US gov may forbid BAE Eurofighter sale to Saudis
 

Why are they selling these things to the Saudis anyway??? Crazy.

-S

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04...ale_to_saudis/

Lewis Page is a moron, good at very little except reveling in his status as defence industry king-fool No1 having been elevated there by a popular press ever more ignorant of military affairs. He belongs to a certain type of British person who fawns over everything American, and thinks progress can be found in shamelessly aping US practise. Nothing good ever comes from these Yank-lovers. Every article bangs away at the same tedious misguided message - everything produced by the US is fantastic, there's no point in having an indigenous defence industry. BAE (Big And Expensive) might be a bunch of pirates who produce dodgy equipment - though just as much, if not more, blame lies in the lap of Whitehall for their shameful policy of "for but not with" fitting and UOR scrambles - but further entrenching our status as a US supplicant isn't the answer.

For what it's worth, most UK services folk think he's an idiot too, judging by the posts on ARRSE.

We'd be in a much better position if good outfits like Vickers, RO, English Electric, Hawker-Siddley, Cammell Laird, Ferranti, etc. hadn't been melted down like church-roof lead along with their highly-skilled, highly-professional workforces in the 80s and 90s. Thank god Vosper Thornycroft is still on the go.

Hmm, Saudi Arabia spends almost 10% of it's GDP on weapons, and they're the biggest purchaser of US arms in the world.
But they're moving away from US weapons, last year they signed a deal to buy Russian helicopters.

Gee, I wonder what's happening here.

EDIT - Perhaps I am too conspiratorial, but the previous investigations and illegal blocking of such investigations don't bolster much confidence in the truth of any part of this deal.

Bascially the US is pissed the UK got the drop and sold 72 Typhoons to the Saudies. The Al Yammah thing was years ago. Should be dropped as a waste of money.

All companies and govt's have slush funds. Just in the UK we are A)Stupid enough to get caught, B) In the name of openess and freedom your dirty laundry can get dug up and aired for all to see and bugger the consequences.

Yeah, those dirty Euros! :roll:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

I don't support that sale, and I doubt our Congress would support that sale. THe Saudis are not to be trusted. THe Majority of their country hates the US, and they even refuse to buy US products at all, except weapons. One day, you will be fighting the weapons you sold the Saudis if you give it to them now. You can bet on that.

-S

I agree. But we've already sold them AWACs, F-15s, late model AMRAAMs, JDAMs, and M1A2s. We will sell F-35s to the Israelis, perhaps even F-22s. Saudi Arabia will demand the F-35, and there is a decent chance they will get it. I hope our legislators would be smarter than that, but we shall see.

PD

Yes, all true. Much of the deals was done in response to the Kuwait war '91, and to counter the "Iraqi threat." Now there is Iran being raised as the threat by which one will excuse to sell the Saudis what they want (it already goes like this). Moral of the story: defense policies serve to sell defense goods, and selling defense goods knows neither loyalty nor patriotism. Ergo modern defense policies knows neither loyalty nor patriotism, neither reason nor shame.

So, today's practices are just the logical outcome of defense policies lacking any logic.

What! An Islamic country would never attack another Islamic country! They are just all warm fuzzies:yep: .

Well said Skybird. Particularly like the last line. :up:

If this gets blocked, it won't be because the US doesn't trust the Saudi's. As noted, the USA has sold them everything but Hillary's phone number. If it gets blocked, it will be because it's not US-made equipment being sold, but rather that of a competitor; this would give US manufacturers a better chance. The irony of it is that such a move would likely push the Saudi's towards a third source; France and Russia come to mind, just for starters.

Nobody thinks that. The point is we are using it as an excuse to sell our latest and greatest to a regime which everybody knows:

- its populace is very Anti-American
- House of Saud is a deck of cards that WILL fall eventually (very much the same way the Shah did)
- the Saudis have an atrocious human rights record
- a significant anti-government faction is already present in Saudi Arabia

There IS a significant chance that those fancy toys we sell them will be used to kill Americans one day. Yet we continue to build a large chunk of that regime's military for them, in the hope that they will help us out with the Iranians and be very, very nice to us regarding their only resource. Neither of which I see happening presently or in the future. Playing Middle East arms pimp is going to bite us again, just like it did almost thirty years ago.

PD

You are wrong. Ever heared of the Islamic civil war? The confrontation between Shias and Sunnis, lasting since centuries, is the one thing that totally dominates things in the Middle East, compared to it the Palestinian issue, often in the West focussed on as being the primary issue, is meaningless. And the major powers representing Shias and Sunnis are - the Sunni Arabs of Saudi Arabia, and the Shia Persians of Iran. This old conflict lies behind all of the tension there is. A symptom for it is the Sunni Arab resistence to the Iran-supported Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia is NOT a friend of the Hezbollah - they tryx to get rid of it by financing their own Sunni factions and parties and getting Washington to do something about them short of war. You may have noted that the Arabs are remarkaby silent whenever Israel reaches out for the Hezbollah. Israels serves their interests when doing so.

As long as you have this century-old conflict not being settled, you will have neither peace nor order in the region - no matter wjhat becomes of the Palestinians. Almost all Arab nations have made their peace with Israel for the time being, realising that the existence of Israel does not mean a threat to their nations' existence and ruling factions'/leaders' claim for power within their countries.

You aren't exactly doing a very good job of rebutting his thesis. An independent defence industry is good, even if it is only independent in a particular sector (say you can build a whole tank or plane by yourself). But when one is not independent even within a particular weapons system, it starts to become a worst of both worlds situation. And if it isn't either cheaper or better (the two together tends to be nearly impossible), than it becomes a jobs program.