Showing posts with label arms trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arms trade. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

A Deal Is a Deal


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.