Bush Administration Is Wrong To Seek $20 Billion Arms Sale To Jihad-Supporting Saudis

IMRA ^ | 8-2-07

[SJackson]

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[GOPPachyderm]

Couldn’t agree with you more.

[WhiteGuy]

Bush Administration Is Wrong To Seek $20 Billion Arms Sale To Jihad-Supporting Saudis.

This is self evident.

But exactly how does an “arms deal” actually work?

Who is selling the weapons?
Who is paying for the weapons?
Are the weapons paid for with US tax dollars?

[mnehring]

One thing I was told by someone in the know shed a new light on this.. with the exception of small arms, everything we have now is computer controlled and networked.. a tank can communicate with a fighter which can communicate with an APC.. and best of all, if fallen into the wrong hands, can be switched off with the flip of a switch at a command and control station.

This could be looked at as putting the Saudi’s on a very short leash.. basically, it gives us control to turn off or on their military equipment at will.

[Joe Boucher]

You stated this before to me. I don’t believe it in its entirety.
Personally I don’t think I’d send the double dealing Saudis anything more then a bucket of dog pooh.

[KarlInOhio]

Hopefully the Saudi version of the JDAM has areas where it won't work (i.e. Israel) and have an expiration date based on the GPS signal.

[Logical me]

Why in the he!! are we giving aid to these turban headed nut cases. They just throw sh@@ back in our faces. Currently they are holding up the world with oil. All aid or arms agreements should be immediately canceled and warn tired of your stupidity, except for Israel. It’s about time we told the world to dig their own butts out of the dark ages. And incidentally damn the RATS and the environmentalist for stopping our own oil production.

Damn, I'm mad!!!!!!!

[squidly]

Sometimes (the small minority of the time) we give away weapons, but in this case, the Saudis will be paying for them.

[mnehring]

Look up SOSCOE.

[11th Commandment]

I think the analogy is this:

Nazi Germany= Iran
Fascist Italy= Syria
Eastern Europe= Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait
Russia= Saudi Arabia
England= Israel
France= Iraq

We need to support Saudi Arabia enough to counter the Nazis in Iran, but not too much, because long-term, they are an enemy too.

[onedoug]

The wahaabist saudis should have been the first enemy we took down.

And they should still go.

[rjp2005]

I agree. It will eventually be used against us, just like Iran. If this is the solution to stopping Iran, it’s a bad one, because Iran will just assimilate those arms eventually. They’re like the junk Borg or something.

[untrained skeptic]

I simply wouldn't trust that any such restrictions couldn't be reverse engineered and removed.

We do control the GPS network, but short of turning it off over Israel, which might cause more difficulty for the Israeli's than it would help, I'm not sure how much control that gives us.

GPS is a one way communication. The satellites broadcast information which the GPS receiver uses to determine location.

The broadcast could be turned off, or made less accurate, but we can't selectively disable some weapons using it.

The weapons themselves could be programmed to not work in Israel, but that might be reverse engineered given time.

I don't think we could reliably prevent these weapons from being used against Israel, or even against us if they fell into the wrong hands.

[cinives]

so why does the article refer to “aid” to Saudi Arabia, then ?

[ZULU]

These fantic killers have enough weapons. When and if the Wahhabists eject the Saud family - as they probably will -any weapons there will fall into their hands, just like the nuclear weapons in Pakistan will ultimately fall into the hands of Talibanistas when they kill Mushareff.

[pfony1]

I gather you would prefer that the Saudis NOT spend their $20 billion dollars to buy aircraft manufactured in the US, but instead funnel those dollars to terrorists to finance the construction of suicide vests, IEDs, drone-bombs, etc. to be used against the US.

A foolish position to take, IMHO...

[squidly]

Got me.

[mnehring]

I simply wouldn't trust that any such restrictions couldn't be reverse engineered and removed.

Very true, but when faced with the possibility they are going to get their equipment from China, N. Korea, Russia, or us, which would we have the best chance of controlling through things like SOSCOE, or as has been mentioned, tracking it through GPS. This also makes the Saudis dependent on us, and thus, our best interest is more vital to their infrastructure. If they acquired this equipment from China, for example, then they would be looking out for China's best interest and we would not have any chance of a SOSCOE type control over the equipment...

There is always more to the story than the first knee jerk reactions a lot of people have.. kind of like Dubai Ports.. we lost an opportunity to have our agents in ports all around the world and all of DPI's ports upgraded with US security measures..

[WhiteGuy]

Thanks for answering!

Sometimes (the small minority of the time) we give away weapons, but in this case, the Saudis will be paying for them.

Ok, so if the saudis are buying weapons, who are they buying them from? US? manufacturers? Why is bush involved? surely a sovereign nation can make it’s own decisions about their own spending..........