aid was boosted was to pay them off for selling a bunch of arms to their Arabs neighbors. Meanwhile, Congress is really flexing its muscle (note sarcasm) by getting indignant about a measly $250 million in US aid to Saudi Arabia. What's ironic about the whole thing is that the $250 million is going to train Saudi security forces to guard oil installations. Beleive me that it's in America's interests to guard Al-Abqaiq (the world's largest oil facility near Dammam which was attacked last year), at least until you all stop using so much of the world's energy resources and become self sufficient :) Yeah, like that'll happen in our lifetimes. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/30/2007 8:36:08 AM | show profile This just makes me sick. I know we've been providing "aid" to Israel and Egypt for decades, but why now for Saudi Arabia? If they want our "aid" they'd better pay for it since they have the money for it. |
| chucho | Posted – 7/30/2007 10:09:56 AM | show profile This is a buildup to any potential showdown with Iran. Isrtael would like to see Iran wiped off the map as much as Iran would like to see Israel destroyed. The US is the puppet master of these conflicts, tossing money at both sides (Egypt, a police state with a large and growing Islamist movement, a country run by a dictator, and Israel, the Jewish Indian Reservation legitimized by Europe out of white guilt for World War II atrocities against the Jewish people, and before that by Stern Gang and Lehi (who wanted to form an allegiance with Nazi Germany in return for Israel recognition) terrorists bent on creating the "Third Temple" who murdered Brits and drove Arabs out of their homes during the Revisionist Zionist Movement). There's nothing new about military aid. We've been propping up the Colombian gov't (which by proxy supports the right-wing paramilitaries that are just as likely to be smuggling cocaine and blowing shit up and murdering people in the streets as the evil Marxists) for over a decade. Colombia is the largest recipient of US taxpayer money outside of the Middle East. All of this of course helps paint the US as the evil empire with a double standard (US citizens being much more important than the rights of citizens in countries whose policies are considered vital for US national interests. All one can do is laugh and perhaps turn apolitical. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 7/30/2007 1:45:49 PM | show profile Nothing like throwing gasoline on a fire to make a few billion bucks, eh? |
| chucho | Posted – 7/30/2007 2:16:57 PM | show profile Also note the difference: Egypt and Israel will get essentially gifts in kind (your tax dollars at work!) The Gulf region, on the other hand, will pay for the toys (global arms dealing at work!). A lot of people may not be aware that the Gulf region has always been a place to shill military hardware. Basically: rich oil country compelled to kick back some of the petrol dollars to the arms market of countries that buy its oil. Ever since FDR gifted King Abdul Aziz Saudi Arabia's first aircraft there has a been a relationship where the Kingdom buys big stuff from the West -- interests in Britain and the US are always competing with each other on who can bribe the silly bedous into buying from one or the other. I read an article by a British ambassador to Saudi Arabia form the late 60's who basically said 20% of the price any contract signed in Saudi Arabia is "commission" for the privilege of selling the goods. (I doubt it's much different in the other GCC countries). If that standard holds today, then $20 billion in arms deals cost the US taxpayer $1 billion worth of "commissions" (bribes). One billion in bribes for $20 billion in purchased of equipment that, at best, will end up sitting in National Guard warehouses in the desert unused (because the US is the bodyguard for the Gulf states, so why do they need hardware except as payback to US interests by buying the stuff?). |
| foto | Posted – 7/30/2007 8:33:09 PM | show profile those mid east countries can't be trusted with ANY weapons. They are too backward and full of religious delusions. They'll declare a "fatwah" or a new jihad or who knows what and use them against the west. The israelis are bad too with all their expansionism but not as bad as the other ones. No weapons without religious enlightenment. Lets just sell falafels to them. |
| chucho | Posted – 8/1/2007 12:19:27 PM | show profile And, of course, the enlightened United States CAN be trusted with its weapons, to use them responsibly and as a means of last resort :^) But seriously, I don't think it's anywhere that simple. The Saudis themselves (the people in control) are scared shitless of religious nutters inciting revolt in the KSA (which would cause your gas bill to skyrocket overnight). They might be looking the other way as Sunni nitjobs head to Iraq, but they're (as in: the gov't) not arming them because they know these guys (the ones that survive) will come back and blow up shit in Riyadh. And is Musharraff (and before him: Bhutto) a religious fundamentalist? And if the Lebanese military couldn't "arm up"today then a heavily armed Hezbollah would take over Beirut tomorrow. I am in no way arguing for the arms trade. I am just questioning what I think is a little too simplistic way of looking at it. I think the US has always viewed the Egyptian gov't (since Nasser) as an enemy to religious extremism. |
| questoo1 | Posted – 8/1/2007 12:24:21 PM | show profile chucho, you are either a world class b.s. artist or have just an unreal amount of knowledge about things. either way, its always a good read, so thanks. |
| chucho | Posted – 8/4/2007 5:56:45 AM | show profile Heehee. Well, the points I'm making on this thread -- that US aid to the KSA is for training Saudi National Guard to guard oil installations, that Egypt's regime is against religious extremism, etc. -- are not obscure facts or B.S., but rather information that is easily corroborated through the mainstream media. I think all Americans should do more to educate themselves about issues surrounding the war on terror, and I have a particular interest in this phenomenon that Muslims are the new Commies (or the new Jews or whatever). Most Americans a.) don't leave the country and b.) get their information from television. Don't you agree that this is a perfect recipe for Americans' not knowing very much about what's going on in these countries that Americans' support invading or incorporating into their drive to "spread the fire of freedom" (Bush's words) across the globe? I find the more I learn about these issues the more fascinating it becomes. For example, this morning I read about the congressional investigation into the use of indentured Filipino servants to build the Embassy in Baghdad using a Kuwaiting contracting firm. (Kuwaitis using indentured Asian workers to build the largest US Embassy in American history? Is that not completely insane? That's not B.S., that's me spending way too much time thinking about these issues and how seemingly unrelated events are not so unrelated.) |
| keltoi | Posted – 8/5/2007 9:47:17 PM | show profile Actually, the US hired the Kuwaiti company who hired the Filipinos rather than Iraqis to build the largest embassy in history because they didn't want to bother with the security hassles. Very comon practice in Iraq--US government hires connected US contractors who outsource to Kuwaiti and other safe and connected companies who hire non-Iraqis (mostly Asians) to do the work at pathetically low wages which are then marked up geometrically and charged by the US contractor to the American taxpayer. End result: expendable workforce, slipshod work, no accountability, a handful of connected company folks get very rich, the US taxpayers get screwed yet again, and the Iraqis get shut out, contributing to stratospheric unemployment rates and great resentment, which feeds the insurrection. Works rather well, doesn't it? |
