Arms Sale Plan Will Haunt US, Critics Say
THE Bush Administration’s plan to sell advanced weapons worth $US20 billion ($24 billion) to Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf countries is running into congressional opposition and criticism from human rights and arms control groups.
Members of Congress vowed on Saturday to oppose any sale to Saudi Arabia on grounds that the kingdom had been unhelpful in Iraq and unreliable in fighting terrorism. King Abdullah has called the US military presence in Iraq an “illegitimate occupation” and the Saudis have been unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers who have ended up in Iraq, congressional sources say. 
Human rights groups warned the offer - designed to contain Iran’s influence - could backfire, allowing the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to rally greater support for his hardline faction in the run-up to parliamentary elections next year. And arms control groups said the strategy would accelerate a dangerous trend that could increase tensions rather than create a greater sense of security.
The Administration plans to sell satellite-guided bombs, fighter aircraft upgrades and new naval vessels to the six Gulf Co-operation Council countries - Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
US officials admitted that congressional reactions had been mixed but cautioned that details of a broader arms package - including $US30 billion in military aid to Israel and $US13 billion to Egypt - have yet to be released.
“As we move forward, we will work very closely with Congress, as well as our friends and allies in the region,” a State Department spokesman said.
But Tom Lantos, the Democrat chairman of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said he had several reservations. “This is not a sale at Macy’s that you go in and buy a bunch of stuff. There are a complex set of relationships behind it, and while it’s very desirable to have the Saudis and others recognise that Iran is an existential threat, there is also a degree of responsibility that they have to show on broader US foreign policy interests,” he said.
The Democrat congressmen Anthony Weiner and Robert Wexler said on Saturday that they would move a resolution of disapproval to block the deals when Congress was formally notified.
Under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, Congress must approve big arms sales.
Human Rights Watch said the deals would undermine US goals in the Middle East. “This will reduce pressure on Egypt and the Arab states to reform their politics. It’s another case of trying to purchase stability at the expense of liberty,” said its Washington director, Tom Malinowski.
Arms experts called for a serious debate on the quality and quantity of weapons going to the Gulf states. “This administration does not have an arms sales policy, except to sell, sell, sell,” said Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association. “That approach in the Middle East can be like throwing gasoline on a brush fire.”
His comments followed the sealing of a nuclear co-operation deal between the US and India on Friday that allows trade in nuclear reactors, technology and fuel.
Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald.
More hypocrisy on our government’s part.
Blame the Saudi’s for assisting in/not doing enough about terrorists in Iraq, turn around and given the Saudis a sweet deal.
Remember, WE, the US of A, not US the people, OUR GOVERNMENT, once upon a time, PROMOTED Saddam! We were “in his corner,” giving him support.
Until he was no longer useful to us, that is, and served us better as a “bad guy” (which he already was, granted, but up to then we found it convenient to ignore that fact).
And we wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t trust us.
The US is the world’s largest arms dealer. is it any wonder that a majority of people on the planet feel the US is the greatest threat to world peace?
Iran isn’t a nuclear threat, the US is–because we’re the ones threatening to use nukes *and* the only country to have actually used nukes on innocent civilians. makes you wonder if a Democrat in the White House will be any different when both Obama and Hillary say “no option is off the table” vis-a-vis Iran.
And is this how we’re supposed to be spreading democracy? By arming *undemocratic* regimes like Egypt and Israel?
There are two civil wars going on in the Middle East.
The first is the battle between American supported Sunni governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan) and their people who don’t want to be ruled by them.
al-Qaeda is a Sunni group fighting against the Sunni governments and their American backers.
The second main civil war is between the Sunni countires and the Shiite governments such as Iran.
The Sunni governments have been getting rich for years by selling us oil, but the Shiite areas have a lot of oil we don’t currently have access to.
So our arms deal serves two purposes:
1. It protects the Sunni governments against their own populations.
2. It strengthens the Sunni governments against the potential rise or conflict with the Shiite power centers.
“Advanced Weapons” are not advanced as far as U.S. standards go.
