Posted on 11/20/2007 7:25:38 AM PST by ddtorquee
House members from both parties are calling on the Bush administration to delay a $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia and to impose tougher restrictions on how the Middle Eastern country could use the weaponry.
Last week, the Bush administration informally notified Congress of its intention to sell high-technology armaments, including satellite-guided munitions and naval vessels, to Saudi Arabia, which is a key ally in the region. Lawmakers have protested the sale since news first leaked of negotiations in late July.
“The idea that we are going to reward the Saudis with precision weaponry is a stunningly bad idea, and clearly deserves the full review of Congress,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) in a press release.
...another bipartisan group of House members called for stricter guidelines on how Saudi Arabia could use the U.S.-sold weapons. Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Chris Carney (D-Pa.) and 186 other lawmakers expressed “serious concerns” over selling Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) technology — highly accurate precision arms — to the Saudis.
“If it falls into the wrong hands, JDAM technology could significantly harm U.S. forces in the region and undercut Israel’s qualitative military edge,” the letter states.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Thank you.
In the real world, you don't often get a chance to choose one side over another, good over bad, rather it is usually choosing between shades of gray, worse versus worst. We allied ourselves with Stalin to defeat Hitler.
I failed to mention that I served in Iran during the overthrow of the Shah, i.e., 1978-79. There is no comparison between the mullahs and the House of Saud. Carter and Vance had good intentions, i.e., get rid of the corrupt and oppressive Shah. What they got was something far worse and we are still living with the consequences.
Will a Republican candidate take this up? Where is Duncan?
“Why in the world would Saudi Arabia need those weapons?”
I say give ‘em as many as they want.
Controlled and dropped by USA planes, flown by USA pilots, and used
to turn back any horde invading SA to get the oil we buy from SA.
But given to the SA military?
Maybe when the end-times are clearly here!
The sum total of their positive worth to the world.
Everything else flowing from the "kingdom" is a problem.
Many Americans are sick of expedience - your "real world" - at the expense of the ideal. We have the capacity to avoid compromising what is best to end up with something we can live with.
BTW, Patton wanted to use the leftover Germans to fight the Russians and MacArthur wanted to nuke Beijing. Imagine the millions of lives that would have been saved had we taken their initiative instead of deciding we could live with the Communist threat.
That sounds like a pretty JDAM bad idea to me.
We live in the present. We import 60% of our oil. Yes, we need to be energy independent, but that is going to take a long time and our political leadership has proven to be impotent. We can't even exploit our own natural resources because of environmental concerns.
Many Americans are sick of expedience - your "real world" - at the expense of the ideal. We have the capacity to avoid compromising what is best to end up with something we can live with.
That is all well and good. But who is going to bell the cat? Capacity represents potential, but until we realize that potential, we must exist the best way we can. We are in a competition for oil, which is experiencing rising demand due to the rising affluence of the Chinese and others and a world population that increases annually by 57 million, which is the equivalent of adding a new Italy every year.
Isn’t the US government trying to push a saled modernized F-15s to Saudi Arabia ? And hasn’t Saudi Arabia announced it was thinking of buying Eurofighters or possibly French Rafales ? JDAMs would be just the deal sweetener Riyadh needs...
Will they pay us in Euros?
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