Jordan asks U.S. to sell it air-defence system

Yahoo News ^ | 1/23/03

[cake_crumb]

Why does Jordan need an air defense system? Don't get me wrong...from the beginning, I've been behind King Abdullah's plan to get together a coalition of Arab countries to fight terrorism...but is Jordan telling us that the plan has ultimately failed because some Arab leaders may possibly be just paying LIP SERVICE to the idea...but are really just furthering their personal agendas?

[DoctorMichael]

Ask for a quid pro quo over use of their airspace. If they say okay, then the deal should be done.

They are definitely sticking their necks out for us and need protection.

[cake_crumb]

"Hm. On the one hand, this might get us in good stead with a non-Jewish middle eastern state, and might even get us on good paper with their citizenry."

He's got his neck stuck out pretty far already with his attempts to break the status quo of Arab politics...I feared for him before, and I fear even more for him now.

[cake_crumb]

"They are definitely sticking their necks out for us and need protection."

Agreed. However, at this time, no Jordanian troops are trained to man such weapons. Without troops trained to man those weapons, they'll be no more than expensive peperweights. Rather than increase the risk to the world from Saddam due to the delay necessary to train Jordanian troops, it WOULD be far more practical to have an at least temporary American installation containing American weaponry, manned by American troops to protect Jordan's airspace until the immediate danger is over and the Iraq question solved.

AFTER the immediate problems are solved, further talks on training and necessary equipment should be more than welcome.

[Man of the Right]

When they want something, we're an ally. When we want something, we're Zionists. If they want more from us than a warm pitcher of spit, we get the right to stage as many troops through Jordan as we want. He's a despot. He can fire on the Arab street like his father did in 1970 if he's concerned about losing his throne.

[gunnedah]

I dont think we should sell them, we should provide them with the man power and expertise at a cost to them. They should stay under our control. We have supplied too much already to those who have turned on us.

[Onelifetogive]

Jordan Air-Defence.

I thought this was about basketball sneakers.

[EternalVigilance]

When Jordon says it is worried about defending its airspace, it is not talking about any potential threat from the East. They know damn well that for the Iraqis, ANY plane of theirs that takes off (of the few they have left) is going to end its career one landing short.

They are worried about a certain very capable Air Force located just to their west. They also know that if Hussein uses WMD on that western neighbor, Jordon will very quickly be directly on the newly opened air highway to Bahgdad.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordon (aka Palestine) is a fair-weather friend. If they want advanced weaponry, maybe they can build it from scratch. After all, Arabs are so good at that sort of thing. ;-)

It is highly unlikely that we are going to provide systems which will end up being used against our ally, Israel, in the next round of anti-semetic hatred that spews forth from the Arab nations.

[bybybill]

Even though it may hurt, try thinking for a change. Right now, US Troops are in Jordan training with their troops. They are friends with the US and I don`t remember one anti- US remark from Jordan. They want to buy some defensive weapons from America, sell`em what they need. For once, lets try to make a friend in the middle-east.

[EternalVigilance]

I am well aware of the status of Jordan.

Fact remains, they have nothing to fear from Iraq...at least nothing that advanced SAMs could prevent.

The only reason that is plausible for them to require this sort of equipment is to keep the Israeli Air Force from overflying their territory, if Israel feels the necessity to do so.

If they want to prove how much they care about sorting some of these deadly troubles out, they need to accept their fellow Arabs who are living on the other side of the river into their loving brotherly bosom.