The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: ABX on May 20, 2017, 03:33:39 pm
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The United States has sealed an arms deal to Saudi Arabia, the White House announced on Saturday, a move that solidifies its decades-long alliance with the world's largest energy producer just as President Donald Trump begins an official visit to the country.
The agreement, which is worth $350 billion over 10 years and $110 billion that will take effect immediately, was hailed by the White House as "a significant expansion of…[the] security relationship" between the two countries. ....
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/20/us-saudi-arabia-seal-weapons-deal-worth-nearly-110-billion-as-trump-begins-visit.html
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In comparison, in 2016 we armed them to the tune of $1.15 Billion
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/10/saudi-arabia-close-to-deal-to-buy-115bn-worth-of-military-equipment-from-us
I'm sure there will be a split on if this is good or bad. More information needs to be known about the current deal really, especially around how much we are subsidizing versus selling.
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Kushner called Lockheed CEO about $100B Saudi arms deal
By Zachary Cohen, CNN
Updated 6:28 PM ET, Fri May 19, 2017
Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump's son-in-law and utility diplomat, Jared Kushner, shocked a high-level Saudi delegation earlier this month when he personally called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and asked if she would cut the price of a sophisticated missile detection system, according to a source with knowledge of the call.
Pressured to finalize a massive $100-plus billion arms deal in the two weeks leading up to Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia, Kushner hoped to maneuver a discount on Lockheed's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system during the Saudis' visit to the White House on May 1 -- a request that Hewson said she would look into at the time.
<..snip..>
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/19/politics/jared-kushner-saudi-arms-deal-lockheed-martin/ (http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/19/politics/jared-kushner-saudi-arms-deal-lockheed-martin/)
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I'm confused. Why, exactly, does the filthy rich (already) nation of Saudi need that many (more) billions of US dollars? Is this like paying someone to be your friend?
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I'm confused. Why, exactly, does the filthy rich (already) nation of Saudi need that many (more) billions of US dollars? Is this like paying someone to be your friend?
That's why more information is needed to know if this is a sale, financing them, or subsidizing them (on in the case of these things sometimes subsidizing the companies that make it so they can provide it cheaper, defacto subsidization without direct government discount or payment to Saudi Arabia).
As a note, when Obama did this (at 1% of the amount), Republicans threw a fit.
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??? So far, I'm not in favor of the idea at all ... arming an enemy is never a good thing. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Saudi's assist the attack on the U.S. on 9-11?
Quite frankly, I'd rather take the $110 billion and build the dang wall!!
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(http://m.likesuccess.com/quotes/11/548248.png)
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That's why more information is needed to know if this is a sale, financing them, or subsidizing them (on in the case of these things sometimes subsidizing the companies that make it so they can provide it cheaper, defacto subsidization without direct government discount or payment to Saudi Arabia).
As a note, when Obama did this (at 1% of the amount), Republicans threw a fit.
Either way (or either president).... it's going to be a waste (yet another) of taxpayer money, IMO. What are we, the legal citizens of America, supposed to be getting out of this "deal"? Screwed again? No thanks.
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At least, Trump isn't kissing or bowing to the Saudi King; oh dear. 22222frying pan
Whether I agree with it or not, this relationship with KSA goes back to the '80s at least, so I guess we see them as strategic because every president since Bush 41 has had this warm relationship with them. I don't know how Reagan saw them.
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Found This @TomSea
Saudi Arabia and the Reagan Doctrine
by Jonathan Marshall
published in MER155
<..snip..>
Saudi Arabia, for its part, has also made a major commitment to covert support of Reagan administration foreign policy objectives. One goal clearly was to neutralize or at least limit the power of the Israel lobby in the United States. It opened up its bank accounts to Washington, sending petrodollars to the Third World to stoke the fires of anti-communist rebellion.
Arms and Influence
Such cooperation and generosity did not begin with Ronald Reagan’s election. In the early 1970s, Saudi Arabia played a financial role in helping to wean Egypt away from the Soviet Union and transform it into a staunch US ally. In 1977, the Saudis financed the airlift of Moroccan troops to Zaire to save the Mobutu regime from Katangan secessionist forces. In 1979, they donated tens of millions of dollars to the Yemen Arab Republic, which was engaged in fierce border clashes with its pro-Soviet neighbor to the south, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. (The Saudis have been sending arms and money to the North Yemeni government and/or opposition forces since 1962.) At Washington’s request, the Saudis also bankrolled Somalia in the late 1970s to the tune of $200 million, thus helping to move that former Soviet client into the Western camp and secure for the United States access to naval bases on the Indian Ocean. [2]
The “special relationship” between Riyadh and Washington really began to flourish after 1981, as the Saudis turned to the Reagan administration to safeguard their orders of advanced weapons from Congressional interdiction at the hands of the Israel lobby. The new secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger, hailed from Bechtel, the construction giant with major interests in Saudi Arabia. After only two weeks in office, Weinberger announced that the administration wanted to do everything it could to strengthen Saudi defenses in the wake of the the shah’s fall in Iran. [3] On March 6, 1981, the administration announced plans to sell new arms to the Saudis to halt what it perceived to be a “serious deterioration” in Western security interests in the region. Israeli officials and a majority of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee quickly assailed the decision. [4]
On April 1, the National Security Council (NSC) decided to expand the administration’s initial arms package to include five AWACS surveillance planes, the most advanced of their kind in the world. The total Saudi purchase, including the AWACS, came to $8.5 billion. President Reagan vowed to push the sale through, declaring that Saudi Arabia must not be allowed to fall like Iran and that the United States would forfeit “all credibility” in the Middle East if Congress blocked the sale. Finally, after extraordinary arm-twisting by President Reagan, the Senate approved the deal in late October by a narrow vote of 52 to 48. [5]
<..snip..>
http://merip.org/mer/mer155/saudi-arabia-reagan-doctrine (http://merip.org/mer/mer155/saudi-arabia-reagan-doctrine)
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Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi's
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Is this like paying someone to be your friend?
