Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi...
Models in full riot body armour and chemical survival suits waved cheerily for photographs, while one stall holder demonstrated a black breathing mask for use in a nuclear attack next to a tray of boiled sweets and a pot of free pens. In the British pavilion, defence minister Gerald Howarth came under growing pressure to explain the UK's role in arming dictatorial regimes in the region after the government revoked licences to sell arms to Bahrain and Libya. "Nothing to say today," Howarth told the Guardian as he waited -- fruitlessly as it turned out -- to greet Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, whose attention had been drawn to a handgun on a rival stand.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/abu-dhabi-arms-fair-idex-2011/print
Recycling Petrodollars
The US has agreed to sell high-end fighter jets, helicopters, radar and missiles to Saudi Arabia. The deal is one of the biggest single US arms deals ever. Mouin Rabbani, independent writer and analyst, sees the deal as a way of "solidifying the strategic alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia" with the "underlying message" that "Iran will not be able to attack Saudi Arabia without eliciting an American response." But Rabbani does not see the arms deal itself fulfilling Saudi defense needs. "I think with all due respect that the people who try to understand the arms purchase on the basis of Saudi military needs fundamentally misunderstand" the situation, he said. "Any military objective is entirely secondary. What this is really about is to buy regime security. Military acquisitions are an important way of recycling petrodollars."
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/saudi-arabia/101022/why-saudi-arabia-stockpiling-us-weapons
Tags
- LOL (175)
- USA (116)
- WTF (85)
- Iran (57)
- Internet (56)
- IranElection (45)
- Capitalism (39)
- Israel (39)
- Human Rights (38)
- Cool (35)
- View all 1959 tags »
