US looses $10 billion on Saudi arms deal

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Agathon
Y'know, they could just not have invaded Iraq, and given the Saudis and Israelis twice as much, and spent the rest on fixing world hunger.

Oh, so you want the US to invade yet another country?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Ramo
It makes perfect sense. We're arming the Israelis because they're worried about us arming the Saudis. And we're arming the Saudis because they're worried about us arming Iranian proxies in charge of Iraq. And we're arming these Iranian proxies (who recently demanded us to fire Petraeus) to combat sectarian violence, principally coming from Arab Nationalist Sunni Arabs. And we're arming recently anti-government Sunni Arabs to help suppress AQ in Mesopatamia. We're also working with the Turks to suppress the PKK because they're worried about us arming Kurds. Incidentally, we're also arming a wing of the PKK to combat Iran.

And obviously, nothing could possibly go wrong here. I mean, the one thing that the Middle East is missing are weapons....

Exactly. We keep on arming various nations, insurgents, terrorists, liberation groups whatever you'd like to call them. At the same time the west is deeply shocked and scandalized when we find out Syria and especially Iran is funding Hezbollah in Lebanon. That's so hypocritical...

On top of that: yeah Hezbollah builds rockets and buys guns with that money, but to gain support it also builds schools, hospitals and it provides housing for those people whose houses were destroyed by Israeli bombardments on Lebanese cities. The western help to Israel and Saudi-Arabia on the other hand goes to high-tech weapons. Especially in the case of Saudi-Arabia that is disgusting because their emirs don't even know what to do with their vast amounts of money. If only they would thrust some more of their wealth into the development of the poor in their country political and religious extremism would be cut down to some extent

Double standards

[DinoDoc]

Chump change

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Traianvs
On top of that: yeah Hezbollah builds rockets and buys guns with that money, but to gain support it also builds schools, hospitals and it provides housing for those people whose houses were destroyed by Israeli bombardments on Lebanese cities. The western help to Israel and Saudi-Arabia on the other hand goes to high-tech weapons.

this line of logic is laughable because

a) you fictitiously make it appear as though hezbullah is using its money to do good, while Israel and Saudi Arabia spend 100% of their budget on arms.

What is relevant to compare is the Hezbullah budget to the Saudi / Israel budget. Do you really want to compare how much money Israel invests in social services / repairs of war damages in northern Israel, to how much money Hezbullah is pouring on Lebanon?

Most of the Iranian sponsored repairs have been of Hezbullah HQ's or sympathizers' homes. Do you think the Christians or druze have seen any money?

b) Do you wonder why Hezbullah needed to rebuild Lebanon? Oh yeah, because it made an aggressive act of war, dragging the country into war, and then using the civilian population as a shield.


c) the schools built by hezbollah are used to spread fanaticism and hatred, and provide new waves of recruits. They ain't creating a new peaceful generation.

d) the hezbullah network is a foreign attempt to weaken and topple the legitimate lebanese government. Imagine what if Russia started building schools and hospitals with huge posters of Putin and soviet weapons on its walls in your city.

[germanos]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

this line of logic is laughable because

if you substitue hezbollah and Israel for zionism and Arab Nation respectively, the rethoric remeins as empty as it is.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

this line of logic is laughable because

a) you fictitiously make it appear as though hezbullah is using its money to do good, while Israel and Saudi Arabia spend 100% of their budget on arms.

What is relevant to compare is the Hezbullah budget to the Saudi / Israel budget. Do you really want to compare how much money Israel invests in social services / repairs of war damages in northern Israel, to how much money Hezbullah is pouring on Lebanon?

I was referring to the fact that the US sends large amounts of money solely to fund Israeli arms and not for social services: =>

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has confirmed that the United States is planning a significant increase in military and defence aid to Israel.
The package would reportedly amount to more than $30bn (£14.8bn) over the next 10 years.

The Iranians undoubtedly spend money on arms infrastructure like I said, but Hezbollah doesn't use all that money on arms alone

Most of the Iranian sponsored repairs have been of Hezbullah HQ's or sympathizers' homes. Do you think the Christians or druze have seen any money?

Of course, that is only logical. The Israeli demolish houses on Israeli-Palestine borders. I am not aware that you give a refund for that to Palestine; it's the same thing. Compare it with the large fundie Christian donations to the poor in the US. They're going to invest in their fellow believers, because they are not a state, and neither is Hezbollah and their private budget. Of course they give their money to supporters, who doesn't?

b) Do you wonder why Hezbullah needed to rebuild Lebanon? Oh yeah, because it made an aggressive act of war, dragging the country into war, and then using the civilian population as a shield.

Yes the hostage situation was intentional, but the Israeli reaction was not. You won't fool me into believing that Hezbollah actively sought a full-scale war (which was exactly what Israel wanted for some time back then!). They were prepared for it though, and they are now probably stronger than ever, but I think they are intelligent enough not to want to trigger a war every now and then; they simply want to keep the pressure up; your aggressive warlike reaction on the other hand is a different thing

c) the schools built by hezbollah are used to spread fanaticism and hatred, and provide new waves of recruits. They ain't creating a new peaceful generation.

I agree that their schools are probably not really a classic example of a good and objective education. On the other hand that is merely your subjective opinion. Hezbollah will say just the same of Israeli schools. Anyhow Hezbollah does invest in schools with all that money. That money from the US to Israel goes to Defence and Arms. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the US actively funds Israeli schools...

d) the hezbullah network is a foreign attempt to weaken and topple the legitimate lebanese government. Imagine what if Russia started building schools and hospitals with huge posters of Putin and soviet weapons on its walls in your city.

Foreign? Hezbollah is backed up and instigated on behalf of foreign nations, but Hezbollah is a Lebanese movement, and as far as I know Nasrallah is Lebanese, and their people are also Lebanese?
So posters of Putin in my country... are completely irrelevant here. It would be a different thing if they'd post Bin Laden posters yeah...