i got an email today from a friend of mine that had some information in it about the most recent arms deal that Bush is making with Saudi-Arabia.

on one hand, i can understand why we are arming the saudis … from a purely economic perspective, it costs less to fight a war over oil, and we have a better chance of coming out ahead if we bolster the saudi defense, given that our relationship stays amicable over the next few decades. regardless of how they stand with israel, saudi is about our only arab ‘friend’ out there right now, and they are also a major source of oil for us themselves.

cutting off the oil right now would stop our country in it’s tracks. until there are reasonable alternatives produced by reasonable people… we will be in bed with the ‘House Harkonnen’.

the other thing to remember is that we’re in an election season where bush is on his way out… and quite possibly the republicans with him. if that happens, saudi-arabia, which is mostly suni… would not have much defense against a primarily shitte iran, because the democrats will not have the same resolve with the ‘war on terror’. the sunis are bad… but the iranian shittes are worse.

the bush family also has a long standing history with the sauds, and so this is basically GW’s parting gift to make sure that over the next 4 or more years we’re still ‘in good stead’ with them.

on the other hand, i know how things ultimately worked out when we trained and supplied $3bil to some afghani sodiers to fight against the soviets back in the early ’90s. at least we’re getting paid this time?

keep in mind that the US has not only supplied the arabs here… we’re actually working both sides of the aisle (have been for awhile), by giving Israel weapons, and selling them to her enemies. between 2001 and 2005, the Bush administration gave Israel $10.5bil in foreign military financing, and $6.3bil in U.S. arms deliveries. G.W.’s budget request for 2007 included an additional $2.24bil in FMF aid for Israel. oddly enough, israel has actually become the 3rd largest arms exporter, with arms exports from manufacturing exceeding $3.6bil in 2002. my question is, if they have formed an industry around it, why
are we still supplying them for free? and who are they selling $3.6bil worth in weapons to?

so between 2001 and 2007, we’ve given Israel $19.5bil in arms aid, which is close to what we’re selling to the sauds.

bottom line though… is that the US is one of the largest arms dealers in the world, and we regularly supply israel. who else do you want supplying the sauds with $20bil worth in weapons? would it be better if it was europe? ukraine? the sauds are already buying 72 typhoon fighters from europe, and if we don’t sell them our laser guided bombs… the ukraines have an alternative that they would happily sell to them. does the ‘everyone else is doing it’ make me feel any better about things? not really. what i want to know is, why are we selling all this cutting edge military equipment to the sauds instead of helping to bolster iraq’s junkyard fleet? it seems to me that with the shitte democratic government now in place in iraq…they are the ones who would wind up a target by Saudi-Arabia. besides, if our justification is protection against iran, what good do all of those Saudi aircraft do against an iranian nuclear bomb?

ultimately, the only folks who really benefit from all of this are the arms manufacturers here in the U.S., and the thousands of people who work for them. oh… and the international banks we borrow the money from. i guess that iraq turned out to be a pretty good sales promotion for them, eh?