Why are we arming Saudis?

The rest of the world's mouths are agape at this:

Saudi Arabia? Isn't that the country:
- from which came 15 of the 19 men responsible for the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001?
- that opposed the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and whose king, this March, called the invasion an "illegal occupation"?
- that told the United States to remove its troops and find some other country for the US Central Command's (CENTCOM) forward command post?
- whose border is so poorly monitored that 75% of all foreign fighters crossing into Iraq do so from Saudi territory, far more than from Syria?
- whose autocratic government either will not or cannot prevent its youth from going to Iraq - an estimated 40% of all foreigners fighting US troops and Iraqi government forces are Saudi nationals - where they become bomb makers, snipers, and suicide bombers?
- that nearly 60 years after the creation of the modern State of Israel still refuses to extend diplomatic recognition to that country?

No matter how deft the White House "spin", there will be considerable congressional opposition to the sale. Previous Congresses have opposed sales of weapons to the Saudis on the grounds that the kingdom has never signed a peace agreement with Israel. This time, the opposition is fueled by the lack of sustained support from Riyadh for US aims in Iraq and in the "global war on terrorism".

Cost of oil
There is also the sense among some members of Congress that the Saudis have not acted to control the soaring costs of energy. In the run-up to the 2004 US elections, the Saudis allegedly promised they would increase production if necessary to preclude a price spike that might hurt the re-election prospects of the George W Bush-Dick Cheney ticket.

Once the US election was concluded, however, the Saudis did little if anything to curb higher prices - first to $40 and then to $50 per barrel - pleading market forces beyond their control. Coincidentally with the announcement of the proposed arms sale, the price of a barrel of oil hit $78. Yet there was only silence from the Saudis.

From the perspective of the hardliners in Bush's White House, the Saudis were undercutting every US goal in the Middle East, particularly the current president's vision of a democratic Iraq as the seedbed for transforming autocratic regimes to democracies.
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Washington has been insisting that there is no military solution to the region's trauma. Yet it is proposing not only $20 billion in weapons to the Saudis but another $13 billion to Egypt and $30 billion to Israel - a total of $63 billion for weapons in a part of the world already awash in modern arms. And this total apparently doesn't include $40 million in guns, bullets, rockets, missiles, small-arms ammunition, night-vision goggles, and spare parts for the Lebanese Army this year and another $280 million for 2008. Nor does it include the $3 billion Iraq is spending on weapons and ammunition - all of which are contributing to the current mayhem in these two countries.

Nonetheless, since Israel has already said it will not oppose the sale, it is unlikely that Congress will vote to block it or even to amend it. As for the Pentagon, it hopes to save money through economy of scale for items produced for either the Saudis or Israelis. And of course US companies that build weapons and munitions are pleased at the prospect of new contracts and new profits.

The irony in this whole affair is that Bush started the Iraq war over weapons that never existed and that have not been used since 1945. Now his administration seems to think the way to end the war is to make sure that there are more weapons - ones that kill thousands every day. Go figure!

Can somebody explain this again? We are arming the Saudis who are sending their radicalized Sunni youth to fight against the U.S. supported Shiite government in Iraq; who are afraid of the Shiite power in Iran; who hate Israel; and use their grip on oil prices to control U.S. elections. We are arming Saudis who think the next war will involve them as Iraq is carved up between Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia?

We are fighting Bush's Eternal War on Terror with weaponry supplied by the Bush administration against terrorists whipped to a frenzy by Bush foreign policies.