Except if the deal is with Saudi Arabia
And it's a deal for weaponry
And it's the United States selling.
It seems Washington has had its fill of the Saudis and their butchery in Yemen.
The US is preparing to halt planned arms sales to Saudi Arabia because of the high death toll among civilians in the kingdom’s bombing campaign in Yemen.
Obama administration officials were quoted on Reuters, who broke the story, saying that the “systematic, endemic problems in Saudi Arabia’s targeting drove the US decision to halt a future weapons sale involving precision-guided munitions”.
“That’s obviously a direct reflection of the concerns that we have about Saudi strikes that have resulted in civilian casualties.”
The US move would leave the UK exposed diplomatically and faced with an awkward dilemma because of the scale of its arms sales to the kingdom and the presence of UK military personnel at the Saudi headquarters from where the bombing campaign is being conducted.
Andrew Smith of the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) said: “Like the US, the UK has licensed billions of pounds worth of arms to Saudi forces. Like their US counterparts, UK arms companies have fuelled and profited from the destruction taking place. If even the US is questioning its support for Saudi Arabia, then why is the UK government pulling out all stops to support them? Why are human rights regarded as less important than arms company profits?”
Sunni Ways, indeed.
5 comments:
According to this morning's Grope and Flail, the Trudeau government has taken proactive measures to ensure Canadian weapons are not used against civilians. Specifically, Stephane Dion stated that “We have asked to the Saudi coalition to be much more respectful and cautious about the equipment you are talking about.”
There. That ought to do it. We can trust the Saudis, right?
Cap
Cap: Is Dion the punching bag stand-in for selfie-boy?
Oh and as to the US decision...
just like DAPL or Keystone it has a very limited shelf life.
N PoV, Dion is certainly the designated fall guy for this indefensible decision. It reminds me of the Cons trotting out Tony Clement to take the fall for Harper's absurd decision on the census.
You may be right on the limited shelf life of the US decision. But it's certainly left Canada with egg on its face, not to mention Britain, whose PM has been busily wooing the House of Saud.
Cap
The Brits are feeling the burn over this. I expect they're also feeling abandoned by the antics of their (and our) Head Office in turning against the Saudis.
As for Dion I have no sympathy. He chose to throw away his integrity to spin fanciful tales and outright lies for the Dauphin. Whatever scorn or disgrace he gets he richly deserves.
There maybe a limited shelf life of the US decision. Canada though can still proceed with the delivery on the weapons deal they signed with Saudi Arabia. I wondered why recently Joe Biden The Vice President of the United States suddenly visited Canada.
Even though the US is stopping the sale of certain weapons to Saudi Arabia, Uncle Joe has told Trudeau it's okay to go ahead with delivering on the Canada/Saudi deal.
It's all politics. The US could care less who and how many people get killed by the weapons they sell.
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