We service what we sell with our “Super Advanced Weapons”.
Israel has “Given it’s Blessings” on the deal, they aren’t worried either!
Reminds me of a Bill Hicks skit, about the sheepherder.
Sheepherder: Aw mister I don’t want no trouble!
Cowboy: Pick up the gun.
Sheepherder: I won’t pick up the gun cause you’ll shoot me!
Cowboy: Pick up the gun!
The sheepherder with a gun pointed at him, picks up the gun and BANG.
Cowboy: You saw him! He had a gun!
How is the Saudi govt called “moderate” when they are a brutal dynastic dictatorship, denying even the right to drive as well as various other rights to women?
Selling sophisticated weapons to the Saudis is just asking for trouble. We already give away billions of dollars in aid and arms to Israel, so what is to prevent them for asking for more to protect themselves?
Of course, trying to solve the thorny problems in the Middle East with negotiations is just too taxing for our politicians, so let’s just sell some more arms. Great plan.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. What else can we say about this?
So much for the “the U.S. only arms Israel” argument. Sell our most advanced weaponry to Israel, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi, ect. What insanity. With allies lie Saudi, who needs enemies?
$$$$$ 24 billion $$$$$$ 24 Billion $$$$$ 24 Billion to American companies.
Saudia Arabia Royal Family could care less about about the weaponry itself. Tjis deal is a payback to the US and UK war companies just like the rise in oil prices was a payback to US and UK oil companies.
It is a very cozy relationship at tax payers expense.
sigma July 30th, 2007 1:05 pm
Don’t be fooled. The Saudi Royal Family does not enjoy the support of the majority of their citizens. This weaponry is to keep their own citizen under control, to prevent any democratic movement there, and to grease the hands of UK & US war companies.
I remember after the first Gulf War brought to you by CNN, the Patriot missiles was the hot commodity. The Pentagon did not tell CNN that the explosions were of Patriots against Scud’s fuel tanks and that most Patriot missiles failed to hit their mark.
Saudi Arabian and many guld states bought the crappy Patriot missiles even though they did not work. One hand greasing another because they knew Sadam did not have any fire power left…The US made sure of it for 10 years….
Demerara
Good Point. I have a friend that has worked for the Saudis for several years. He said that they keep their population happy with massive payoffs, meanwhile the expensive military hardware bakes in the sun because no one wants to be a lowly tech and keep it in working order.
Perputual war is good for the economy! What could be simpler?
Violence begets violence. It’s the self sustaining cornucopia of capitalism which is itself based on violence.
Wheels within wheels.
How long will we keep repeating the same mistakes?
non_sequitur@q.com
It would have been a hell of a lot cheaper to sit down and talk with the Iranians in high-level negotiations, which the Iranians sought in 2003 and which Bush and his bunch of bright psychotics chose to ignore.
Now he wants to arm untrustworthy ‘allies’, and shovel more arms and aid to a maddog Israeli government, which is already armed to the teeth, including nuclear weapons, and which is governed by people as unstable and delusional as Bush himself, as we saw last year in Lebanon, and in Israeli relations with the Palestinians.
There’s a bunch of people out there in government who need to be strapped down and dosed with thorazine. Lots of thorazine.
Why the need for Israel’s blessing? I did not know that we require their permission to do anything. I guess i was wrong. We are the US of I.
BTW, where were these so-called critics when it came to selling cluster munitions to Israel during their terrorist activities against Lebanon? Hypocrites!
“King Abdullah has called the US military presence in Iraq an “illegitimate occupation” and the Saudis have been unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers who have ended up in Iraq, congressional sources say.”
It is an illegitimate occupation, and since the US is the one occupying Iraq, I’d say it really is their responsibility to handle suicide bombers in that country, and not SA’s. But if you wanted to prepare for a WWIII centered in the middle east, this arms deal coupled with the increase in weapons being handed to Israel is a good way to do it.
