So it comes as no surprise at all that the Bush Administration, when faced with a region with a history of religious and ethnic violence and a very real and present fear of regional war as a result of our invasion and occupation of Iraq, thinks that arming the region to the teeth with new weaponry is the answer.
The New York Times:
The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion.
...
Along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are likely to receive equipment and weaponry from the arms sales under consideration, officials said. In general, the United States is interested in upgrading the countries’ air and missile defense systems, improving their navies and making modest improvements in their air forces, administration officials said, though not all the packages would be the same.
In addition, the Washington Post reports that Egypt will also receive $13 billion in new weaponry.
I wonder how Israel feels about us arming their neighbors. None too pleased, I would imagine. So to make them happy (and to make the circle of violence complete), we are promising them $9 billion in addition to the $20 billion in armaments and aid we normally give them.
The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia ... has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous.
Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years....
The $30.4 billion being promised to Israel is $9.1 billion more than Israel has received over the past decade, an increase of nearly 43 percent.
And Bush is not done. Faced with a disasterous civil war in Iraq ignited by our invasion and occupation, the President has decided that a possible solution to the civil war would be to arm one side of the civil war.
The Washington Post:
The U.S. military in Iraq is expanding its efforts to recruit and fund armed Sunni residents as local protection forces in order to improve security and promote reconciliation at the neighborhood level, according to senior U.S. commanders.
Within the past month, the U.S. military command in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq ordered subordinate units to step up creation of the local forces, authorizing commanders to pay the fighters with U.S. emergency funds, reward payments and other monies.
The initiative, which extends to all Iraqis, represents at least a temporary departure from the established U.S. policy of building formally trained security forces under the control of the Iraqi government. It also provokes fears within the Shiite-led government that the new Sunni groups will use their arms against it, commanders said.
Yes, Mr. President. Peace will surely come if you give every one weapons.
::sigh::
While this fits with this Administration's modus operandi in bringing more chaos to the world, the reasons behind our arm sales are quite transparent. Quite simply, the Saudis and their neighbors want to improve and update their defensive and offensive capability. And if we do not sell the weapons to them, somebody else will. And if that happens, American influence in the region decreases.
For the Bush Administration though, and all those who deal in fear and misery, this deal only has upsides. For the weapons you sell today will be used in wars tomorrow, thus requiring our presence and intervention in the Middle East for years to come.
President Bush. Fear. Chaos. Misery. His legacy.
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