Ahead of the US president's visit to Saudi Arabia, a series of multi-billion-dollar arms deals have been outlined. The previous US administration suspended some supplies because of human rights concerns.
When President Trump arrives in Riyadh this week, he will lay out his vision for a new regional security architecture White House officials call an “Arab NATO,” to guide the fight against terrorism and push back against Iran. As a cornerstone of the plan, Trump will also announce one of the largest arms-sales deals in history.
Behind the scenes, the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia have been conducting extensive negotiations, led by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The discussions began shortly after the presidential election, when Mohammed, known in Washington as “MBS,” sent a delegation to meet with Kushner and other Trump officials at Trump Tower.
After years of disillusionment with the Obama administration, the Saudi leadership was eager to do business. “They were willing to make a bet on Trump and on America,” a senior White House official said.
[...] The most concrete part of the idea is a mammoth U.S. arms package for Saudi Arabia that Trump will also announce in Riyadh. Final details are still being worked out, but officials said the package will include between $98 billion and $128 billion in arms sales. Over 10 years, total sales could reach $350 billion.
The sales include huge upgrades for the Saudi army and navy to include Littoral Combat Ships, THAAD missile defense systems, armored personnel carriers, missiles, bombs and munitions, officials said. Some of the production and assembly could be located in Saudi Arabia, boosting MBS’s project to build a Saudi domestic defense industrial capability. But most of the items would be built by American defense contractors.
Additional coverage:
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(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:07PM (5 children)
Let's sell weapons, and then when those weapons are used to kill Americans we'll get all "Hey, they're killing Americans!! Let's kill them!!".
Yuuup... That's why we're so smart, cause..........
.........yeah......
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday May 19 2017, @02:27AM
Hey... 350 billion dollars.... Let's not sweat the small shit...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Funny) by mhajicek on Friday May 19 2017, @04:17AM
And tiny hands.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @05:15AM
Don't be ridiculous. The Saudi will give the weapons to some fringe group who in turn will do the American killing. Who do you think is bankrolling ISIS?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:20AM
We like countries addicted to our weapons. We especially like them addicted to our spare parts. Iran had the F-14, which would be a nice plane when not grounded due to lack of spare parts. We also like to keep our defense contractors viable.
The alternative is that Russia and China and others gain these advantages. They thus gain influence. They might not cut off the supply of parts when hostility rises. Because the buyers know this, they might be more prone to being hostile. Arms manufacturers outside the USA gain mass production advantages, reducing costs, while costs for the USA go up.
So yeah... sucks, but the alternative may be worse.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 19 2017, @05:57PM
Remember when selling weapons to the Saudis was bad?
Oh wait, it was only selling weapons to the Saudis while democrat that was bad. My mistake.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:14PM (32 children)
Saudi Arabia and Mossad did 9/11, the Saudis are the worlds main exporter of terrorism having exported Wahhabism around the world. The world is weaning itself of petrochemical dependence so the petrodollar is over. If it were not for the ongoing Yemeni genocide, nobody would object to Western nations selling arms to SA. As things stand, we really should just nuke this disgusting shithole of a country and throw members of the Saudi royal family in prison.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:40PM (1 child)
And take their oil.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:52PM
We don't even need their fucking oil. None of the arab states would even be able to feed their own people if Western companies hadn't gone in and drilled for oil for them. The 21st century and beyond can have no use for the retarded, incomprehensible ramblings of a 7th century psychopath being perpetuated world wide. As for watching the fat, ugly and hypocritical rulers of a theocratic nation that sees females treated as second class citizens and forced to cosplay as ninjas cavort with bikini clad young women on yachts. End that oligarchy, nuke Mecca!
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:50PM (6 children)
Nobody cares about the goat-fuckers. If they want to commit genocide out in the sandbox, then it's scum killing scum.
If anybody really gave a shit about it, then it wouldn't happen. But it is happening. And that's because Whites and Chinks, Bozgors and Hohols and Slav scum, all know that the lives of sandpeople are worthless.
