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Trump bypasses Congress on Saudi arms sales, citing Iran threat
Fox News.com ^ | May 24, 2019 | Alex Pappas

Posted on 05/24/2019 2:00:58 PM PDT by Kaslin

The Trump administration on Friday informed Congress the president will invoke his emergency authority to bypass lawmakers' approval of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, citing the threat to the United States from Iran.

The move comes as Trump announced plans Friday to send about 1,600 troops to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran.

"Iran’s malign activity poses a fundamental threat to the stability of the Middle East and to Americans at home and abroad. We took this step of prudent diplomatic deterrence to augment our partners’ long-term capacity for self-defense and threat mitigation," a senior State Department official told Fox News.

The official added, "Congress won’t act, but we will. "

The administration is using an emergency loophole in the Arms Export Control Act to move ahead with sales of $7 billion in precision-guided munitions, other bombs, ammo and aircraft maintenance support to Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, without lawmakers' approval.

The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, said he was "reviewing and analyzing the legal justification for this action and the associated implications."

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; US: Idaho; US: Michigan; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: djibouti; eritrea; hassannasrallah; hezbollah; idaho; ilhanomar; iran; jimrisch; lebanon; maga; michigan; minnesota; rashidatlaib; saudiarabia; sudan; trump; yemen
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1 posted on 05/24/2019 2:00:58 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Isn’t that dandy? Give the Saudis more weapons so they can continue blowing up children in Yemen. Our allies who gave us the 9/11 terrorists and continue to spread Islam all over the world.


2 posted on 05/24/2019 2:06:43 PM PDT by Pining_4_TX ("Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." ~ H.L. Mencken)
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To: Kaslin

No real surprise here. Imagine the Iranians mounting a pincer attack from Yemen and Iranian Khuzestan through the Gulf kingdoms’ oilfields, thereby gaining control of 40% of the world’s oil production. Texas would do well, but the rest of the country would have to deal with gas prices at $6 a gallon. Because even if we did not import 40% of our oil needs (produce 12m bpd, consume 20m), refineries pay whatever the world oil price happens to be, and that cost gets passed down to people who buy gasoline here.


3 posted on 05/24/2019 2:07:15 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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Not sick of winning!


4 posted on 05/24/2019 2:08:50 PM PDT by proust (Justice delayed is injustice.)
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To: Kaslin

I am VERY concerned ... Obammy and Bush armed the Saudi dictatorship TO THE TEETH.. and they’re extremely anti-American, they send apparently hundreds of millions of our dollars back into USA to build and operate anti-American preaching mosques and training schools, camps.....
since the Saudi dictator family is very much in bed with the Wahabi one of the most extreme aggressive sects of Islam...

Seems to me they should have plenty of arms already to contain or repel the crazy Iranian Shiites....

Two worse enemies could not be found anywhere in the world...
arming one (even “against the other”) does still pile up even more deadly weapons in enemy hands, regardless.

just saying...we should arm ourselves (and repatriate all of the enemy Islamics that have already gotten into USA)


5 posted on 05/24/2019 2:17:04 PM PDT by faithhopecharity ( “Politicians are not born; they are excreted.” Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
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To: Pining_4_TX

[Isn’t that dandy? Give the Saudis more weapons so they can continue blowing up children in Yemen. Our allies who gave us the 9/11 terrorists and continue to spread Islam all over the world.]


The alternative is to let the Iranians overrun Yemen and give them yet another staging area to overrun the Gulf kingdoms’ oilfields.

These nutjobs are shooting ballistic missiles at Saudi cities because the Saudis are intervening against Yemeni rebels who are being supplied and trained by the Iranians, the way the Soviets supplied and trained the North Koreans and North Vietnamese. The Iranians lobbing ballistic missiles at the Saudis from Yemen is a lot like the Soviets lobbing ballistic missiles at American cities from North Korea or North Vietnam. Which the Soviets never did. The Iranians are nuts.

