One More Thing About that Saudi Death Wagon Deal

Justin's "Jeep"

To hear Uncle Steffie talk about it, you would think Canada's 15-billion dollar armoured fighting vehicle sale to the Saudis had no greater dimension. Dion never links it to what else is going on between the panoply of Western death merchants and the House of Saud.

The thing is, this is a collective effort and those high speed, cannon equipped light tanks are just one part of an integrated rearmament of Saudi Arabia, the purpose of which no one wants much to talk about. There are no clean hands in this. In fact most of those hands wind up covered in the blood of civilians.


The war in Yemen has become an invisible and dirty conflict. The US and Britain are propping up a stalled Saudi effort to assert itself as a regional power – but with Riyadh armed to the gills by the West, it demonstrates little restraint in its targeting.

As the war enters its second year, a shaky fourth truce is holding and investigations by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch have produced evidence that Washington and London could be complicit in war crimes – as the provider of weapons, training and intelligence for the Saudi forces. 

Much of the humanitarian damage has been wrought with US and British supplied weapons. But Yemen might be just the start of a slippery slope for the West because, as [veteran CIA analyst Bruce] Riedel observes, the Saudis want more, not less US "policing" in a region in which the biggest beneficiary of the Yemen war has been al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP].

He writes: "AQAP now controls some 600km of the southern coastline – from just outside Aden to Mukalla where, at the start of the war, it looted $US100 million from its banks."

Noting that until recently the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen had not taken the attack to AQAP, Riedel says: "They are now earning at least $US2 million and perhaps as much as $US5 million a day in smuggling oil. The group is stronger today than ever before."

Peace talks are scheduled in Kuwait on Monday [April 18], and in the event of failure, Riedel sees a grim aftermath, because Riyadh is threatening a new offensive to wrest control of the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, from Houthi rebels, even as the UN estimates that 21 million Yemenis need immediate relief, one-third of whom suffer severe food insecurity.

Now at the Brookings Institution, Riedel writes: "A battle for the capital will compound the tragedy enormously."

In January, a UN investigative panel reported "widespread and systematic" Saudi attacks, arguing in a 51-page report: "The [Saudi-led] coalition had conducted airstrikes targeting civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law, including camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; civilian gatherings, including weddings; civilian vehicles, including buses; civilian residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and food storage warehouses; and other essential civilian infrastructure, such as the airport in Sana'a, the port in Hudaydah; and domestic transit routes."

Well, I wonder if Cap'n Sunni Ways, prime minister "a deal is a deal" Trudeau has read that UN report and asked himself just what in hell do the Saudis want with another $15-billion worth of those scoot'n shoot death wagons? What's all that about?

Update: 

Just a word on the Trudeau government's self-serving bullshit about what the Saudis may or may not do with these death wagons. Let's go down Memory Lane and revisit how the Saudis made use of the first batch of 1,000 Canadian LAVs they ordered.

More than 1,000 earlier-model LAV IIs were sold to Saudi Arabia. Deliveries of the LAV IIs ran from the early 1990s until 2012. (Saudi LAV deals gained at least $2.2B for GM Defense and, later, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada.) Most, if not all, of those LAV IIs went to Saudi Arabia National Guard (SANG) Mechanized Brigades. Unlike SANG Light Infantry Brigades, all SANG Mechanized Brigades are based in the Central Region around Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia National Guard troops have been deployed to quell peaceful civilian protests, including at the height of the Arab Spring. In March 2011, SANG LAV IIs were driven into neighbouring Bahrain (as part of the so-called Peninsula Shield Force). At the same time, SANG moved against Shia protesters in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province. The leader of the Saudi Shia protests was Nimr al-Nimr – whose arrest and 02 Jan 2016 execution has brought the purchase of the new LAV 6.0s by the Saudi regime back to the attention of Canadians.

The Eastern Province has the largest concentration of Shias in Saudi Arabia. Qatif, a city on the Persian Gulf, has been described as "a militarised zone, surrounded by checkpoints and armoured vehicles". [14] SANG LAV IIs have also deployed to the Yemeni frontier (as a part of the Saudi's Operation Decisive Storm). So, thus far, Canadian-made LAVs are hardly enhancing the regional 'stability' sought after by Stéphane Dion and Global Affairs Canada.

Better yet, how about the idea that these LAVs are intended to level the playing field in a Saudi civil war pitting the army against the national guard in a war for succession to the throne?

According to Stratfor, a real potential exists for civil war within Saudi Arabia – fought between the regular Royal Saudi Armed Forces and the Saudi Arabia National Guard . [16] Stratfor sees a growing rivalry between Mohammed bin Salman and the Prince commanding SANG – Mutaib bin Abdullah, a son of King Abdullah who died in 2015. The SANG Commander is, thus, both a ministerial rival and a potential challenger in the future succession to the 80-year-old – and ailing – absolute monarch, King Salman.

According to Stratfor, the proposed solution is to eliminate the Ministry of National Guard and place the SANG under the control of the Ministry of Defence. Since the aged monarch is said to be suffering from dementia, this proposal likely originated with the King's favourite son. Should his Ministry be abolished, Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah must choose whether to forfeit his current power or use SANG troops to help him stage a palace coup.

Fighting between SANG units and 'regular' Royal Saudi Armed Forces would then become inevitable. The latter have superior equipment but the former have the numbers. The sale of LAVs will have evened the odds between the SANG and Saudi Arabian Army armour. The Canadian-made vehicles may be light armoured vehicles but some of the LAV 6.0s are to be heavily-armed. A 105mm anti-tank gun seems an odd choice for 'internal security' duties but will be perfectly suited to fighting a civil war against a better-, heavier-armoured opponent.

So much for Stéphane Dion's efforts at enhancing regional 'stability' in the Middle East.

So that's what the upgunned, 105mm. LAVs may be all about. Of course they have other uses. Here's a Canadian made, heavy gun LAV in Bahrain in 2011 on democracy suppression duties.

Yeah, that's right. We're doing our bit helping Saudi Arabia keep the Gulf States safe from democracy or, at least, those damned Shiites.

A look at the past use of SANG LAV IIs is the best way to gauge the future. In 2011-2013, SANG LAVs took part in crushing the 'Arab Spring' protests by Saudi Shi'ites (as well as helping neighbouring Bahrain to crush protest in that Persian Gulf state). The pattern of SANG use of LAVs against civilians seems pretty clear.