If anybody on this planet really gives a shit, then it's only because US weapons, rather than their own, are being used.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:59PM (5 children)
Are you talking about the Talmudists or Muhammadans here?
Kick them all out and nuke the lot. Why does anybody in the West tolerate these backwards supremacist and disgusting ideologies?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 19 2017, @12:05AM (4 children)
They're all backwards. The life of any Middle-Easterner (including Israelis) is worth no more than a bucket of piss.
We learned the harsh lessons of the goat-fuckers. [wikipedia.org]
Now, they are nothing but a buyer of crippled US arms. They've done us a lot of good over the years, though, best let them down slowly and let their regime dissolve gracefully rather than typical violent disorderly Islamic fashion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @12:31AM (3 children)
They've done us a lot of good over the years, though, best let them down slowly and let their regime dissolve gracefully rather than typical violent disorderly Islamic fashion.
Your "typically violent disorderly Islamic fashion" is being exported around the world by Zionists. What exactly do you propose to do about that?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 19 2017, @12:43AM (2 children)
Well, as a mere man there is nothing I can do except for advocating the nuking of the Middle-East, including Israel.
As long as the Middle-East exists, we have too many men, too many people, making too many problems -- and there's not much love to go around. Can't you see, this is the land of confusion!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @10:26AM
Yeah, right.
This is the world we live in and these are the hands we're given, no need to increase the (con)fusion and neither the (con)fission, better make it a place worth living in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @04:00PM
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
And we will all be blown away!!
They're rioting in Africa
There's strife in Iran
What nature doesn't so to us
Will be done by our fellow man
-Kingston Genisis
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 19 2017, @02:26AM (21 children)
All we need to do is stop propping up the Wahibs and let nature take it's course. Of course, after propping them up for a century and feeding them plenty of advanced weaponry, it's going to be bloody, but continuing the current strategy only insures it will be even bloodier.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday May 19 2017, @02:30AM (9 children)
All we need to do is stop propping up the Wahibs and let nature take it's course.
That market is too big to leave to Chinese and Russian competition. You know the routine, nature abhors a vacuum.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Friday May 19 2017, @02:52AM (8 children)
Let em.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 19 2017, @04:29PM (7 children)
You're forgetting a big problem: If the Chinese get in there (because they need the oil, badly), they could simplify their oil business a lot...
... by asking barrels to be sold in Renminbi.
That would kneecap the US and its giant debt and trade deficit.
The US has gone to war for less than that.
The US needs the dollar to be the Oil Trade currency. Middle-East oil US imports have been somewhat displaced by fracking (plus Venezuela), but if the middle-East doesn't trade in dollars anymore, 1973 and even 2008 are going to look like minor details compared to the next US crash.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 19 2017, @09:49PM (5 children)
"the US and its giant debt and trade deficit."
The real problem all the jihadis and russian bugbears are supposed to keep us distracted from.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 19 2017, @09:55PM (4 children)
I wasn't referring to the ability to get oil. I was pointing out how the dollar being the money in which oil is traded worldwide is quite critical to the US economy.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 19 2017, @10:18PM (3 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 19 2017, @11:03PM (2 children)
Because the transactions are in dollars, the massive amounts involved, often too high for direct use by various producers, tend to be reinvested in dollar-labelled assets, boosting the US economy...
It also cements the Reserve Currency status, and provides a significant soft power tool for the US against various actors involved in global markets (thou shalt not buy oil from Iran, for the Oil you buy elsewhere uses our dollar...)
Short version:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/072915/how-petrodollars-affect-us-dollar.asp [investopedia.com]
The long versions are available at the local library.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday May 20 2017, @03:30AM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday May 20 2017, @06:27AM
*blink*
Seriously?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 20 2017, @08:47AM
In October 2000, Iraq
[...] insisted on and received UN approval to sell oil through the oil-for-food program for euros only after 6 November. Iraq had threatened to suspend all oil exports -- about 5 percent of the world's total -- if the body turned down the request.