The Persians have a long history of empire. The Europeans who say Iran can be contained are full of crap. Non-Westerners don’t give a crap about Western ideas* of sovereignty and the end of border changes. As far as they’re concerned, the West had its day in the sun, grabbed the Americas and Australia, and is trying to constrain non-Westerners from getting theirs for the rest of time. Euro dickheads are trying to hold us back because they figure if it goes sour, we’ll pay most of the price, as we probably will, if we have to take the Middle Eastern oilfields back from a nuclear-armed Iran doing a combo of (1) re-assembling the unitary Islamic empire that prevailed under Muhammad and (2) re-living the glory days of Persian empire, when Persia ruled everything from Afghanistan all the way to Greek Anatolia.

* Treaty of Westphalia? Where was the Treaty of Westphalia when the Persian empire was attacked from all sides? As far as Persians (and any non-Western country) is concerned, the current system is basically set up to prevent up and coming challengers from doing what the West did for centuries. From their perspective, while it’s understandable that the West would want to lock in its gains, it’s not clear what those challengers have to gain from letting the West keep its gains for the rest of time. And those gains include the deliberate division (to dilute their ability to set prices in collusion) of the oil-producing Middle Eastern kingdoms, a territory Persians have ruled, off and on, for around a thousand years.


6 posted on 05/24/2019 2:19:56 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Kaslin

Oh boy, and more troops to the Middle East.
Win win.


7 posted on 05/24/2019 2:20:51 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: faithhopecharity

[I am VERY concerned ... Obammy and Bush armed the Saudi dictatorship TO THE TEETH.. and they’re extremely anti-American, they send apparently hundreds of millions of our dollars back into USA to build and operate anti-American preaching mosques and training schools, camps.....
since the Saudi dictator family is very much in bed with the Wahabi one of the most extreme aggressive sects of Islam...]


Arabs aren’t Germans - they’re not robots who obey whatever their leaders say. Arabs rebel at the drop of a hat. And that was before they adopted a religion (Islam) that tells them it is not merely fine to kill any leader who is insufficiently devout - it’s a straight shot to paradise.

The Saudi royals make a show of piety because their troglodyte population demands it. They export their nutjobs because it’s preferable (both to them and to us) to these nutjobs fomenting Islamist revolution at home. We don’t need al Qaeda in charge of the region’s oilfields, and sending nukes in the direction of our cities with the hundreds of billions in annual funding they would get directly from the oil revenues.

Remember how left-wingers assured us that Saddam’s Iraq was secular? How is it that the Sunni Arabs in Iraq, supposedly the most secular people in a secular nation, formed the backbone of an Islamist revolt that killed thousands of GI’s? The simple answer is that they’re not actually secular. And that’s in Iraq.

If we killed the entire population of Saudi Arabia, except for the royals while replacing that population with Filipino Catholics, I suspect the al Sauds would be baptized and take Holy Communion the very next day. Real life isn’t a Disney movie. Subjects aren’t led by the nose. Sunni Muslims in particular are partial to violent revolution against insufficiently devout rulers. The Sunni sect is derived from Muhammad’s generals who killed Muhammad’s grandson, whereas the Shiite sect holds the view that Muhammad’s line was the legitimate successor to the Caliphate. Bottom line is that if Sunnis have no problem with killing Muhammad’s grandson, they certainly have no issues with killing *any* Muslim who stands in the way of the true faith, and that includes the entire Saudi royal family.

It used to be that illiterate Muslims were led by their priests as to what Islam was all about. Be good to your parents. Don’t leave marks when you beat your wife. Be loyal to your sultan. Whereas illiteracy is all but stamped out among the Muslim community today. They can read the Koran for themselves, in all its blood-soaked glory. And that Koran tells them it’s just peachy to kill and make an example of their rulers in gruesome ways, for insufficient devotion to its precepts.


8 posted on 05/24/2019 2:25:17 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Kaslin

Those poor saudis can hardly afford a pot to p!ss in.. Thank goodness we are helping and sending our troops. When i think of how i relate to them as such dirt under the nails, hard workers.
And hardly a Lamborghini in their land. Poor guys.


9 posted on 05/24/2019 2:25:20 PM PDT by momincombatboots (Do you know anyone who isnÂ’t a socialist after 65? Freedom exchanged for cash and control.)
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To: Zhang Fei

And why should we care if Saudi Arabia collapses? They’re the number one sponsor of Wahabbi terrorism across the globe.