So long as you’ve got a huge military-industrial complex to feed, you won’t be able to get this arms-sales monkey off your backs. You’ll just hafta keep building bases all over the world; just hafta keep establishing international sites for your lemon of a missile defense system — and thereby pissing off people like Putin; just hafta keep inventing new generations of nuclear warheads; just hafta keep enlisting crack-heads and nutcases into your armed forces; just hafta keep building those carbon-spewing humvees and tanks, bombers and battleships. Not until your whole empire sinks under the weight of all that military hardware will you ever be able to stop making and selling it.
Remember the good old days when we sold weapons to Saddam in Iraq and to Bin Laden when he was fighting
the Soviet Union In Afganistan. That’s the world of capitalism, just make your profits and
worry about the blowback when it happens.
nuclear proliferation everywhere = M.A.D. = peace?
I’m sick and tired of hearing comments by Tom Lantos (D-Tel Aviv) Chairman of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee. He loves the deal because we’d sell $20B in outdated equipment to the house of Saud, and then we increase military aid to Israel by $30B. This means $50B to the US defense industry. Let’s see, how many uninsured people could have health coverage for $50B. If we use $1,000 per it comes to 50 million. Didn’t I just read about 45 million uninsured…
Absolutely insane…
Bush needs congressional approval to sell all these weapons? Can’t he just declare “I’m a stockholder in the Carlyle Group, and what I say goes?” Man, After he gets this sale thru, Carlyle Group stockholders, and all holders of war related stocks, are really going to be happy with GWB! More guns! Less foreign aid! Less reconstruction help! Sell weapons! USA! USA! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Tom Lantos: iran is an existential threat.
who the fuck is this guy? where did he come from? how do we keep electing these rabid idiots? iran has never threatened the US. never. but some zionist neocon assholes mistranslated a dumb statement by iran’s prez, and you heard in the press for a while “iran is an existential threat-to israel.” now it’s become “iran is an existential threat.”to who? the US? insane.
I have been writing about this for a couple of days, but does anyone remember just how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian? Or of what nationality is the leader of Al Qaeda? Does anyone notice the irony of GIVING $30 billion in military aid to Israel, the ONLY possessor of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the region, while we are destroying Iraq because they might have dreamt of possessing WMDs, and we’re threatening Iran because they have the POTENTIAL, many years from now, to have nuclear weapons? We are giving away $30 billion in arms to Israel at the same time that we are underfunding education and claiming that we can’t afford healthcare for everyone. It is DISGUSTING. I am SICK of having to beg for my tax dollars to go toward any HUMAN investment, such as health and education, and RAGING against war while it rolls over my objections. MY objections. I FUND this government and yet it does NOTHING I ask of it.
www.unknown-arts.org/politics
Our tax dollars fund the military munitions industry, yet we have no say so in the “give-away” of those weapons? Does taxation without representation sound far fetched???
In case anyone was wondering, Saudi Arabia already has: 1000 tanks, over 1000 surface to air missiles, at least 65 attack helicopters, over 4100 military aircraft, and an estimated 130 warships.
Now, other than oppression of their own people, why would the Saudi dictators need to augment such an impressive collection of deadly toys?
I realize compared to the United States with the most insane war budget in the world $20 billion does not sound like very much. However, this will make the Saudis military budget about the 10th largest in the world. More than 5 times larger than Iran.
Recently it was reported that in 1998 BAE presented Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia on his birthday four-engine Airbus 340, worth £75m, painted in the silver and blue colors of Bandar’s favorite American football team, the Dallas Cowboys. It was given as part of Britain’s al-Yamamah arms deal, and the arms firm is still paying the expenses of flying it. It was alleged that Bandar has been paid more than £1bn by BAE for his part in arranging the al-Yamamah deal. The halting of the investigation of the Serious Fraud Office by Tony Blair on “national security” grounds, rather than fear that BAE would lose a £6bn contract for the next phase of the Al-Yamamah deal, suggests delusions of grandeur. Similarly, the US arms deal with Saudi Arabia and other US allies in the MiddleEast is, according to the US, for the US strategic interests. The executive branch wants to preserve its “freedom of action” to arm U.S.-allied countries. What does this say about the interface between politics and economics? Firstly, that there are some countries, say Sudan or Iran, you bully and accuse over its standards of government arms procurement or involving in “unethical” arms trade, while you do the same thing without any moral sense. Abuses of human rights are always less serious with the world’s biggest oil producer (Saudi Arabia) than in a country where the high moral ground can be occupied without fear of economic consequences (eg Zimbabwe, Darfur). What it highlights is that it is good and “ethical” to have double standards, and the triumph of real politik over ethical principle.
