In return for Trump signing a $350 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, king Salman awarded Trump its highest civilian honor: the King Abdulaziz al Saud Collar and medal.
The medal was in return for the largest arms deal in history.
The $109.7billion deal is for this year only. It’s $350 billion over a decade. Lockheed Martin praised the deal.
Lockheed Martin President Marillyn Hewson praised the deal as one that will bolster the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and “strengthen the cause of peace in the region.”
“At Lockheed Martin, we are proud to be part of this historic announcement that will strengthen the relationship between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Hewson said in a statement.
The arms deal includes military sales to Saudi Arabia of $110 billion immediately and $350 billion total over the next decade, according to the White House official. The two countries also agreed to a joint vision statement, private-sector agreements and defense cooperation agreements.
Saudi War Crimes Rewarded
Some people are asking Why is the Trump administration rewarding Saudi war crimes with more weapons?
Last October the Saudi Arabia-led coalition bombed a funeral hall in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, killing and wounding hundreds of people.
“The scene was catastrophic,” one survivor told me. “Beyond what I can explain to you or describe … There were burned bodies and dead bodies all over the hall.”
Soon after that unlawful bombing, the Obama administration suspended the sale of nearly $400 million in weapons to Saudi Arabia.
It was a recognition, a long time in coming, that the coalition’s military campaign in Yemen had devastated the country, killed thousands of civilians, and brought it to the brink of famine.
The scars of unlawful airstrikes can be found across Yemen, where the Saudi-led coalition has carried out scores of attacks that hit homes, schools, markets, and hospitals since March 2015, when it began its military campaign against the Houthi armed group and forces loyal to the former longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Human Rights Watch has documented 81 apparently unlawful coalition attacks over the last two years, many possible war crimes. In almost two dozen of these cases, including the attack on the funeral hall, we were able to identify the US weapons that were used.
According to the United Nations, at least 4,773 civilians have been killed and 8,272 wounded since this conflict began, the majority by coalition airstrikes. The war has driven Yemen, already the poorest nation in the Middle East, toward humanitarian catastrophe.
Donald Trump Said Saudi Arabia Was Behind 911.
Two days ago, the Intercept reported Donald Trump Said Saudi Arabia Was Behind 9/11. Now He’s Going There on His First Foreign Trip.
As a presidential candidate, Trump spent much of the election campaign needling, critiquing, denouncing, and even threatening the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Yet as president, he is making his first foreign visit this weekend to … the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Even by Trumpian standards, the volte-face is brazen. In his first few months in power, we have witnessed the trademark Trump Turnabout on issues ranging from NATO to China to the Export-Import Bank. We have listened to him go from praising Bashar al-Assad and rebuking Janet Yellen on the campaign trail, to praising Yellen and rebuking Assad in office. Last October, he said that then-FBI Director James Comey had “guts” for doing “the right thing”; last week, he sacked Comey and called him a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”
Trump, to put it mildly, is no stranger to the shameless U-turn. Still, the Trump Turnabout on Saudi Arabia — one of America’s closest allies since President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud aboard the USS Murphy in 1945 — is a true sight to behold.
Perhaps above all else, we will be expected to brush under the carpet the fact that, twice in a single day, Trump accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the 9/11 attacks. “Who blew up the World Trade Center?” Trump asked his pals at Fox and Friends on the morning of February 17, 2016. “It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi — take a look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents.”
At a campaign event in South Carolina later that day, he again cited “secret papers” that could prove it was “the Saudis” who were in fact responsible for the attacks on 9/11. “It wasn’t the Iraqis that knocked down the World Trade Center … because they have papers in there that are very secret, you may find it’s the Saudis, OK?”
(To be fair to Trump, far more credible and better-informed figures have come to a similar conclusion: “I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia,” wrote former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Senate intelligence committee’s inquiry into 9/11, in an affidavit in 2012.)
Inquiring minds may also wish to consider What the Saudi leaks tell us: An interview with Julian Assange.
Apparently, if it’s good for war-mongering, it’s good for America. Or was the opportunity to win a medal too great to pass up?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
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Trump got more orders for F35’s. Lockheed lowered the price. Trump does deals.
Are there no straw you will not grasp at to justified your support for Trump? LOL
F-35 is a POS. We *should* sell as many as we can the Saudis.
I agree, sell the camel jockeys a bunch of expensive weapons that will cost a fortune to maintain and know that they don’t have the skilled manpower to operate effectively. Then have an extra laugh knowing that many of the weapons are overhyped POS rubbish like the F35. Then laugh even louder knowing that the Saudis are squandering their remaining wealth and will be living in poverty within a generation with no money to export their wahabi salafast fanaticism.
