The US State Department approved the sale of over $1 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia, including over 150 new M1A2S main battle tanks.
The US Department of Defense’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency released a statement yesterday titled, “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – M1A2S Saudi Abrams Main Battle Tanks and M88Al/A2 Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift Evacuation System (HERCULES) Armored Recovery Vehicles (ARV).”
It reveals that:
The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for M1A2S Saudi Abrams Main Battle Tanks and M88Al/A2 Heavy Equipment Recovery Combat Utility Lift Evacuation System (HERCULES) Armored Recovery Vehicles (ARV), equipment, training, and support. The estimated cost is $1.15 billion.
The deal involved over 150 new tanks and a large variety of supporting equipment.
The statement also claims:
This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a strategic regional partner which has been and continues to be a leading contributor of political stability and economic progress in the Middle East. This sale will increase the Royal Saudi Land Force’s (RSLF) interoperability with U.S. forces and conveys U.S. commitment to Saudi Arabia’s security and armed forces modernization.
This second part of the statement is truly confounding. Saudi Arabia has historically been the demographic, material, financial and ideological source of the most widespread and dangerous terrorist organisations on Earth including both Al Qaeda and its ideological shadow, the Islamic State.
Currently, Saudi Arabia is underwriting Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Al Nusra Front, a US State Department designated foreign terrorist organisation currently operating in Syria, as well as a number of other militant groups now consolidated under Nusra’s banner.
Saudi Arabia is also amid an armed conflict it provoked with neighbouring Yemen. It has devastated the nation’s infrastructure and has killed thousands of civilians with airstrikes and armed land invasion, made possible only through US weapon sales as well as significant Western political support and support from across American and European media organisations.
The Western media has helped enable the war by oft neglecting the unfolding conflict. So obvious is this method, the Western media has coined the phrase, “the forgotten war,” never mentioning it is forgotten specifically because of their own intentional negligence in coverage.
Saudi Arabia is currently ruled by an unelected government within which human rights dwindle in a system where state enemies are still publicly beheaded. That the nation is also openly underwriting proxy militant groups waging war in Syria, Iraq and even Libya, while waging war itself upon neighbouring Yemen, seriously puts into question the US Department of Defense’s claims that Saudi Arabia is a “leading contributor of political stability and economic progress in the Middle East.”
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