The US had armed Saddam Hussein to counter Iran. Some of the weapons provided by the US was used by Saddam on his own people, for which he was accused by the one who gave him those weapons and was executed. Through the supply of weapons by the US, Saddam’s dictatorship was strengthened. Now in Iraq more than 40% of the terrorists killing innocent Iraqis are Saudi citizens. It is also reported that the weapons are being supplied by Saudi Arabia to these terrorists. What is beyond comprehension is the US deciding to arm Saudi Arabia knowing full well how these weapons would be used. Moreover, justifying this arms deal???
It is only human and natural to feel regret. What this arms deal with the Saudi Arabia (and Israel) exposes is the US narcissistic and highly self-centered collective political culture that has diminished a virtue like regret. That is reinforced by what Laura Bush said when asked how her husband had dealt with the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Bush claimed that neither she nor her husband “has any regrets about their response to the attacks … It’s a philosophy of no regrets; in one sense, whatever happens happens, and you have to keep moving on and do the best you can with whatever it is. He [President George W Bush] never looks back because he is a realist.” Remember when a reporter asked President Bush to recall his biggest mistake? He replied, “I hope I - I don’t want to sound like I’ve made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t - you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.” Later when asked about mistakes over weapons of mass destruction, postwar planning in Iraq, and warding off September 11, he blamed the country for not being on a war footing and him listening to General Tommy Franks!!!
“Regret” is the ability to feel distressed or sorry or to mourn for having done the wrong thing. Such qualities as humility, sympathy and introspection are also associated with regret. It is the opposite of self-righteousness and moral superiority. Roy Baumeister, a sociologist, comments that when a person is the victim of a wrongful act, he or she describes it as inexplicable, senseless and immoral, and causing lasting damage (for eg. 9/11). However, if the same person is a perpetrator of similar acts, he or she views it as causing only brief pain (“birth pangs of the new MiddleEast”) and justifiable or something that could not be avoided. Unfortunately, the US president and the “executive branch” are not alone in saying, or expressing through their acts, that they have no regrets about their genocidal acts around the world. The United States, with its preoccupation of self and overly narcissistic culture, has created an entire government and society that appear to be suffering from a lack of regret. They know no boundaries to, nor have any regrets about, their dominant ideologies and their effects on innocent children, women, and men. Because they consider themselves to be above the rule of (moral or ethical) law.
This is how it works, for all sides in all wars on the planet. For instance, the US government takes $30 billion from its taxpayers, gives it to the arms industry and tells them to send advanced weapons to Israel. The profits go to the Carlyle Group et al., and back to the Cheney/Bush gang (and the rest of the arms merchants).
The United States Government authorizes the arms industry to sell $30 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia (they can afford to pay for it) and the profits go to the Carlyle Group, et al., and back to the Cheney/Bush gang (and the rest of the arms merchants).
If either side decides to use the weapons, such as Israel in Lebanon, they are encouraged to fire away, and still more of our money is given to the arms merchants to resupply Israel. The profits go to the Carlyle Group, et al., and back to the Cheney/Bush gang (and the rest of the arms merchants).
Is a pattern beginning to appear here? Of what use peace? There is much more profit in replacing expended munitions than there is in selling refrigerators and stoves to poor people.
There are TWO things here that DON’T need to happen. First off, the Saudis do NOT need more weaponry. Screw ‘em. They only want to use it to oppress their own people, and wasn’t that one of the reasons we went and killed Saddam?