Will you ever run out of pathetic, laughable excuses to hate Trump? Do you actually believe that America would have been better off with a proven criminal, an incompetent hag who was a failure at everything she did in office, was hated by everyone in the White House and who would have had a career cleaning toilets had she not ridden the coattails of her sex addict criminal husband?
By now, Hillary would be winding up her career spent doing second rate legal work in support of shady real estate deals in Arkansas on behalf of people like Jim & Patsy McDougal but for one thing.
That one thing is this : the electoral college system.
Because of that system, her husband Bill got to become the 42nd POTUS . Though some 58% of US voters in the 1992 election preferred someone else be president, Bill was inaugurated because Bill won the electoral college.
The brazen temerity of Hillary to bemoan the electoral college system! No, she needed something else as her excuse. The MSM provided the Russian conspiracy angle, in all of its pomposity.
Could not have said it better. If there was any real justice Killary would be in prison Orange for life.
Yeah, I wish the so-called Repubs in Congress would get up off their backsides and make a contribution. Pass a budget. Shut down the pathetic ObamaCare program. Shutter a useless govt department or two.
Sniping at Teh Donald will always founder on the rocks of “we would have had Hillary”. Always. And the guy does seem to be making good efforts to improve things. We just need more Repubs to make good on their promises.
War is coming. ☹
C’mon, Jean. This is your big chance to demonstrate your 3rd-wave feminist awesomeness by joining the Marines!
The Marines are looking for…not at…a few good women. (Slogan modified for the time in which we live).
Do women marines sport jarheads?
Dear Mish
This is all the deep staters left Trump. They in the M.I.C. get their bit and Trump gets the biz for the USA.
The way the private central bankers are pushing so hard for the hoop on the war thing in Syria / North Korea one has to think the dollar system is teetering. Well they pushed hard enough for me to be a bit nervous. How about you in that regard?
Maybe this is Trump’s only card to play due to circumstances?
Stomping on the North Korean ankle biter won’t be so much a war as an extermination, sudden, brutish, and short. The NK Army will comply or die in place. Every piece of their scant infrastructure will be ruined.
uh well if China stays out maybe. Could go much differently
Not with MY country, dammit….
Priorities
Off set to Iran
Jobs
America is broke
We can not afford to police the world!
We. Wed to mind our own business!
Well now Trump has stooped to Clinton levels
Sell them all the weapons they want. Let THEM polic THEIR part of the world…
The U.S. should GTF outta that part of the world…
Just make sure “them” include all comers. Including Me and Timmy McVeigh. As the 2nd was supposed to guarantee. Not just the politically correct and connected oppressors that act in cahoots with our own home grown oppressive junta.
Mish, you know I agree with you. I wish he trump could have written a $350 trillion dollar deal, taken every last petrodollar they have. The Neocrats and neocons got their wish. There is no right way to deal with these Arab people in that part of the world. It’s a religous war we have to get out of and regardless the only way to do it without getting your head blown off is to sell them arms. It make me puke. I wrote to the President again and said the same. I voted for him because I thought he would do what he said he would ” stay out of that war stay out of all the wars” they are not any of our business. ” but I’m just a fool. I just thought maybe this guy. Is for real. I told him that too. I told him I hoped that this arms deal it meant that he’ll send home all our troops, close all the bases. ” I told him I write every day in the hopes that just one day he will in fact get the message that everyday plain old Americans like you and I do care about him do believe in him but it’s getting harder when we know it’s the swamp that gets what they want first. We are it seems irrelevant, again. So I guess all that’s left is to do what we can to make life better for others. Pray that Ron Paul somehow stays alive and continues to talk about Prosparity through Peace instead of selling guns, war ships etc. May god have mercy on us, bless us and keep our souls from the devil.
Tim
Hate is a learned behavior. It’s a result of the Poisonous Pedagogy we all learned at the hands of our parents and social group.
If the world is to survive, this must stop.
My guess is that the Saudis are hoping that if they give Trump a monster-sized gong he’ll keep buying their gloop instead of developing America’s own.
They are going to buy this stuff from someone might as well be us and reap the economic benefit. If we can arm the Iranians also they can kill each other off and leave us alone. Democracy will never work in the mideast their mindset doesn’t allow it. The best we can hope for is a secular dicktastershiip.
“Democracy will never work in the mideast their mindset doesn’t allow it.”
Democracy isn’t working here or anyplace else, either. I don’t remember the people having any vote in the G20 changing the rules for depositors. Millions of people voted for Bernie Sanders and not one vote counted, because the DNC rigged the outcome.
