Saturday, May 21, 2011

US arms Sales to Middle East


US arms sales at odds with words

ON THE same day President Obama pressed again for peace in the Middle East, the Associated Press reminded us that the United States cannot help itself from flooding the region with the instruments of war, reporting that the nation is “quietly expanding defense ties on a vast scale’’ with Saudi Arabia.
Obama and his minions are doing the same blasted thing which most of his predecessors have done, thinking that it will never blow up in their faces like a bad trick cigar.
There is something pathologically consistent about the way in which which the White House, State Department, Congress, and Pentagon refuse to factor in the following reality into the US's foreign policy decisions: when peaceful revolution becomes impossible, violent revolution is almost always inevitable.
We support thugs world-wide, and attempt to "buy" their friendship with money and (the US believes) enough guns and tanks to put down any legitimate dissent. The US government then never asks for clarification about where the money has gone.
When you have no real infrastructure, coupled with tremendous corruption and poverty, this is the "perfect storm" for creating unrest. And when this unrest spills over, to the amazement of our folks in Washington, and there is regime change, but not the kind the US government wanted, those in the bowels of power shake their heads, and say they "never saw it coming."
The protests in Bahrain and Yemen could well come to Saudi Arabia, unless those in the House of Saud make some very fundamental changes with which to better the lives of their people. Heaven knows, this country's leadership has the money to do this; it's all a question of willingness.

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