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02.07 Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering
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02.02 By defunding Planned Parenthood, the Susan G Komen Foundation betrays women
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01.30 Scientists Call on Obama Administration to Use Science as Guide for Arctic
01.28 Universal health care proposal stalls in California Senate
01.27 Apple, Electronics and Environmental Ills
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Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
02.07 Did Obama make the economy worse? Not according to most statistics
02.02 ABC's Iran Propaganda
02.02 The Ongoing “Foxification” of the Wall Street Journal
01.30 While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower
01.29 Fox News psychiatrist: Newt Gingrich's affairs 'mean he might make a strong president'
01.22 ‘Shocking victory’: With SOPA shelved, Markos Moulitsas on a way forward for Internet policy - video
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02.05 Why the AGs Must Not Settle: Robo-signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
02.04 THE CAGING OF AMERICA
02.03 Senate Votes To Ban Its Members From Insider Trading... Kind Of
01.31 Senate clears way for vote on insider-trading ban
01.25 Why all the robo-signing? Shedding light on the shadow banking system
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01.22 Still Not Clear on SOPA & PIPA? Infographic w/Simple Explanations
02.10 The Cancer in Occupy
02.10 How Opus Dei Influenced Rick Santorum
02.10 People Are Not Leaving the Labor Force
02.09 Obama, Explained
02.09 OPED: The White Underclass
02.09 EDITORIAL: A Terrible Transportation Bill
02.09 THE OBAMA MEMOS
02.06 Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?
02.04 Soaking the Poor, State by State
02.04 Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian's Rosy Outlook On The Future of Politics
02.03 SUPERBOWL XLVI: Are You Ready for Some Football???
02.03 Buffett rules: Sheldon Whitehouse introduces the Paying a Fair Share Act - video
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02.01 Rich Patrons Are Major Source of Romney’s Cash
01.31 How Newt Gingrich Crippled Congress
01.30 Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable
01.30 Clashes in Oakland: 400 Arrests, Tear Gas, Flash-Bang Grenades
01.30 A European look at the US primaries - video
01.29 Obama’s Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton
01.25 Inside Romney’s Tax Returns: A Reading Guide
01.24 ILLUSIONS: Being Led Down the Primrose Path...???
01.24 Science Bulletins: Whales Give Dolphins a Lift - video
01.24 THE OBAMA MEMOS
01.22 Three Takeaways From South Carolina
02.10 This is no bailout for Main Street America
02.10 Why the Foreclosure Deal May Not Be So Hot After All
02.10 Matt Taibbi assesses the $26 billion settlement designed to aid victims of foreclosure fraud - video
02.10 Foreclosure Deal to Spur U.S. Home Seizures
02.08 Banks Paying Homeowners to Avoid Foreclosures
02.07 App Stores Create 500,000 U.S. Jobs
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01.29 The Apple Boycott: People Are Spouting Nonsense about Chinese Manufacturing
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01.28 Sugar daddy Adelson could save $500 million in taxes if his boy Gingrich wins - video
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01.27 Chinese Company Continues Plan To Replace Workforce With 500,000 Robots
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01.25 Billionaires Occupy Davos as 0.01% Bemoan Inequality
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01.23 State Capitalism: The visible hand
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02.03 What the Occupy movement must learn from Sundance
02.02 US plans to halt Afghan combat role early surprise Kabul
01.31 TABLE TALK
01.30 With its deadly drones, the US is fighting a coward's war
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01.26 Iran is ready to return to nuclear talks
01.24 Reagan’s Hand in Guatemala’s Genocide
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COMMENTARY:
White Elephants
Ostensibly, the arms the U.S. is selling to Saudi Arabia are needed to strengthen that country against the Great Satan: Iran.
White elephants are rare in nature, and therefore sacred. Being sacred, they may not be put to work. But even a sacred elephant does eat, and eat a lot. Enough to turn a rich man into a pauper.
My late friend, General Matti Peled, one time Quartermaster General of the Israeli army, pointed out the similarity between this elephant and many of our gifts from the President of the United States.
A state-of-the-art military airplane is an immensely expensive object. True, we get it for nothing. But like the white elephant, the airplane is very costly to maintain. It needs pilots, whose training costs a fortune. It needs airfields. All these expenses add up to much more than the price of the airplane itself. But which army can refuse such a wonderful present?
The Middle East is now being invaded by a herd of white elephants. President Bush is about to supply Saudi Arabia with huge quantities of the most advanced weapons. The price tag is 20 billion (20,000,000,000) dollars.
Ostensibly, the arms are needed to strengthen Saudi Arabia against the Great Satan: Iran. In Saudi eyes, this is now the great danger.
How did this happen? For centuries, Iraq served as a wall between Shiite Persian Iran and the Sunni Arab Middle East. When President Bush toppled the Sunni regime in Iraq, the whole region was opened up to the Shiite power. In Iraq itself, a Shiite government was installed, and Shiite militias roam at will. The Shiite Hizbullah is growing in power in Lebanon, and Iran is extending its long arm to all the Shiites in the region.
Allah, in his infinite wisdom, has seen to it that almost all the huge Middle East oil reserves are located in Shiite areas: in Iran, in the South of Iraq and the Shiite areas of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf principalities. If these reserves slip away from US control, it will cause a drastic change in the balance of power, not only in the region but in the entire world.
