Posted on 04/07/2005 3:48:26 AM PDT by Gengis Khan
Americans will love their toys By: Matt Gilson, Staff Writer Americans love toys; we cant get enough of them. With the help of our enormous defense budget, weve created quite a few. Of course being the entrepreneurs we are we often times find ways of selling them. Despite recent history, the Bush administration has decided once again that the best reward for help on the war with terror is to sell more weapons. This time weve sold F-16s to Pakistan. Good for them, right? They were the launch platform for our military in Operation: Iraqi Freedom. Giving them weapons will help facilitate their democracy, right? Sure, we should pat them on the back. Unfortunately its more like saying to your neighbor, I know you beat your wife, but you stopped your dog from messing on my lawn. Heres a high definition television. Only the television will probably carry missiles developed by the Chinese military. I salute you if youre still reading; the analogy is a little odd. This F-16 deal was struck long ago, between the Reagan Administration and Pakistans leaders. The odd thing is that Pakistan paid for the F-16s, in full, without ever having received them. Not until 1998 were they repaid when Clintons effort to curb Pakistans nuclear program failed and he decided to give them their money back, as any sensible business owner would. So what did Pakistan do? They went to Belgium to pick up a few used jets instead, and luckily for their enemies Pakistan failed. This has been a very delicate issue for a long time. I wonder how many of you still remember the mini-arms race between India and Pakistan? As it turns out, it is still a hot issue for them, and India isnt too pleased with our choice to finally pay up. Not that India has ground to stand on, as they themselves are in talks of similarly acquiring F-16s or possibly F-18s. So weve sold them and this time its for real. Pakistan claims it will help them control terrorism in more difficult to reach locations, like behind that last molar. Pakistans approach to terrorism seams to be flying over it really fast, while Americans chose to create an even larger governmental body to loom very, very closely to it. In any case these new Pakistani fighter jets are likely to carry Chinese missiles developed in partnership with Italy before the American induced arms embargo. What does it all mean? It means what goes on outside of the Michael Jackson-obsessed media is far more complicated than one could comprehend, and one couldnt possibly count on the Hannity and Combs of the world to inform us. I dont claim to be better and finding things out, but I certainly cant understand the lack of coverage on a real issue such as this. Instead I have to hear countless experts explain to me exactly what Terry might be feeling if it were possible to read minds. Im not sure what it will take for America to learn that selling weapons probably isnt actually in our best interest. Arming Israel made us a lot of enemies. Arming the Taliban couldnt have gone more wrong. Supplying Saddam with biological and chemical weapons sure didnt work out. What kind of tally do we need before we stop?
Who is "Combs"?
These are the type of people that complain about the US siding with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany.
I guess we did the best we could. We defeated Nazi Germany, THEN we defeated the USSR. It just took a while. Personally, I have been amazed by Pakistan's cooperation. It has to have been a big help.
Not to accuse the author of being an idiot but....Pakistan was not the launching point for OIF - Kuwait was. Those damn facts just keep impugning the author's credibility.
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