The American Bear

› U.S. to Announce $10 Billion Arms Sale in Middle East - Bloomberg

Through the gun show loophole:

The Obama administration plans to announce an arms package to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates worth as much as $10 billion — the centerpiece of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s visit to the countries next week, according to U.S. officials.

The arms sold to Israel also will include an unspecified number of V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft, air defense radar and KC-135 refueling tankers; the U.A.E. will probably buy 26 F-16 jet fighters, and the Persian Gulf nation as well as Saudi Arabia will each buy precision missiles, said the official who provided details on condition of not being named before the deal is announced.

The missiles being discussed include an unspecified number of the U.S. Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, a new weapon being bought by the U.S. Navy, the official said. The missile, made by Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK), is capable of attacking ground radar used by countries fielding sophisticated integrated air defenses, such as Syria and Iran.

If the transaction goes through, it will be the first foreign sale of the V-22 tilt-rotor made by Boeing Co. (BA) and Textron Inc. (TXT)’s Bell Helicopter unit. The U.A.E. already ordered 80 F-16s made by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) in the late 1990s, and Saudi Arabia operates a fleet of Boeing-made F-15 jets.

I like how Bloomberg gives links to the stock index just in case you want in on that action.

(Source: braddogott)

› Saudi Arabia buying South African armed drone

Saudi Arabia is buying an armed drone from South Africa after the Obama administration declined to sell the oil-rich kingdom U.S. Predator or Reaper missile-firing unmanned aircraft.

The state-owned South African company Denel Dynamics is working covertly with the Saudis to develop the Seeker 400 drone into an armed combat system for the Saudi military, the Paris-based newsletter Intelligence Online reported March 27.

The Seeker 400 is an advanced version of the company’s Seeker II unarmed surveillance aircraft.

The newsletter stated that the Saudi military would be the first customer to purchase the Seeker 400 armed drone and engineers from Denel are in the kingdom as part of the secret program.

If completed, the sale would allow Saudi Arabia to join the growing number of militaries that operate missile-firing drones.

› Window on Iran Not Open ‘Indefinitely,’ Kerry Says | NYT

New Secretary, same as the old Secretary: 

The United States and Saudi Arabia on Monday presented a united front to Iran and Syria. They warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that they will boost support to rebels fighting to oust him unless he steps down and put Iran’s leadership on notice that time is running out for a diplomatic resolution to concerns about its nuclear program.

A quick refresher of the term doublespeak may assist with any confusion you feel as you read this report.

› “State-run propaganda”: Why does the press protect drone secrecy? | David Sirota

In the last 24 hours, events in Congress have shown how leaders of both political parties have worked together to create a new extra-constitutional precedent — one allowing the occupant of the White House to execute American citizens without judicial oversight or even concrete incriminating evidence. Indeed, in a capital city where the most petty spats create the illusion of divided parties, we are now seeing a senior Republican U.S. senator proposing a formal resolution congratulating a Democratic president for claiming that imperial power.

This is exactly the kind of thing that rightly sows suspicion that for all the politicians yelling at each other, and for all the media handwringing about polarization, in many cases both parties collude to guarantee certain outcomes — especially on national security issues. Yet, as evidenced by an equally troubling revelation, that collusion is not limited to elected officials. It also extends to the media that is supposed to provide a check on those officials.

“Supposed to” is the key phrase — because, as the U.K. Guardian shows, that’s not what’s actually happening. Instead, the British paper reports that major U.S. newspapers “bowed to pressure from the Obama administration not to disclose the existence on a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia despite knowing about it for a year.”

Publicly, the newspapers are citing the age-old “national security” trope to justify their decision to suppress the story at the request of the White House. But that catch-all phrase is designed to obscure the real motivation — the one that one of the papers, The New York Times, let slip out.

In a stunning interview with the paper’s ombudsman, managing editor Dean Baquet admitted that the Times decided not to censor the story because it would pose any kind of imminent danger to Americans, but because it might result in the drone program being curtailed. Here’s the key excerpt of that interview (emphasis added):

The government’s rationale for asking that the location be withheld was this: Revealing it might jeopardize the existence of the base and harm counterterrorism efforts. “The Saudis might shut it down because the citizenry would be very upset,” he said.

Mr. Baquet added, “We have to balance that concern with reporting the news.”

It is not overstatement to call this a genuine watershed moment for American journalism.

Here you have one of the most powerful news organizations in the world publicly admitting that it refused to report a story not because it was concerned about the safety of Americans (aka “national security) but because it believed that doing so might result in people finding out about what’s going on and consequently forcing a change in government policy. Put another way, one of the world’s most powerful news organizations — an organization that is supposed to be a check on governmental power, mind you — literally refused to publish a story in order to keep Saudi citizens from finding out exactly how their dictators were working with the United States to intensify a global military action. [continue]

› Riyadh Station Chief Operated Drone War from and for His Old Stomping Grounds | emptywheel

None of this is surprising. Some dirty fucking hippie reported it in real time.