Secondly, the arms producers do NOT need more money. They have far too much already, and it’s been shown that if you have arms, you WILL use them. Time to make the world a safer place, and get rid of the Military Industrial complex in it’s entirety. And before I get the inevitable calls of “hippie” and “peacenik”, let me just point out that it was President and General Dwight D Eisenhower who told us about it in the first place. He was the last decent republican.
It seems Nicholas Hagger “The Syndicate”, and Ron Nielson “the Little Green Handbook” are right on the mark claiming the world is run by a small elite no more then 2-3 hundred and there intention for the last 300 years is to create a world goverment controlled by them and hence Fortress States, seeing this intent and the fight over the last remaining oil supplies it seems evil will win
How many Saudi Arabians were involed in Sept 11? Just curious!
Any outdated arms sold to the Saudi’s will be offset by many times more of the newest most modern technological weaponary, GIVEN to terrorist Israel.
LIBERTAS FUGIT: You win the prize for following the money to its logical (albeit amoral, murderous, thug-witted) conclusion. I agree!
One expense we could do well without. The world would also be much better off…..
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm
But wait a minute! The recent International Emergency Economic Powers Act allows Shrub to take the property of any person “threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq” where “”person” means an individual or entity.
U.S. persons or entities (i.e. Haliburton, Caryle Group, etc) are selling guns and stuff to the House of Saud, who calls Iraq misadventure an “illegitimate occupation” and is generally not supportive.
So, doesn’t this mean that Cheney, Shrub, and co. could take over all of the assets and property of said “entities”?
Oops, my mistake. It’s already theirs.
Texrey; I beleive that all the hijackers were Saudi Arabians except for two. They blow us
up and then we sell them more weapons, don’t be surprised if someday those weapons come back
into the U.S. They are going to do a lot more damage than the boxcutters they used last time,
$30 billion of taxpayer money in military aid to Israel?
Wouldn’t a much safer and saner route be to cancel both the aid to Israel and arms sale to Saudi Arabia and simply give the affected American arms companies $20 billion?
We save $10 billion of our tax money to spend on health care (?) while making the world a little less dangerous.
Now what could $50 billion in US taxpayer money do to help this country? Oh, wait a minute. This country was built on and credited with VIOLENCE so in the name of spreading faux “democracy”, the ideology of VIOLENCE goes with it. Just another way to FUCK the planet to DEATH !
true , but they are our - brutal dynastic dictatorship, denying even the right to drive as well as various other rights to women.
Yes, this is insanity. Does anyone know the names of these weapons companies and their senior management? Where do they live? Do they have children? What are their children like? Are they blind to what their privileged lives mean to the rest of the world? Are these the Paris Hilton’s of the world? Or, the Charles Mansons and Bush Twins?
I have a book to recommend to all of you on this blog. If you are truly interested in solutions and not just flapping in frustrated impotence, read “What God Wants” by Neale Donald Walsch. It is not about the God most of the world believes in: Allah, God, G-d, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, and it fully acknowledges those who have no belief in a Supreme Creator or are secular pragmatists. I dare any of you to read this book and come away believing and thinking as you do now. This is not a feel good religious tract to bend you minds to some far out religion. It is a very Dangerous book, as the author admits readily and frequently. It is certainly one that the Bush/Cheney and others of their persuasion would not want you to read. So, if all this ranting on this and Salon are more than the impotent complaints of the disenfranchised, read the book. I’d love to hear what comes up.
Peace,
st john
Eighteen Saudis were in the planes that committed 9-1-1 and we sell them weapons -how nice, anything for a buck and some oil. Why be surprised though, remember the 2 planeloads of Saudis that were allowed to leave the country after the attack while everyone else was grounded? For six years now, everything this administration has done is unbelievable, and much of it unlawful. Our Congress does not worry though, just go on vacation and scrounge for votes instead of trying to slow down the worst disaster this country has faced since it`s birth.