Jonathan Gruber said the American voter is stupid. The political parties have ulterior agendas, which we did not vote for. That is not democracy.
Brussels is an non elected Troika. That is not democracy.
Isn’t Gruber the MIT “professor” who shoved Obamacare down our throats? The guy who was paid $500K in consulting fees for designing that fraud? And Gruber gets MIT healthcare, he doesn’t have to suffer through the fraud he designed?
That is the guy you want to quote? How about we send him a one way ticket to go fight in Yemen instead of messing up the US health system some more?
Correct we have the best government money can buy. A corrupt crony capitalism/oligrachy. Nothing will improve until there is a constitutional convention to change campaign finance and term limits. My idea would be to have one longer term only maybe six years for each, i.e. president, senator congressmen. Also socialism for politicians would be good. All campaigns are publicly financed and the presidential race shortened to about 3 months max. The theatre leading up to the last election was to much to take. Unless Trump drains the swamp by instituting these measures nothing will ever change. Meet the new boss the same as the old boss.
Give that man a cigar! Bravo, sir.
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Winston Churchill
Democracy gave early illusions of “working,” because, and only because, it delegitimized the existing, hereditarily based, claims some made on power over others. Just as hereditary privilege “worked” for awhile, back when it deligitimized theocratic claims on power by the Pope. While the Church again was good, back when it deligitimized whatever artifact the Romans used to claim gave them the right to rule.
The important component being “deligitimize.”
No person has any legitimate claim on power over any other. Basic Freedom 101. Hence, all those things that help deligitimize current rulers, are tautologically good things. But over time, democracy, like it’s predecessors, become a tool to legitmize current rulers, rather than deligitimize them. And then, it stops serving a useful purpose, and instead becomes a tool for oppression.
Which is why the currently ascendant, and to the extent any government can be such a thing, most laudable form of government, has again swung back to theocracy. As it, for all it’s ills, serves as the most cohesive and wide spread deligitimizer of what has become the preeminent legitimizing tool for current rulers: Democracy.
Serioulsy??? That is the most screwed up statement ever made. You must be a muslim fanatic sympathetic to shria law. Go live in Iran or wherever a muslim theocracy is the ruling govt. Please GTFO of the USA. Even though we have a corrupt democracy we still have some semblance of freedom. In theory the best form of govt is a benevolent dictatorship but that has not and will not ever happen. Power corrupts in a dictatorship ust like in a theocracy. Therefore a democracy is by default the next best thing and if the drawbacks compensated for to limit corruption it will work the best.
Power corrupts, period. The mechanisms by which the corruption is effectuated, changes. Not the corruption itself. The fact that The Man on Our TV says “Our” rulers are bestester than all the other rulers, doesn’t make them so. It just means the saps believing him, are just as gullible as their counterparts in other parts, who believe The Man on Their TV.
The way to stay free, is to have a small, highly limited, ineffectual government (assuming any at all.) Exactly how those in its employ happen to get their job, is pretty much irrelevant, as long as they remain very, very tightly constrained in what they can do. Thomas Jefferson was a wonderful President, as such creatures go. But he had a $7million budget. Even Hugo Chavez would have a hard time doing much damage if he was that properly limited and constrained.
But give the clowns billions upon billions, and they’ll be sure to find a way to indoctrinate their captive drones, to believe the particular arbitrary manner by which they happened to get power, is somehow better and more legitimate than all other equally arbitrary manners.
And since noone has yet figured out how to keep a ruling class limited for all that long (writing a constitution obviously didn’t work too well…), the only way so far proven to keep them so, is to have them thoroughly sacked every few hundred years. Before they get too entrenched and parasitic. Hence, rotation from theocracy to hereditary monarchy to democracy and back……. Stick with any one for too long, and the scum gets too much time to entrench themselves. So their parasitic behavior drains too much from the ever shrinking number who bother doing anything productive. Until the whole charade is sacked.
The other way that seems to work, is to live like the Afghans: Be so bloody unruly, and unrulable, that no government of any reach ever really gains foothold. But I’m not sure if people in most other parts of the world, are quite so devilminded about everything.
But uncritically running around regurgitating the childish, trite partyline that “our” oppressors are somehow bestester than the others, just because they say so, sure as heck is not particularly helpful.
@hmk — “stuki moi” is a soros troll. he/she/it writes the most inane stuff you will ever read
Bite me.
