Wednesday, July 13, 2016

U.S arms sales flourish

The U.S. government is on track to approve nearly $40 billion in foreign military sales in the 2016 fiscal year that ends October 1, down from $46.6 billion last year, a top Pentagon official said on Wednesday.... 
U.S. industry officials and top military officials have become increasingly vocal in expressing concerns about delays in approving fighter jet sales to U.S. allies in the Gulf and other deals.... 
He acknowledged that increased demand for U.S. weapons was creating strains for the government agencies that must evaluate such requests and then process the resulting contracts.
Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, may be a lying sack of shit from the U.S. point of view for accusing the West of terrorist support in his neck of the woods, but if arms sales are a yardstick, perhaps he has a point.
“The coalition has failed and has no real impact on the ground,” he said. “At the same time, countries like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and western countries which provide cover for terrorism like France, the United States, or others, cannot fight terrorism. You cannot be with and against terrorism at the same time.” 
I have a hunch it's not so much that Assad is a dictator that concerns the U.S. What does concern the U.S. is that he is not yet our dictator.

3 comments:

  1. Hey, i can be bought. But there are some jobs i refuse to take.

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  2. Wait a minute... Wait a minute!

    American is a de facto corporate plutocracy. Should it be surprising that America's press releases about its foreign policy do not sync up with its activities with foreign countries?

    It's no wonder that weapon sales go beyond even that obvious observation about hidden agendas. Presidential election year drama should offer enough clues that the Corporate Plutocrats may not even be on the same page with respect to any given issue. So some factions want America to be a straight up arms dealer with the added benefit of being able to move in directly or via a third local faction or coalition once the warring locals have pretty much destabilized each other.

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