› Brennan nomination exposes criticism on targeted killings and secret Saudi base | The Washington Post

!!!

The Obama administration’s targeted-killing program has relied on a growing constellation of drone bases operated by the CIA and the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command. The only strike intentionally targeting a U.S. citizen, a 2011 attack that killed al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki, was carried out in part by CIA drones flown from a secret base in Saudi Arabia.

The base was established two years ago to intensify the hunt against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the affiliate in Yemen is known. Brennan, who previously served as the CIA’s station chief in Saudi Arabia, played a key role in negotiations with Riyadh over locating an agency drone base inside the kingdom.

The Washington Post had refrained from disclosing the location at the request of the administration, which cited concern that exposing the facility would undermine operations against an al-Qaeda affiliate … as well as potentially damaging counterterrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia.

Read whole →

› The Coming Imperial Implosion in the Arab World | Glen Ford

The French intervention in Mali and the deadly Salafist assault on an Algerian natural gas facility on the border with Libya reveal the deepening crisis of U.S. and European imperialism in northern Africa. What is playing out in the western Sahel is the direct, and broadly predictable, result of the aggressive Euro-American response to the outbreak of the so-called Arab Spring.

Two years ago, Washington, Paris and London were swept by panic at the prospect of a realignment of forces in the Arab world. With Egypt’s Mubarak on the way out, the West’s henchman in Tunisia overthrown, and America’s warlord in Yemen facing opposition from all quarters, the NATO powers decided to alter the regional chessboard to what they thought would be their own advantage with a mass application of force against Libya. The assault on Muammar Gaddafi’s government, with absolutely no provocation and no basis in international law, was designed to put a Euro-American spin on the momentum of change. Almost simultaneously, Syria was targeted for massive subversion, and it was universally assumed that Algeria was next on the hit list.

This scheme for wholesale game-changer in the region necessitated an even deeper alliance with the royal regimes of the Persian Gulf. In practice, it was the West that became dependent on the Saudis and Qataris to provide Arab cover for NATO’s military and, much more importantly, to provide the Islamist fighters who would actually seize power on the ground in Libya and then Syria and beyond. Moreover, the Saudis and Qataris are rich, and can afford to pursue their own political objectives.

This fundamental reordering of the relationship between the West and its royalist Arab allies is reflected on the ground in Libya, where it is Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s Islamist friends who wield the guns. The real crisis in Benghazi was that the Islamist fighters for whom NATO had provided an air force were not totally dependent on the U.S., Britain and France. They have rich friends in the Persian Gulf, on whom the West is now also dependent. Although the NATO powers account for about 70 percent of total worldwide arms spending, they are by no means fully in charge of their own offensive in North Africa and the Middle East. The Islamist fighters and their Persian Gulf patrons have their own agendas.

Ultimately, the Pentagon and the CIA and their counterparts in Europe cannot win this game. They are racist imperialists who will always make themselves hated. Certainly, the Islamists hate them with far more intensity than the secular leftists and Arab nationalists that the U.S. and Europe are so keen to destroy. That’s why the Americans can’t operate safely in Benghazi.

The great contradiction is that the Islamic fundamentalism with which the West is now allied and critically dependent behaves, in practice, like a nationalism without borders. And, like nationalism, it is ultimately incompatible with imperialism, which today is corporate rule without borders.

The fighters that attacked the gas facility in secular-ruled Algeria surely entered through Libya, partially controlled by fellow Islamists who are friends with the guys who killed the U.S. ambassador, and who are also friends with the Saudis and Qataris who are supposed to be America’s allies. The Arab Spring is far from played out, and nowhere near under U.S. control. For the West, it will end in a huge implosion, because this house of cards cannot stand.

› Brookings' Bruce Riedel urges intensified US support for Saudi despots | Glenn Greenwald

[…] When they speak publicly, the mavens of the Foreign Policy Community - whose primary function is to justify US militarism and aggression - typically disguise their real beliefs and objectives with specialized obfuscating jargon. But every now and then, they have an outburst of uncharacteristic candor that clarifies their actual worldview. Such is the case with a remarkably clear memorandum to President Obama that Riedel just authored and Brooking published regarding the extremely close US alliance with the regime in Saudi Arabia.

Riedel begins by noting that “Saudi Arabia is the world’s last absolute monarchy” and “like Louis XIV, King Abdallah has complete authority.” Moreover, “the Saudi royal family has shown no interest in sharing power or in an elected legislature.” The Saudi regime not only imposes total repression on its own people but is also vital, he argues, in maintaining tyranny in multiple neighboring states: “they have helped ensure that revolution has not unseated any Arab monarch” and “the other monarchs of Arabia would inevitably be in jeopardy if revolution comes to Saudi Arabia.” Specifically:

“The Sunni minority in Bahrain could not last without Saudi money and tanks. Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are city-states that would be unable to defend themselves against a Saudi revolutionary regime, despite all their money.”