The Saudi’s are smart. They know Trump eats up praise and awards. He’s a sucker for adulation. He’ll probably mention it to the media. Notice the Saudis didn’t care that Ivanka and Melania didn’t cover themselves. They were quite focused wanting military arms. This is all about Sunni vs Shia and clearly Trump has now picked a side even if its not abundantly clear that’s what the arms deal represents. Also reported that he agreed to having the blackhawks assembled in Saudi Arabia instead of the U.S.
Bingo. Why we don’t bother to bring all the Islamic world to the United States for negotiations is something that I suspect has to do with keeping the Military-industrial complex well-fed. Who is our Howard Beale of today, who will stand up against the Arthur Sloans of today?
Lockheed Martin President Marillyn Hewson praised the deal as one that will bolster the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and “strengthen the cause of peace in the region.”
Self serving comments.
Everything I do, I do it for me.
No, no …. she means it sincerely. Her only thought was for the children in the region.
All of them are warmongering whores.
Yes, even Trump.
But I’m still proud that I voted for him considering the alternative.
They (the Saudis and Iranians) will be fighting, instead of US troops — big win for the USA.
The US can’t referee the Sunni / Shia argument — and we should be adult enough to know we don’t understand it, and should have stayed out of it all along. Trump is acting like a grown up, good for him.
US citizens get work, US companies get paid with real money (not IOUs) — two more big wins for the USA.
Iran and Saudi Arabia find themselves at a stalemate — unable to force their agendas on each other or on the region. The US doesn’t lose blood or treasure, nor do we have to referee a fight we don’t understand.
Sounds like a huge win to me
Trump was given his private screening of the Zapruder Film. At least they waited until after he fired Comey.
Now life goes back to normal in the swamp.
We live in a world run by morons.
Meanwhile the Saudi-created famine in Yemen continues.
You are making the ridiculous assumption that the US should fix this problem… and later you are going to whine some more that US troops and US treasure aren’t enough, you also want the US to implement a pro-shia or pro-sunni “solution” (whichever one you represent).
Its not our friggin business to referee YOUR fights
It’s our business to arm the world to the teeth and convince them to keep buying and killing.
So let me get this straight:
(1) the Saudi military is buying (and unlike NATO, is paying for) lots of weapons to go fight their own stupid wars, instead of involving US soldiers.
(2) US military suppliers get lots of new orders (aka US jobs) and they get paid with actual money, not worthless IOUs
(3) Saudi forces will be big enough to counter-balance Iranian forces, re-establishing a regional counterbalance between sunni and shia groups…. potentially creating a situation where NEITHER Riyad or Tehran tries to start trouble because neither has an advantage. And this happens without US forces having to play referee in the middle
How is this anything other than a BIG win for the USA? Mish is apparently upset that Trump isn’t trying to implement some pointless and stupid international gun-control law (when he knows Chicago has the toughest gun-control laws and the highest murder rate)?
This is a HUGE win for the USA. It creates a regional check and balance of local powers that doesn’t require US troops — and US taxpayers don’t pay the bill! Some US citizens even get some jobs out of the deal.
PS — the medal is just silly media theater. Anyone focusing on a stupid circle of metal is missing the forest from the trees. It cost the Saudis nothing to give it, it cost Trump nothing to receive it — the whole “ceremony” is just something to distract the idiots in western media.
Over the next decade, the US gets jobs and real money, while two middle east powers enter a stalemate without US troops constantly refereeing. That is what matters
“Trump, to put it mildly, is no stranger to the shameless U-turn.”
Trump can’t get a 90 day travel ban installed without some judge blocking it, but he can be awarded the Saud Collar and Medal?
The world is all backwards now. U-turns are necessary when everything is backwards.
The idiots in the media were allowed to photograph the medal ceremony to distract them from more important matters.
Who cares if they think its a U-turn? They never gave Trump a chance and wanted to shove the matriarch of a crime family down our throats. Screw the media
Trump is better than Hillary any day. Trump got us $350 Billion in business. Everything else is just noise.
Which crime family matriarch was Secretary of State between 2010-2014, and operated an illegal email server in her home basement with no security so every foreign intelligence service could access US secrets at will?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spies-espionage.html
I’m no fan of the Saudis, but their money is green and better IOUSA and Lockheed got their business than the French, British, Russians or Israelis. Anyone who thinks these countries wouldn’t have sold similar weapons to the Saudis is delusional.
The money isn’t in the bank just yet. I’d bet my house the full $350bn deal will never be concluded. Unless the price of oil hits 3 figures again and sustains it. They have serious budgetary issues over there with the oil price where it is.