-- https://www.rferl.org/a/1095057.html [rferl.org]
Contrary to the predictions in the above U.S. government-funded story, the change was profitable for Iraq.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeuro [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @03:01AM
> but continuing the current strategy only insures it will be even bloodier.
If you can involve the insurance companies and get insurance to keep the current strategy going that will certanly ensure things get even bloodier.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @04:00AM (8 children)
10 Reasons to Make the Break with Saudi Arabia
That place is right out of the 7th Century. [commondreams.org]
1. Saudi Arabia is governed as an absolutist monarchy
2. Criticizing the monarchy or defending human rights can bring down severe and cruel punishments
3. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world
[The executions are usually carried out by public beheading.]
4. Saudi women are second-class citizens. [...] gender segregation [...] a strict dress code. Women need the approval of a male guardian to marry, travel, enroll in a university, or obtain a passport and they're prohibited from driving. According to interpretations of Sharia law, daughters generally receive half the inheritance awarded to their brothers, and the testimony of one man is equal to that of two women.
5. no freedom of [religion] [...] all Saudis are required by law to be Muslims.
6. The Saudis export an extremist interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism
7. The country is built and runs thanks to foreigner laborers, but the more than six million foreign workers have virtually no legal protections. Coming from poor countries, many are lured to the kingdom under false pretenses and forced to endure dangerous working and living conditions. Female migrants employed in Saudi homes as domestic workers report regular physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.
8. The Saudis are funding terrorism worldwide.
9. The Saudis have used their massive military apparatus to invade neighboring countries and quash democratic uprisings
10. The Saudis backed a coup in Egypt that killed over 1,000 people and saw over 40,000 political dissidents thrown into squalid prisons
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47070.htm# [informationclearinghouse.info]
11. Saudi Arabia helps maintain the world’s destructive dependence on oil.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday May 19 2017, @08:34AM (2 children)
10 Reasons ...
1.
...
11.
Speaking of intolerant religious authoritarians, I think I hear the Spanish Inquisition coming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @07:20PM (1 child)
Each link goes to a different page.
Both are by Medea Benjamin.
Each contains 10 items but they differ slightly in content.
intolerant religious authoritarians
I am certain that if you are spending time on your knees and/or casting your eyes skyward as if a magical man is up there, that is a waste of time.
Those attempts to communicate with mythical beings is only demonstrating how foolish you are to accept children's fables as a basis for your life but, as long as you aren't using your nonsensical belief system to hurt others, then no harm, no foul.
The story of the Nazararean doesn't include any examples of that character saying "Build gaudy giant monuments to me" yet "his followers" do that quite often.
Now, there -are- passages in that scripture that have him quoted as instructing his followers to see to the earthly needs of other humans, yet a vast majority of those folks who profess to be his people don't do that.
...then there's the "Prosperity Gospel" types who completely distort the content of the scripture that they claim to be their founding principles.
...and many of the ragheads' practices aren't called out in their holy book; those are tribal paternalistic/misogynistic patterns established even before their prophet delivered his nonsense.
Again, some folks have allowed themselves to get stuck in the 7th Century.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday May 19 2017, @09:43PM
That has to be the most verbose 'whoosh' I've read in a long time. Here, let me help: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf_Y4MbUCLY [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @10:30AM (2 children)
Uhh? And how are they doing that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
Dumping. [google.com]
They are keeping the price low by accelerating the rate of extraction and getting rid of a commodity that is rapidly losing its luster as renewables become ever more economical solutions to old problems.
Venezuela's tanked economy is a result of this as well (in addition to that country's unwillingness to develop their agricultural and manufacturing base via worker-owned cooperatives).
Maybe Medea's answer would be different from mine.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @08:17PM
The single instance of dumping I remember is the 2015-2016 episode**. Are there others?
** (and for this one we may not have seen yet the end of it. It can still backfire big time - the Saudis didn't just dump but have also bought lotsa shale oil fields in US; these may transform into serious liabilities as the world is slowly weaning from oil).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @03:35PM (1 child)
To get your "10 reasons" list down to 10 entries, just drop item #4 since that is just sensible policy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:41PM
One assumes that this is your admission of having a small penis.