Therefore, the strengthening of Saudi Arabia—ruled by conservative Sunnis—makes a lot of sense from the American point of view. However, the arms deal is quite irrelevant to this.
On the other side, Saudi Arabia is unable to maintain the weapons that are flowing to it. It does not have enough pilots for the airplanes it is buying, nor crews for the tanks. The new weaponry will collect sand in the desert, like all the expensive weapons it has bought in the past.
So what is the sense in buying more weapons to the tune of 20 billions?
Well, the Saudis are selling oil to the Americans for dollars. A lot of oil, a lot of dollars. The United States, with a huge gap in its balance of trade, cannot afford to lose these billions. So, in order to make it possible for the US to carry this burden, the Saudis must give back at least a part of the money. How? Quite simple: they buy American arms that they don’t need.
This is a merry-go-round that benefits all. Especially the Saudi princes. Saudi Arabia is blessed with a great abundance of these—some 9,000 princes, all belonging to the House of Saud. A prince has a lot of wives, a wife has a lot of offspring. Some of the princes are arms dealers, who automatically receive fat commissions from the arms billions. (It is easy to work it out: a mere one percent of 20 billions amounts to 200 million. And they would laugh at a commission of one percent.)
The princes have, therefore, a vested interest in this convenient arrangement.
This is where Israel enters the picture.
Every arms deal made by the White House needs the assent of Congress. In Congress, the “friends of Israel”—the Jewish and the Evangelist lobbies—rule supreme. Any senator or congressman can forget about being reelected if he offends one of these lobbies.
When Israel raises its voice against an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the White House has a problem—the more so since there is a certain logic to the Israeli objection: the Saudi airbase in Tabuk is but a few minutes' flying time from the Israeli port of Eilat.
What to do? Easy: give us a present of weapons, in order to maintain “the balance of power” and our “qualitative superiority over all the Arab armies combined.”
So, together with the $20 billion deal with the Saudis, President Bush decreed that the American yearly grant of military assistance to Israel should be raised from $2.4 billion to $3 billion. This means that in the coming ten years, Israel will receive arms to the value of $30 billion dollars.
Apart from the small part of the grant that Israel is allowed to spend elsewhere, this huge sum must be spent in the United States. From an economic point of view, the gift to Israel is really an immense boost to the American arms industry. It will enrich the arms producers, who are so dear to Bush’s heart. It will also show the American public how their wise president creates a lot of nice new jobs for them.
That, of course, is not the end of the story.
It would be unacceptable to “strengthen” the rulers of Saudi Arabia in such an impressive way, without giving something to the other kings, presidents and emirs who cooperate with the Americans. Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf emirs expect their share, too.
The new arms deals will, therefore, amount to 40, 50 and God knows how many more billions of dollars.
That’s not bad for the arms producers, who helped Bush get elected and continue to support him. Not bad for the arms merchants, the princes and all the others who profit, the corrupt regimes that rule the Middle East (and, in this respect at least, Israel has succeeded in becoming an integral part of the region.)
All this could be amusing, were it not for the dark side of these circular deals.
Times have changed. The arms dealer is now a respectable person. He can be a celebrity, an object of adulation for the gutter press, a friend of politicians, a generous host of members of the government.
Weapons have their own life. They strive to realize their potential. Their mission is to kill. A general whose arsenals are full tends to fantasize about “war this summer” or “war this winter.”
The killing potential of weapons is getting “better” all the time, and their producers need testing grounds. Some days ago, one of our generals revealed on television that under an American-Israeli agreement, the Israeli army is obliged to report to the American military establishment on the effectiveness of all kinds of arms. For example: the accuracy of “smart” bombs and the performance of airplanes, missiles, drones, tanks and all the other instruments of destruction in our wars.
Every “targeted killing” in Gaza or use of fragmentation bombs in Lebanon serves also as a test. The leveling of a neighborhood in Beirut, the death of women and children as “collateral damage,” the ongoing amputation of limbs by fragmentation bombs in South Lebanon—all these are statistical facts that are important for American arms manufacturers to know, so they can improve their merchandise.
A deal is a deal, and goods are goods.
In the same week that these huge arms deals were announced, Ehud Olmert spoke about a dialogue (unlimited in time) about the (nonbinding) principles for a final status agreement. Condoleezza Rice was again buzzing around the region’s capitals, smiling and talking, embracing and talking.
Saudi Arabia is hinting that perhaps—perhaps—it may be ready to sit with Israel at the table of the “peace meeting” that may take place in the autumn. This is also intended to make it easier for Congress (meaning: the pro-Israeli lobby) to confirm the arms deal.
Bush’s people have announced for the umpteenth time that a “window of opportunity” is now open. (Not a “gate of opportunity,” not a “door of opportunity” but a window. As if windows were for walking through rather then looking through.)
All this activity somehow reminds me of another story about the white elephant:
An American billionaire had set his mind on acquiring a white elephant, in order to impress his peers. But it is strictly forbidden to export white elephants from Thailand, because they are so rare.
A shrewd operator promised to get him a white elephant, and even told him how he would go about it: he would paint the elephant gray before smuggling him out.
And indeed, at the promised time a crate arrived, and out walked a gray elephant. When the gray paint was scrubbed off, a white elephant was revealed. But with a bit more scrubbing, the white paint also came off, and underneath—the elephant was gray.
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This story was published on August 10, 2007.
