Saturday, July 28, 2007

Just follow the oil and blood-soaked money trail...

Edit on July 30, to add update at the end of the post...

Talk about counterintuitive moves by the Bushies - they're selling $20 BILLION worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia. Including "satellite-guided munitions"! (Reuters via Yahoo! News)

Why is this counterintuitive?

Then - 15 of the 19 hijackers responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001 were Saudis. (USA Today, 2002)

Now - Nearly half of all foreign (i.e. non-Iraqi) insurgents in Iraq are Saudi, and estimates are that half of those are suicide bombers. (LA Times, 2007)

All too soon - U.S. servicemen and women will be dying at the hands of insurgents armed with U.S.-made and -marketed weapons.

Oh, and the mastermind of the attacks on 9/11? Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. The one that the Bushies all-but-abandoned the search for because of nonexistent 'weapons of mass destruction' in Iraq.

I'm not advocating starting a war with Saudi Arabia, but enough is enough; it's time to stop treating Saudi Arabia like an ally, because it sure as hell isn't acting like one.

And hasn't for years.

Why would the Bushies do something that seems so illogical? The Reuters article talks about how this is one of a series of moves designed to encourage support for the current U.S.-supported government in Iraq, and to discourage Saudi support, financial and physical, for the Sunni militants in Iraq.

Personally, I think the title of this post sums up a much simpler yet far more accurate likelihood.
Update as of July 30 -

Turns out that I'm not the only one who thinks that selling advanced weapon systems to the Saudis is a particularly bad idea - some members of Congress plan to introduce a resolution blocking the sale.

From the New York Sun -
Two New York congressmen say they plan to introduce legislation to stop the Bush administration's proposed $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

Standing in front of the Saudi Consulate, Reps. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat of Brooklyn and Queens, and Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat of Manhattan and Brooklyn, yesterday condemned Saudi Arabia as a sponsor of terrorism unworthy of American military support.

More updates as they become available.

End edit.

Later!

2 comments:

shrimplate said...

Since they asked us to leave all of our military bases there, we just have to sell them arms. Even if your enemy is the enemy of your other enemy, and your enemies' enemy is a friend, you have to hold your enemies closer.

Heheheh.

Craig said...

"Even if your enemy is the enemy of your other enemy, and your enemies' enemy is a friend, you have to hold your enemies closer."

Thanks.

Now I've got a headache.

:))