Sort of, except nations don't have friends.
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I feel safer. ^-^
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I feel safer. ^-^
Gee ... especially with Rinse and Jared in attendance as well ... kind of makes you feel like nothing could possibly go wrong!
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Flashback:
USA Delivers 19,000 Bombs to Wahabist Saudis Supporting ISIS
Could it be any more clear who is on the right side, and who is on the wrong side of this conflict?
The Islamist theocracy Saudi Arabia is getting heavy ammunition equaling billions of dollars from the United States. It remains to be seen whether this economic booster shot for the U.S. defense industry will lead to consequences in Syria. The Saudis are fighting covertly against the Russians.
The U.S. government has approved a multibillion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia. In order to strengthen its air force, the Islamist monarchy wants to purchase more than 19,000 bombs, which would total up to 1.29 billion dollars (1.19 billion euros). This was confirmed by the State Department in Washington on Monday. Although the final word from the U.S. Congress is still pending, it’s likely that the approval will go through.....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3363478/posts
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Flashback:
Obama arming America’s enemies
.....Today America stands firmly behind the very forces that seek the demise of western civilization. Look who Uncle Sam lists as its allies:
• Saudi Arabia, the motherlode of international jihadi teaching and financing;....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3032906/posts
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I believe in the arming any country* or nation with arms equal to their own ability to attack and crush an enemy with superior firepower while sustaining significant but not catastrophic losses of their own forces. This keeps a customer filling the pipeline with replacement orders.
-The Wingnut Docturne
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I don't understand what they need them for since we do all their fighting for them.
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I don't understand what they need them for since we do all their fighting for them.
Somebody didn't watch the speech. Have a listen.
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@ 1:25 on the vid:
"when you take a look at these stocks,"
Says it all.
Lots of folks sucking up lots of tax dollars.
Machiavelli called BS on this 500 years ago.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232
Chapters 12 and 13 regarding Mercenaries and Auxiliaries
His reasoning is as lucid and spot on today as it was when he wrote it.
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@ 1:25 on the vid:
"when you take a look at these stocks,"
Says it all.
Lots of folks sucking up lots of tax dollars.
Machiavelli called BS on this 500 years ago.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232
Chapters 12 and 13 regarding Mercenaries and Auxiliaries
His reasoning is as lucid and spot on today as it was when he wrote it.
Just a side note because I always found this interesting (you probably know this), Machiavelli did not write The Prince as a guide for good leadership, but as a trap. He hated the leadership of the time so he wrote this treatise as a way of helping them destroy themselves. Basically, if a leader followed the instructions in The Prince, they would self-destruct. It was, for all intents and purposes, a big Troll.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/06/how-machiavelli-trolled-europe-s-princes
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Just a side note because I always found this interesting (you probably know this), Machiavelli did not write The Prince as a guide for good leadership, but as a trap. He hated the leadership of the time so he wrote this treatise as a way of helping them destroy themselves. Basically, if a leader followed the instructions in The Prince, they would self-destruct. It was, for all intents and purposes, a big Troll.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/06/how-machiavelli-trolled-europe-s-princes
How familiar are you with St Nick's actual book?
Because I find the entire premise of the troll in it preposterous.
How many times have you actually read it, and pondered over its import and insights?
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How familiar are you with St Nick's actual book?
How many times have you actually read it, and pondered over its import and insights?
Several times. I have a nice leather bound copy on the shelf behind me (next to The Discourses and The Mandrake). I refer to the Prince quite often (especially when Obama was President) because when you see a leader acting like that, you can see a nature that will destroy itself. I suggest reading the book from the viewpoint of the intent in which he wrote it. Its 'imports and insights' take on a whole new meaning.
I actually started writing one of my many unfinished SciFi novels based in part on that. Future President (referred to by Secret Service Code Name as The Prince just to drop the hint even more) acting exactly like what Machiavelli wrote about but with modern technology and media. It was mostly in part, based on Obama.
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Because I find the entire premise of the troll in it preposterous.
Also, you are aware that in The Discourses on the Ten Books of Titus Livy, Machiavelli pretty much lays out exactly that The Prince was written. Although 'Trolling' is obviously a modern term, it is as close to a term as you would find for his own description. There is a good quote I need to dig up by him that sums up why he did it. It was along the lines of: Please follow this so you can wallow in your own destruction.
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What concerns me is the nagging suspicion that Trump, in exchange for the huge Saudi financial commitments, is quietly assuring the Saudis that he will assist them in propping up crude prices. How could take many forms: some good like dropping support of renewables, some bad like undermining domestic oil.
Is he doing it? Likely not, but the Saudis must be getting something more out of these huge financial commitments.