Forget building a mosque at ground zero, let’s just give them an air force. That’ll learn ’em. It’s celebration time for our defense industry, cuz the Saudis have their checkbook out in a BIG way.
“I think it would be the largest ever,” said William Hartung, director of the New York City-based New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative.
“Other deals that used to be considered large,” like the $9 billion sale of 72 F-15s to the Saudis in 1992-93 or the kingdom’s $9 billion acquisition of U.S. AWACS surveillance aircraft in 1981, “aren’t even in the ballpark, even allowing for inflation,” Hartung said.
The package includes 84 F-15s at a cost of $30 billion and helicopter sales totaling about $30 billion that include spare parts, training simulators, long-term logistics support and some munitions.
I think you can fuck some shit up with 84 F-15’s and $30 billion worth of attack helicopters. Hey, like you might even be able to make life miserable for an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. Do all these military aircrafts come with a secret auto-destruct button in case real Arabians ever take power from the profligate Royal Family? What if some deranged prince loans one to Usama bin-Laden so he can strafe lower Manhattan? I can make shit up, too, and it’s more plausible than whatever Newt Gingrich comes up with. But you don’t hear any wingnuts complaining about this deal as some kind of threat to our national security. Why is that?
It’s because all their outrage has to be manufactured. If no one tells them to be outraged, they are too stupid to do it on their own. Allowing a mosque to be built is a mortal threat to our way of life. Selling advanced military aircraft to the Wahhabis that run Saudi Arabia? That’s good for the economy.
But you don’t hear any wingnuts complaining about this deal as some kind of threat to our national security. Why is that?
Because it is something that blows stuff up, it is a manly-man thing to support. And we know that if wingnuts are anything, they are big supporters of shit that blows things up, especially if it is likely to be directed at a “raghead” somewhere. Anything with a military pedigree in its makeup is verboten to criticize. And if you do, then you are a girly, spineless liberal who hates America and wants to take away all our guns, which are just smaller versions of all the hardware we are selling the Saudis. So if you are someone who is critical of this deal, then the next thing you will want to do on that slippery slope is bash down my door and take away my God-given guns.
There you go, wingnut logic in a nutshell.
I sort of agree with you, to a point. The wingnut has been conditioned to think that oil and gas production and consumption is manly and patriotic. Likewise, building and selling weapons.
But, it would be so easy to gin up outrage over this military sale if the right wanted to.
“Fifteen Saudis brought down the WTC and attacked the Pentagon using unarmed 747’s. Now Barack Hussein Obama is selling them an entire air force filled with rockets and smart bombs. Why is he arming our enemies? “
If they wanted to do it, it would be done. And the outrage would break glass.
Well, of course, I was being a little tongue in cheek. But yes, with all of the fervent rage surrounding the mosque issue, it is hard to believe there is not equal rage over actually handing Arabs this much advanced weaponry. If having a nice community center with a place to exercise is such a threat to American security and the American way of life, how can this be any less of one? But logic and consistency does not seem to be a strong suit in much of the wingnuttosphere.
Gosh, maybe a democrat should say something about it. Oh wait, the MIC is a bipartisan affair.
Maybe the Saudis will bomb Iran and solve all our problems. I know contributing to an arms-race in the middle-east is a sensible and forward-looking policy.
Maybe the Saudis will bomb Iran and solve all our problems.
The Saudis, much like Israel, want the US to take care of their “Persian Problem” for them. They don’t want Iran to expand its influence in the region any more than the US or Israel do. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the government isn’t just getting pressure from Israel but also from the House of Saud.
Well doesn’t this play into the whole RaptureRevelation thing? If you don’t know the story, the jews all have to go to israel and have the armies of the antichrist trying to destroy them. This is when the surviving half cry for mercy and “convert” and viola the second coming along with lots of blood and mayhem.
The right has lots of odd things going on with it. Having arms sales to a potential israel isn’t the strangest of the lot. Sure, in the short run it looks to be a Shia control thing, but down the road how long does it take to fly to jerusalem from northern saudi arabia at mach 1? The right is also dominated by the neocon thinking, they are massively involved in the military industrial complex and have never minded arming potential enemies (like Sadam and Osama Bin Laden ) so what else is new.
.
Of course we need to be competitive with the British miltary industrial complex and orders for the Saudi Kingdom. We know we’ll get plenty of follow-up orders from … the Israelis, naturally.
The new deal, which The Times can reveal will be called al-Salam, or “peace”, differs from the 1980s contracts because the Saudi Treasury will pay for all the equipment.
The first two al-Yamamah deals were complicated oil-for-arms arrangements that cost Saudi Arabia a certain number of barrels of oil a day. This oil was transferred to BP and Shell, which in turn paid the value of the oil into an escrow account from which BAE received its money.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."