10 posted on 05/24/2019 2:27:09 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: Kaslin

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”


11 posted on 05/24/2019 2:28:12 PM PDT by bgill (when you badmouth women, you are badmouthing your mama and the good women on FR)
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To: Kaslin
We have been SA's bitch for a long, long time.





12 posted on 05/24/2019 2:32:44 PM PDT by Theoria (I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive)
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To: Theoria

Fake post

You are ignorant of the reality.


13 posted on 05/24/2019 2:36:29 PM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12)There were Democrat espionage operations on Republican candidates)
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To: Pining_4_TX

The Saudis will be bombing Iran. The UAE will be flying cover. The IAF will be in reserve

The US US Navy will be defending the Gulf from Iranian missiles and air attack.

People on FRee Republic will continue their ignorant bitiching about our allies in the Gulf


14 posted on 05/24/2019 2:39:37 PM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12)There were Democrat espionage operations on Republican candidates)
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To: proust

Irrelevant clap trap


15 posted on 05/24/2019 2:40:10 PM PDT by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12)There were Democrat espionage operations on Republican candidates)
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To: Shadow44

[And why should we care if Saudi Arabia collapses? They’re the number one sponsor of Wahabbi terrorism across the globe.]


That is flat out wrong. Some Muslims are embracing terrorism because they think their rulers are insufficiently devout in trying to spread Islam around the world. If the Saudi royals are overthrown by their population, al Qaeda will finally have a nation state’s resources in its hands. Because if it were up to the population, al Qaeda would rule the country. Don’t believe me? Look at what happened to Egypt, which is supposedly secular. The current ruler can’t allow free elections, because he knows an Islamist would win. 9/11 was mounted with a budget of a few hundred thousand dollars. Al Qaeda rule over Saudi Arabia means an annual military budget literally 100,000 times bigger than 9/11. This will pay for nukes and the ICBM’s with which to deliver them. Our problem isn’t with the Saudi royals - it’s with the population.


16 posted on 05/24/2019 2:40:13 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Zhang Fei

So Iran is going to install Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia?

I don’t think that’s very likely.


17 posted on 05/24/2019 2:41:59 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: Shadow44

[So Iran is going to install Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia?

I don’t think that’s very likely.]


The alternative is to let the Iranians overrun Yemen and give them yet another staging area to overrun the Gulf kingdoms’ oilfields.

These nutjobs are shooting ballistic missiles at Saudi cities because the Saudis are intervening against Yemeni rebels who are being supplied and trained by the Iranians, the way the Soviets supplied and trained the North Koreans and North Vietnamese. The Iranians lobbing ballistic missiles at the Saudis from Yemen is a lot like the Soviets lobbing ballistic missiles at American cities from North Korea or North Vietnam. Which the Soviets never did. The Iranians are nuts.

The Persians have a long history of empire. The Europeans who say Iran can be contained are full of crap. Non-Westerners don’t give a crap about Western ideas* of sovereignty and the end of border changes. As far as they’re concerned, the West had its day in the sun, grabbed the Americas and Australia, and is trying to constrain non-Westerners from getting theirs for the rest of time. Euro dickheads are trying to hold us back because they figure if it goes sour, we’ll pay most of the price, as we probably will, if we have to take the Middle Eastern oilfields back from a nuclear-armed Iran doing a combo of (1) re-assembling the unitary Islamic empire that prevailed under Muhammad and (2) re-living the glory days of Persian empire, when Persia ruled everything from Afghanistan all the way to Greek Anatolia.

* Treaty of Westphalia? Where was the Treaty of Westphalia when the Persian empire was attacked from all sides? As far as Persians (and any non-Western country) is concerned, the current system is basically set up to prevent up and coming challengers from doing what the West did for centuries. From their perspective, while it’s understandable that the West would want to lock in its gains, it’s not clear what those challengers have to gain from letting the West keep its gains for the rest of time. And those gains include the deliberate division (to dilute their ability to set prices in collusion) of the oil-producing Middle Eastern kingdoms, a territory Persians have ruled, off and on, for around a thousand years.


18 posted on 05/24/2019 2:43:58 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Zhang Fei

And why should we care if Iran takes its natural place as hegemon of the region?


19 posted on 05/24/2019 2:46:18 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: proust

Saudi democrats?


20 posted on 05/24/2019 2:46:41 PM PDT by Cold Heart
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