So given this extreme human suffering and repression imposed by the Saudi monarchy in multiple countries, what should the US - the Leader of the Free World and the self-proclaimed Deliverer of Freedom and Democracy - do? To Riedel, the answer is obvious: work even harder, do even more, to strengthen the Saudi regime as well as the neighboring tyrannies in order to crush the “Arab Awakenings” and ensure that democratic revolution cannot succeed in those nations.

Riedel stridently argues that the US must remain steadfastly opposed to any democratic revolutions in the region. That’s because Saudi Arabia is “America’s oldest ally in the Middle East, a partnership that dates back to 1945.” Thus, “since American interests are so intimately tied to the House of Saud, the US does not have the choice of distancing the United States from it in an effort to get on the right side of history.”

Instead, he insists, while Obama should “encourage” the Saudi King to accelerate the modest reforms he has abstractly embraced, the overarching principle driving US actions should be that “the overthrow of the monarchy would represent a severe setback to America’s position in the region and provide a dramatic strategic windfall for Iran.” And the US should not only prop up the Saudi dictatorship, but also must “be ready to shore up the neighboring kingdoms and sheikhdoms.” As a Bahraini correspondent wrote about this Riedel memo: “Brookings is basically telling Obama to make sure we remain ruled by dictatorial regimes.” […]

› US Covert War in Yemen Receives Support from Saudi Air Force | The Dissenter

“’In October 2010,’ according to a Congressional Research Service report, ‘Congress was notified of proposed sales to Saudi Arabia of dozens of F-15 fighter aircraft, helicopters, and related equipment and services, with a potential value of $60 billion.’ This equipment is likely being used to provide support [for] America’s undeclared war [in Yemen], much of which is kept concealed from the public.”

In a feature story for The Times (London), journalist Iona Craig reports a Times investigation found “Saudi Arabian fighter jets joined the United States’ secret war in Yemen.” The support came in a year when the number of drone strikes in the Arabian Peninsula more than doubled and surpassed the number of drone strikes in Pakistan.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were 25 confirmed US operations in 2012 up from 13 confirmed operations in 2011. There were 58 possible US operations in 2012 up from 17 possible operations in 2011.

A US intelligence source reportedly claims, “Some of the so-called drone missions are actually Saudi air force missions.” Bruce Riedel, an ex-CIA officer, says, “We outsource this problem [of AQAP] to the Saudis, make it their problem. It is their problem.”

It is believed that drones operate from bases in Saudi Arabia. “The US has its own F15s based only 120 miles off Yemen’s coastline at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, also home to a fleet of US Predator and Reaper drones.”

The Times report details a September 2, 2012, air strike that killed 12 civilians, including three children.

…The first missile hit the vehicle, flipping it over. A second was aimed at survivors as they scrambled from the wreckage. One witnesses told how the aircraft looked “like an arrow”, as he drew the silhouette of a fighter jet.

Similarly, witnesses to the Jaar airstrike said a fighter jet rather than a drone carried out the attack. “It wasn’t Yemeni. It was a black plane. It was Saudi,” said one resident. The Royal Saudi Air force is largely made up of F15 Eagle and Tornado fighter jets. The latter were bought from Britain as part of BAE Systems’ Al Yamamah arms deal with the Kingdom…

A Washington Post feature story published on December 24 further described the September 2 attack. In the story, “US officials in Washington,” speaking anonymously, said the strike had come from ”a Defense Department aircraft, either a drone or a fixed-wing warplane, that fired on the truck.”

[…] Most suspected of terrorism in Yemen are simply being killed because there is consensus among US agencies that there is nowhere for captured suspects to be detained. They cannot be transferred to Guantanamo Bay. The agencies do not want to have the Yemeni government imprison them because they fear they may escape. As the story notes, ”in February 2006, 23 inmates escaped from Sanaa’s maximum-security Political Security prison by digging their way out to a nearby mosque. Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the current head of [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)], was one who escaped.”

Over five years later, in June 2011, gunmen attacked a prison in al-Mukalla and 60 escaped. Fifty-seven of them were known Al Qaeda militants.

Chief counterterrorism adviser to Obama, John Brennan, is profiled as the individual largely responsible for this relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. He served as CIA station chief in Riyadh in the late 1990s. Now, as the person leading the team that adds targets to a kill list, he is able to take advantage of relations with Saudi Arabia by carrying out a strategy he considers to be “a true model” of what the US counterterrorism community should be doing—fighting an undeclared war in Yemen.

Read the whole piece →

Some further thoughts here.