When shia-Iran is attacked by “coalition” of USA and shia-hating sunnis like Saudis (with 300 billion worth of new US manufactured arms) and their sunni-tyrant flunkies like Yemen and Qatar price of oil will be over 100 dollars a barrel again.
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I fully expect Trump to invest in oil companies and then start a war to double and triple the price of oil since Trump has shown that he was all talk (no wall, continued refugee intake of 50k per year, dreamers get to stay, china is the best buddy now for Trump and for Saudis Trump even bows down) and a typical politician saying BS to get elected and then being all me,me,meeee.
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After a sunni-puppet is installed in Iran and whole middle east is in sunni control with continued massacres of shias by extreme islamists sunnis like Saudis the next step is attack on Russia first by starting oil and gas sanctions against Russia in order to destroy the russian economy and these sanctions become possible when the pipelines thru Syria from Qatar and Saudis and Iraq to Europe have been built making total stopping of russian gas and oil deliveries to Europe possible.
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This will end in catastrophe and I am looking for a ranch somewhere in South America because hopefully it will not be nuked like Russia, most of Europe and USA will be after USA attacks Russia…
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If you are a millionaire now it would be a good time to make arrangements so that you have homes and residence permits in a few places away from Europe and USA with one in South America and one in Asia somewhere (NOT South Korea, Japan or China since China is still in effect a communist dictatorship and since North Korea might nuke both South Korea and Japan) for you and your family.
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Mish this is a hard call for me, as arguments on both sides make good sense. If the details of the deal were known to everyone, I think Trump would be hammered by a slight majority of Republicans for rejecting the deal, not just right wing war mongers. I think I would support it but the medal should have been politely refused. Mish there are Russian and Chinese intelligence agents n Saudi Arabia and all over the Middle East. We can’t just pull out and hand them the worlds largest oil reserves as it would directly effect our security absolutely no doubt about it! Yet Trump’s Uturns and continuing disparaging remarks about Comey are driving me crazy! Well now that Trump’s mouth has finally gotten Comey to do a Uturn as he’s saying he’s changed his mind and is saying Trump tried to influence him after all. Hell if I were Comey I’d do the same thing damn it!! Trump is by far his own worst enemy! At this point I’ve seen and heard enough to say the country would b much better off with Pence.
The largest deposits of recoverable oil are in IOUSA and Canada. How much depends on price.
Frackers will pump at any price to pay the interest on their loans. Fracker break even is $30/bbl. Saudi and OPEC break even is over $100/bbl.
The Saudi breakeven is actually less than $8. Marginal cost of production is $3.
We have a bid-offer spread here of $8-$100. One of you is seriously fucking wrong. Probably both.
i would never want a job that meant what I was doing was causing other humans to die, or live with chronic injury. nor do I say hooray to the creation of more of this sort of job.
I agree.
That still leaves the seemingly eternal question of how do you defend yourself from people who will choose offence.
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”
—Karl Marx, “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon” (1851-52)
So less than 6 months ago it was unethical for the Clinton Foundation to even take donations from Saudi princes because Saudi Arabia oppresses women and gays. Now it is good to take money from Saudi princes to sell them weapons to make their regime stronger.
Just keeping score of this shitshow.
That didn’t stop Slick Willie and the Democrats from doing it in 1996:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy
or the Crooked Hillary in 2016:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign-charity.html?_r=0
@boonton – “…because Saudi Arabia oppresses women and gays”
You seem to have confused your values with law.
The Clintons were selling access to the State Dept and the White House in exchange for Clinton Initiative donations. That is illegal.
Just because YOU want to force the Saudi people to accept gays doesn’t mean that is law. Its just your opinion. Women in the US fought for their own ideas of freedom, they weren’t decided on or forced upon them by a corrupt know-it-all group of liberals in another country.
You are arrogant. That is YOUR problem, not the Saudis and not Trumps. YOUR problem.
The Clintons were selling access to the State Dept and the White House in exchange for Clinton Initiative donations. That is illegal.
That’s a very troubling charge. Fortunately we know it isn’t true because if it was there’s no reason the Justice Department wouldn’t have filed criminal charges.
That, however, was NOT what Trump bashed Clinton for. He bashed her for simply accepting donations from Saudi’s to a charity. He asserted that since they execute people for being gay, she should ‘give the money back’ (which sounds kind of odd since if you gave the $$ back to Saudi princes, wouldn’t they simply keep executing gay people? but let’s forgo that for now).
So how can you not accept the money of Saudi citizens to a charity (you can at least say individual citizens only have limited influence on their nation’s laws) but you can accept the money of the Saudi government to sell them weapons to kill people?
Actually, it is true and it was proven even by her supporters.