Real men don't need to suppress someone else's human rights in order to seem superior.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:30AM
It is said that the final battle, in which Islam wins, will occur in al-A’maq or in Dabiq.
OK then. Let's just evaporate those towns, 20 megaton minimum. Oh hey, your prophet was wrong and your whole religion is a farce.
Not that we couldn't spare a couple more nukes for Mecca and Medina of course. That only makes 4 of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 20 2017, @12:29AM
Would that destroy or release that demon they worship in that black rock of theirs?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:37PM (5 children)
After years of disillusionment with the Obama administration, the Saudi leadership was eager to do business. “They were willing to make a bet on Trump and on America,” a senior White House official said.
Why would the Saudis be unhappy with the Obama regime? Every US Government has been quite willing to sell arms to the Saudis.
That line just looks like Trump White House spin to me, you know, "the last guy was terrible, look how great we are".
This link took about 2 seconds to find. [soylentnews.org]
I'm guessing Mr. Trump is going to take the credit for a bunch of deals Mr. Obama had already signed.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:42PM (2 children)
Maybe these two liberal sources can clear things up:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/20/barack-obama-saudi-arabia-visit-king-salman-relationship [theguardian.com]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-williams2/the-saudi-obama-snub-a-po_b_9755768.html [huffingtonpost.com]
No link, Sad!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 19 2017, @12:43AM (1 child)
Thanks for the links, you're better at it than me. The Huffington Post one is just the usual pointed blather posing as journalism from that site, but the Guardian one makes some proper points I suppose.
This is the link I meant to post. [reuters.com]
Billions in arms sales says to me that no matter what the personal relationships are like the US and Saudi are going to continue to do business, as they have for 70 years or so.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday May 20 2017, @10:22AM
Here's a more recent article you may be interested in:
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/334323-saudi-arabia-courts-trump [thehill.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:42PM (1 child)
> ...regional security architecture White House officials call an “Arab NATO,”
It's a long way from the North Atlantic to the Arabian peninsula. But maybe no one in the White House took geography?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @04:05AM
You would have preferred "CENTO", "SEATO", "ANZAC"?
Don't expect the airheads in the Trump White house to know about any of those, BTW.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:40PM
The previous US administration suspended some supplies because of human rights concerns.
The only "human rights" Trump is concerned about is people hurting his feelings when they call him out on what he says or does (or doesn't do).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Friday May 19 2017, @12:30AM
dealing with dissidents
dealing with journalists
dealing with opposition...
http://pomed.org/pomed-publications/azoulay2014/ [pomed.org]
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/saudis-use-armoured-vehicles-to-suppress-internal-dissent-videos-show/article29970955 [theglobeandmail.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Friday May 19 2017, @12:40AM
Trump is interested in importing Saudi culture as well.
Saudi women aren't allowed to drive. Trump wants to import that idea to the US, so that women can't drive away when he tries to grab their pussies.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday May 19 2017, @02:46AM
Then quit buying their oil. Done right we can drain them dry, and let their barbaric society figure out they can't afford gas, let alone maintenance on all that cool shit we sold them. Then tell them we'll only teach women who are allowed to drive how to maintain all that cool shit, sit back, and enjoy the popcorn.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday May 19 2017, @05:05AM
Trump finally failed at the last remaining "good" thing I figured could come out of his presidency. That he'd not lube the ol' war machine with Saudi Arabia.
Granted, I made the same mistake as his supporters: I assumed he'd hate/fear ebil brown people too much and use it for a rally instead.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @12:08PM
The Saudis aren't afraid to wield one. US is two rooks short in the chess game against the House of Saudi.
Fifteen of the 9/11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon, zero from Iraq and zero from Afghanistan.
Interestingly enough Iraq and Afghanistan got war, Saudi got presidential visit and business opportunity... think about that when you next time buy oil (derivatives).
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”