The reader should notive that those people who are miffed at the US government selling arms to the Saudis are Zionist Jews masquerading as US Congressmen. The murder of 34 defenseless American boys on board the USS Liberty was official Israeli (Zionist)policy. It was Israel that turned the weapons we gave them against those boys, even as they were being loaded into life rafts. Every day Tom Lantos spends in office undermining our republic is an insult to the memory of those sailors and to all Americans.
Bush thinks the world is the wild American West, 1870’s Bonanza-style. Every body has a gun and everybody can think they are safe, but nobody was and everybody lived in fear.
Kick that son-of-a-bitch cowboy, monkey-slap his face behind the shed, Jethro - and do it NOW!!
Right now we have a MD Frankenstein to the Creature relationship with the government. Eventually the town’s people must kill the Creature that we can no longer deny is harmless. When do we reach the point where we abolish the current government? Do you know that protecting the Constitution is a duty and obligation? Any of us can run the government and take the oath of office to heart. When will we agree that we have allowed this to go too far and intervene?
When is it that we heed the Founding Fathers and fight for our lives, property and children? Do we really need to wait till they put us in camps or can we let histories examples show us what to do before we repeat history?
Just so you know, Prescott Bush was part of a plan to overthrow the US Government and have FDR killed if necessary and these facts have come out. Prescott Bush supported Hitler and in fact helped to create Hitler up until the 11th hour of Word War II. He is the man who re-coined the Roman slogan of “The New World Order” and his entire family are Nazis.
Now we are going to allow history to repeat itself simply because we are in denial. Who wants to believe that we are going down the toilet of humanity? When will it be time to intervene posters?
The Saudi regime is a reactionary dictatorship and our support of the ibn Sauds is the prime motivator for Al-Qaeda. No good can result from pumping arms into Saudi Arabia and Israel. This action by Bush guarantees ongoing conflict in the region in order to prevent those who want a US withdrawl from being able to do so. War without end!
Jaded Prole July 31st, 2007 10:30 am
In reality Saudi Arabia is the only thing keeping the the dollar at 1 RED CENT. The Saudis are floating our economy!
Good grief! Let’s arm the Saudis with the latest and greatest so that they don’t have to attack us again with box cutters. Makes sense to me.
That’s cool makes good sence,they bomb N.Y. an the Bush,drive-by killing crime family rewards them by selling better arms and bombs.Thier both in same business,killing that is.
Why does everybody think Saudi Arabia is been done a favor by this sale? They are probably been strong armed by Bush & CO. on the behest of the Military-Industrial-Complex.
Most of these so-called concerns my Congress are pretty fake. They don’t dare block this sale lest they incur the wrath of manufactures in their own districts.
There is quite a few countries who are able to sell the Saudis advanced weapons for the kind of money they’re spending.
The heading reads:
“Arms Sale Plan Will Haunt US”
… so will God.
_______________________
Ps:
To Cleargirl, (at 1:54 am)
“…aliens is the Crown Jewel of they’re reptilian agenda. mark my words”
Actually, I believe those aren’t *truly* your words? -but maybe those of our funny-bunny David Icke? -the ex-footballer turned conspiracy theorist who thinks Kris Kristopherson is a Giant Alien Lizard?
Okay, ~ I know Kris has made a few duff records in his time, but really, -I promise you, -he is *NOT* ‘a shape-shifting full-blooded reptile sent from the planet Draco to molest our womenfolk’!
[and if you see Mr Icke, please tell him to quit hangin’ out with they nasty very far-right fascist folk, and eating strange hallucinogenic Brazillian herbs, -it just ain’t healthy ya know!]
The Germans have criticized the U.S. and said the middle-east doesn’t need weapons, it needs stability. The Rethuglicans and right-wing Democrats (which is most of them) absolutely love war and weapons. They are energized by war and killing. They lust for war.
Yes Monkey Boy, that’s what the world needs — more weapons. Yeehaw! Bring it on!
And the arms trade just gets richer at the expense of the American tax payer while social programs go begging. Makes one wonder just who Bush is for, because he certainly isn’t for the average citizen in either the US or world abroad. He and his bunch are only for the wealthy who covet the world’s resources and who plan to destroy millions of lives.