And Loretta Lynch proved she was a Clinton flunkie who would never and will never prosecute Hillary for anything. FBI director Comey said Hilary is a crook, but no prosecutor (of which he wasn’t one in the first place) would interfere with an election.
Pull your head out of your rear end Boontoon
Again if any of that was proven true there is absolutely no reason criminal charges would not have already been.
“And Loretta Lynch proved she was…” Loretta Lynch is not the Attorney General.
I have no idea how Trump can purport to be Israel’s buddy while selling SA $350 billion in arms with a straight face.
Not that I’m a fan of Israel. I’m not. My distaste for Israel and SA are equal. If they blow each other up I couldn’t care less.
But just sayin’.
As the old Arab proverb says: the enemy (Saudi) of thine enemy (Iran) is thy friend.
Behind the scenes Saudis and Israelis are cooperating, both supporting ISIS and united against common enemies (Iran et al.). World has shifted. Of course Saudis and Israelis have to pretend it is otherwise, lest they anger their bases/supporters. You see evidence of it from time to time, like Israelis captured fighting with ISIS and ISIS fighters being transported to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment. Of course, Saudis are among those bankrolling ISIS mercenary armies.
Saudi Arabia has animosity toward Iran, not Israel. You have to separate what western media thinks from reality — they are vastly different things.
Pax Americana Strikes Again!
how much is cash & how much is loan ?
saudis are kinda broke
A very good question. Most probably raw oil in the ground is pledged as collateral, implicitly if not contractually. Chinese work a lot of deals like that, as they do not mind taking oil when there is not enough cash. In any case, if the Saudis find themselves stretched they could simply cancel or postpone orders (same as airlines cancel orders if plans not working out). Likely hidden parts of deal not in the news reports, like a USA commitment to raise oil prices. This could mean trying to turn Iran into a Libya, etc.
This deal will never be concluded to the full value despite the delusional rantings of a few cheerleaders on this thread. You are correct a good chunk of the order will be ‘postponed indefinitely’ or cancelled.
Political grandstanding at its finest. Fodder for the plebs.
The Saudis still have a trillion or so in foreign investments that can be sold to support their flagging income to high expense lifestyle. Where that leaves them however in a few years at $50/barrel is broke.
Look at Trump bowing down to his Saudi masters. He makes me puke. Pond scum is a step up from Trump.
Trump is roughly a foot taller than the Saudi king, and somehow the Saudi king has to get that media distraction over Trump’s head.
Smart people know the medal was just done to confuse western media — and it seems to have worked too well
There’s protocol, and there’s strategy/policy. It might be wise to work on recognizing the difference.
Aside, down the road, when the US experiences another regime change, $350 B in military hardware Blow Back might stir things up a bit?
WMD’s ring a bell? Not hard to see the 101 st and 173 rd ABN divisions being sent over there to round ’em up again some day. Of course, by that time, they will have been distributed all over the ME and NA.
Certainly, ISIS isn’t in possession of any “Made in USA” weaponry?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-20/saudi-arabia-admitted-john-kerry-it-created-isis-there-twist
If I had it to do over again I’d vote for Trump. It was either Trump or Hillary. And I’d rather have Mephistopheles in the White House than Hillary.
But there’s no doubt about it. Trump is a VERY different man than when he was running for office. I’ll grant you that.
We can blame it on a number of factors – but I refuse to ignore reality. That would make me as wicked as a Hillary supporter.
Campaigning and being president are two completely different skill sets. I would be worried if he spent 8yrs campaigning like the ghetto man before him.
That said, Trump backing off on his promise to repeal Obamacare is a big big problem. He gave his word (and businessmen aren’t supposed to lie like politicians). Just as important, health COSTS (not insurance scams) are destroying the US economy and must be addressed. US government is uniquely unqualified to control costs (see every single government program, doesn’t matter which party is looting DC).
