Community | December 29, 2011 | 10 comments

The U.S. closed the first $30 billion half of a major arms deal Thursday to send 84 F-15 fighter jets to a country that only this month beheaded a woman convicted of witchcraft.

source: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/americas_christmas_present_to_her_favorite_despo...

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Anonmaly
Hold that thought about democracy in the Middle East while we sell $60 billion of military hardware to the princes of Saudi Arabia. The U.S. closed the first $30 billion half of a major arms deal Thursday to send 84 F-15 fighter jets to a country that only this month beheaded a woman convicted of witchcraft.

The U.S. will also help upgrade 70 existing Saudi jets as part of the package, which is the first installment of a major arms agreement that will also send helicopters and munitions to the kingdom.

Of course the whole deal is built around Washington’s obsessive fear of Iran, as the BBC relays from a State Department official:

In Washington, senior state department official Andrew Shapiro said it would send “a strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the Gulf and broader Middle East”.

“It will enhance Saudi Arabia’s ability to deter and defend against external threats to its sovereignty,” he added.

Since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia and Israel are the other poles in the region, and the U.S. has promised to continue to arm both for the foreseeable future. —PZS



http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/americas_christmas_present_to_her_fa...
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10 comments // The U.S. closed the first $30 billion half of a major arms deal Thursday to send 84 F-15 fighter jets to a country that only this month beheaded a woman convicted of witchcraft.

  • good_stuff
    • 0
      good_stuff  

    • So the US governement will get 30 billion, which will go to the companies providing the services, not profit for the US...

      Then when we go to war with them in a decade or two it will cost taxpayers 300 billion to shoot them all down.

      Somebody is making a killing here (not literal yet), and it isn't the US or Saudi's.

    • 5 months ago
  • artemis6
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • 0
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  

    • Anyone, how much of that purported $30 billion will actually make it's way into the hands of the American worker? Anyone, how much will it actually cost American workers for the war industry to take in that $30 billion? The royal Saudi family throws a bone to the War Industry because the American People has spent billions of dollars and thousand of dead soldiers to keep them on their puppet throne for decades.

    • 5 months ago
  • dugdog47
    • +2
      dugdog47  

    • It's funny when you think our government can sell such destructive weapons to a whackjob country, but we can't even sell pot to each other....thats funny, isn't it?

    • 5 months ago
  • MarkAssBuster
  • circlesquared
  • Vierotchka
    • +1
      Vierotchka  

    • Hardly surprising from a country whose courts often have refused to accept proofs of innocence and ordered to go ahead with executions...

    • 5 months ago
  • maasanova
    • 0
      maasanova  

    • Well at least they paid for them. We just give fighter jets and other tech to Israel, and then they turn around and sell it to China.

      I take it Hillary never publicly commented on the beheading, her being an advocate of women's rights and all.

    • 5 months ago
  • circlesquared
  • trut
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