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posted by martyb on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the artful-dealing dept.

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.

Deutsche Welle

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.

The Washington Post

Additional coverage:

Related stories:

US Bans Tablets and Laptops on Flights From Eight Muslim-Majority Countries
Missle Attack from Yemen Targets US Navy Destroyer, Saudi Air Base
U.S. Senate and House Override President Obama's 9/11 Bill Veto
President Obama to Veto Bill Allowing September 11 Victims to Sue Saudi Arabia
Secret 9/11 Commission Report Pages Released
The UK Government Has Finally Admitted We're at War in Yemen
9/11 Commission Member: Saudi Officials Supported Hijackers
Saudi Arabia Threatens to Sell $750 Billion in US Assets If 9/11 Bill Passes
Saudi - Iranian Tension Escalates
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  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Friday May 19 2017, @02:26AM (21 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Friday May 19 2017, @02:26AM (#511948) Journal
    There's no need to nuke Mecca, I know you're trying to be provocative but that's sick.

    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?
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday May 19 2017, @02:30AM (9 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday May 19 2017, @02:30AM (#511952) Journal

    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)

      by Arik (4543) on Friday May 19 2017, @02:52AM (#511969) Journal
      'Let nature take it's course' most likely means a situation where none of the three major powers really wants to risk another quagmire AND piss off the other two and push them together by doing that. The US has had Vietnam, and Iraq, and still hasn't found a way out of Afghanistan. The USSR has had Afghanistan, and Chechnya, and they show no interest. The Chinese have avoided that sort of mistake so far, and appear to have learned from others mistakes, but you know what, maybe they would be dumb enough to go for it.

      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)

        by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 19 2017, @04:29PM (#512241)

        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)

          by Arik (4543) on Friday May 19 2017, @09:49PM (#512398) Journal
          Oil is extremely fungible, and there are large amounts of it outside the middle east. It might have been true some decades back that controlling from Suez to the Persian Gulf would have amounted to a chokehold on the worlds energy but that's far from true today. Even a full and completely unrealistic embargo that prevented a single drop of middle eastern oil to reach the US would have minimal, if any, effect on our supply. This is because there is plenty of oil produced in multiple areas. If one supplier cuts you off, they now have an unsold surplus equal to what you were going to buy. They now need to sell it to someone else, who was going to purchase oil from another area instead, and they'll probably have to offer a discount to get the buyer to switch. Once that's happened, there is another seller, in a different area, who now has a surplus, which we can buy, and again might even get a discount on.

          "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)

            by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 19 2017, @09:55PM (#512400)

            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)

              by Arik (4543) on Friday May 19 2017, @10:18PM (#512413) Journal
              It's quite critical to the profits of a few well-connected American stockholders, but past that? Why don't you explain just how you think it's actually critical to the economy as a whole?
              --
              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)

                by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 19 2017, @11:03PM (#512431)

                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)

                  by Arik (4543) on Saturday May 20 2017, @03:30AM (#512513) Journal
                  And none of that links any of this to the general economy.
                  --
                  If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday May 20 2017, @08:47AM

          by butthurt (6141) on Saturday May 20 2017, @08:47AM (#512553) Journal

          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

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @03:01AM (#511979)

    > 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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @04:00AM (#512005)

    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)

      by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday May 19 2017, @08:34AM (#512083) Journal

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @07:20PM (#512311)

        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 c0lo on Friday May 19 2017, @10:30AM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 19 2017, @10:30AM (#512110) Journal

      11. Saudi Arabia helps maintain the world’s destructive dependence on oil.

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @07:46PM (#512329)

        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

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 19 2017, @08:17PM (#512358) Journal

          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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @03:35PM (#512226)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:41PM (#512296)

        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

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @06:30AM (#512054)

    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.