At least we’ll have our own military hardware pre-positioned should the urge arise to strike Iran…
The person up above who says US oil frackers break even at 30 dollars a barrel while Saudia Arabia and OPEC break even at over 100 dollars a barrel has no idea what he is talking about. I am in the business and the reverse of that much closer to the truth. It is next to impossible to make statements on average costs of drilling and completing wells, including the frack job because of all the many variables you have to consider. The oil business here in America and around the world probably provides more valuable high paying jobs than any other industry I can think of. You have to spend a tremendous amounts of capital just to begin to put a prospect together that may be condemned by your seismic or geophysical results after you have already spent hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in leasing with landmen and oil and gas attorneys doing title work, after your geological engineer has done his work in the area. So you an independent operator may keep say one quarter of your prospect and promote the rest if your seismic reveals a trap-oil is found n 3 different kinds of traps -this is silly-we have drilling contractors, logging engineers, pipe companies, reservoir engineers to design frack jobs, sophisticated software is electronically hooked up to rig while drilling is taking place-if you make a well meaning oil r natural gas flows to the surface, then the attorneys with division order title op, then contracts with the oil and gas purchasers with the various pipelines in the area-This is very sloppy, way too long tho related to the subject to show how important and how expensive it is to find significant oil and gas reserves in today’s world. Remember that almost half US trade deficit at higher prices were oil imports! Also remember the golden rule-He who owns the gold-in this case black gold-makes the rules!!! Putin would love to make the rules!
I can draw you a picture. Every citizen of OPEC is a cost. OPEC oil revenue must cover food, housing, clothing, and entertainment for each citizen. Break even is well above $100/bbl for OPEC nations. Short of extermination camps and gas chambers there is no way OPEC can escape those costs. Venezuela is giving it a shot.
Canada’s health care system is heavily subsidized by energy royalties (including fracking). Europe’s oil companies pay huge taxes toward their country’s welfare systems. US companies pay royalties and taxes to the federal government, and provide housing for fracking workers (as well as offshore) — very few people live anywhere near fracking wells.
If you are going to count welfare costs as part of oil costs, you have to do so for both OPEC and non-OPEC. Include it for all, or exclude it for all.
Otherwise it makes it obvious that you are trying to rig the results like a media weenie — which is why no one trusts them
Ģalbraith is comparing apples and oranges. What would the breakeven cost for US frackers be if they had to cover the annual federal deficit of 500 Billion?
If you want to make a correct comparison, try marginal cost of production; Frackers $30, Saudi $3.
Yes, we agree. The apple is an independent capitalist corporation. The orange is an independent socialist state. The two business enterprises are competing to sell oil. The corporation has a $30 break even cost for oil. The state has a $110 break even cost for oil. At $50/bbl oil the corporation makes a profit. The socialist state would like to sell you a piece of his money losing ARAMCO business.
Mish is letting his comment section go.
Constructive debate and disagreement is a good thing — but a lot of these commenters (Galbraith, Stuki Moi, Phil, etc) are all too obviously just George Soros trolls, paid to write political propaganda.
Oil being a fungible commodity, what happens at the margin is what counts. Still, I find the following eye opening,,,,
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/05/05/why-we-should-be-concerned-about-low-oil-prices/
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=corbett+report+%2B+saudi
Quick – who has been sponsoring most of the global terrorism the last decades?
Saudis as scapegoats for 9-11? Pure propaganda, even if from prestigious news brands. What about Osama Bin Laden and Afghanistan, where we invaded after 9-11 and still have troops. What about Iraq II, which we invaded because of 9-11? What about flight schools in Arizona and Florida that accepted payment to train the terrorists? What about Florida and Arizona motels harboring the terrorists for months. What about FBI field agents blocked by higher ups from stopping the obvious plot, which suggests perhaps Deep State Neo-cons in USA aided and abetted to achieve more power and policy goals? If those 28 pages on Saudis were released, questioning minds might get deeper into USA Deep State role. USA.gov is protecting itself, and really would be just as happy if Saudi outcome resembled Libya. But if Saudis can buy their way out of Libya fate, why not?
Saudi nationality of hijackers is secondary, and pure propaganda 15 years after the fact. Matters little if Saudis sent money for motel rents in Florida and Arizona and flight school tuition. USA is always looking for new reasons to go to war, and 9-11 scapegoats are just about played out. Thus, war drums are beating against Russia for hacking the election and exerting mind control over the “irredeemable deplorables” in ways that made the electoral college cast their votes for Trump instead of Hillary. But the path to Russia is through Iran and Syria, which means two more wars to get to Russia. Perhaps Saudi arms after reducing Yemen to rubble (for 911?) will be deployed as USA proxies on Syria and Iran fronts? No doubt, Hillary is salivating to be in White House to brag and gloat about Putin suffering same fate as Libya’s leader. Perhaps that is whole idea behind Schumer and Democrats visiting the deputy AG to convince him public wanted an open-ended mud-fest leading to the 2020 election rematch of Queen Hillary and the Donald. Loretta Lynch recused herself after talking to Bill Clinton on the tarmac about a case, but deputy AG Rosenstein did not recuse himself after meeting with Schumer and the Dem senators. Odd, is it not? The Saudis are just a distraction from the rot and corruption right here in the USA.
