Old white men dancing without any rhythm, no wonder they hate us in the Middle East.
Courtesy of
WaPo:
President Trump made a splashy debut on the world stage here Saturday, ushering in a new era in U.S.-Saudi Arabian relations by signing a joint “strategic vision” that includes $110 billion in American arms sales and other new investments that the administration said would bring hundreds of thousands of jobs.
“It was a great day,” Trump said. He cited “tremendous investments in the United States . . . and jobs, jobs, jobs.”
While initial details were scant, the agreements signed included a U.S. letter of intent to “support Saudi Arabia’s defense needs” with sales of a number of items — naval ships, tanks and other vehicles — that were the subject of agreements under earlier administrations, as well as some new items that had never passed the discussion stage, such as sophisticated THAAD missile defense systems.
Other items are intended to modernize Saudi Arabia’s cyberdefense and airborne intelligence-gathering, and secure its borders.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in a news conference with his Saudi counterpart, described common views on counterterrorism, the threat from Iran and regional security. He outlined “like-minded” goals in the security and economic spheres and said, “We’re very proud of this relationship that we are embarking on with the kingdom.”
Is this the appropriate place to point out that fifteen of the nineteen 9-11 hijackers
were from Saudi Arabia?
At least one US Senator,Chris Murphy, is
not terribly impressed with this sale:
Piled on top of this enormous arms lot are precision-guided munitions that President Obama would not sell the Saudis. That’s not because the Obama folks didn’t like selling weapons to the Saudis — Obama sold more weapons and gear to Saudi Arabia in eight years than all other previous administrations combined. No, Obama withheld precision-guided munitions because the Saudis were using U.S.-provided munitions to repeatedly target civilian and humanitarian sites in their bombing campaign inside Yemen, despite regular protests from the United States. Thousands of civilians inside Yemen have been killed during the civil war, many by the Saudi-led coalition, and today, the country is on the brink of famine in part because the Saudis have intentionally destroyed transit hubs and key bridges, and blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid into Yemen. As we speak, millions of Yemenis are being radicalized against the country they blame for the civilian deaths: the United States. By selling the Saudis these precision-guided weapons more — not fewer — civilians will be killed because it is Saudi Arabia’s strategy to starve Yemenis to death to increase their own leverage at the negotiating table. They couldn’t do this without the weapons we are selling them.
Murphy also points out that it is very unlikely that the Saudis will use these weapons to fight ISIS, and will likely instead use them in their ongoing proxy wars against Iran.
These are of course details about the history of the region that will likely completely elude Donald Trump.
Above is a photo of Melania walking around without a head covering, like some infidel, despite the fact that Trump tweeted this about Michelle Obama's visit back in 2015.
I assume it is only offensive if a Democratic woman refuses to cover her head while visiting the country.
So Trump's whirlwind excursion to exotic locales to embarrass the United States is off to a rollicking start.
I only hope that Trump can return from this trip not having started a war with every nation that he visits.