“What about Osama Bin Laden…”
Yeah?
Trump took a medal by BOWING to the Saudi king thereby becoming just what Obama was in relation to saudis and sunnis and wahhabism and salafism namely “their bitch”.
The Saudi monarchy laughs right at this moment at Rump bowing to their king and taking the medal like a fool that Rump has turned himself into,
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Trump gave Saudis (sunnis) arms they will use to commit further massacres against shias in Yemen and threaten Iran (shias) and spread the Saudi versions of extreme islam wahhabism and salafism in countries with both sunnis and shias in order to RADICALIZE the sunnis and have them turn against shias and then use Saudi arms to attack shias in those countries in order to “protect” sunnis and do to them what Saudis are doing to Yemen namely massacring shias by bombs and by Saudi created STARVATION.
The ultimate goal of Saudi Arabia and Qatar is the genocide of shias, christians and yazidis in the whole of middle east.
That is why Saudis (sunni) are funding, ideologizing and arming sunni-ISIS and sunni-Al-Qaida and other sunni-terrorists.
The USA has thanks to Trump’s incompetence now given the signal that massacres and genocide of shias, christians and yazidis is OK by America.
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For some inexplicable reason Israel seems to think that supporting Saudi Arabia is OK instead of screaming in Trump’s face not to support Saudi Arabia.
When ISIS and Al-QAida and other saudi ideologized sunni-extremists have massacred enough shias, christians and yazidis guess where they will turn their hatred?
Most likely israelis are next in line by the sunni-ISIS and sunni-Al-Qaida and others inspired by wahhabism and salafism.
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Your enemy’s enemy is NOT your friend when said friend is a raging lunatic version of islam where anything else than sunnis are considered infidels that are not human at all like the Saudi Arabian version of islam considers shias, christians, yazidis and jews and all other non-sunnis.
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Trump is a failure and his working man behavior is not an act but Trump appears to be of middle level intelligence with simple strategy (as told in art of the deal) just enabling him to multiply the millions his father gave him by using political corruption in New York city to his advantage and riding all the bubbles created by Fed to the max.
Add a huge dash of narcissism and eagerness for compliments and it is a catastrophe in the office of the US president.
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Both Trump and Clinton have so far shown to be equally bad with Trump achieving NOTHING that would not have gone wrong under Clinton also.
The inept 90-day ban held up in courts does NOT count because Trump continues to bring tens of thousands of “refugees” to USA despite them already being SAFE in UN camps around the world and despite the continual horrible crimes some of them commit and their socio-economic failure in aggregate compared to other americans after arriving.
Trump could change the amount of refugees USA improts from UN camps to 0 instead of the 50,000 Trump is bringing in.
Galbraith you are making citizens of Saudia Arabia part of what we call administrative overhead costs..To compare we would have to add all the citizens of America to administrative overhead costs in the drilling of a well here in our country.
Add in the overhead cost of deploying the US Military to the ME to maintain corporate interests in the region. Oh, wait, that’s built into the Defense budget.
Awarding the medal was a trick to get Trump to bow to someone.
Well it is customary for two people to bow to each other in greeting.
What would put the cherry on the cake would be the Saudi King then bowing to accept a medal from Trump.
Do you think he would?
I don’t, but who knows.
But it would be funny to watch two leaders awarding each other medals at the same meeting.
Here is the welcome
https://report.az/storage/news/0e28b345e1701d9b0ce7e4eabb7269f8/10bae0af-33d3-4d22-86aa-2b5e940ac78f_640.jpg
http://www.wnd.com/files/2013/09/obama-saudi-king.jpg
Even Assad and Putin have one
http://www.elshaab.org/news/127589/بالصور-تعرف-على-الحائزين-على-قلادة-العاهل-السعودى
I think Saudi Kings prefer being handed them
https://i1.wp.com/www.riyadhvision.com.sa/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/King-Salman-1-6.jpg
Trump and Hillary are contending which one of them is more disgusting
“strengthen the cause of peace in the region.”
“War is peace / freedom is slavery / ignorance is strength.”
Something else to consider: The deep state and the military industrial complex is basically anti-Trump because he is unpredictable and won’t always follow status quo. By signing this huge arms deal, perhaps the deep state /military industrial complex will be kept at bay because they are making a lot of money on arms production without drumming up a new war. “They” including Hillary, want war. They want a new Cold War with Russia or China or North Korea. Maybe POTUS is placating them? Maybe it’s a way to stay out of combat and keep our men and women at home? Hopefully the Seth Rich bombshell hits this week and we find out it was a DNC staffer who “meddled with our election” and not “The Russians”