Category Archives: Weapons deals

Arab Politics, France, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy, Weapons deals

Holy Royal Blackmail! French American War in Lebanon Over Saudi Money……

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“On a visit to Paris, the Saudi crown prince is said to have ironed out most obstacles to a multi-billion-euro plan to equip the Lebanese army with French weapons in the face of regional instability, but one final signature is still missing. Sources with knowledge of the talks told FRANCE 24 on Wednesday that the absence of the finance minister among the group of Saudi officials accompanying Defence Minister and Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud to Paris was the official reason for the delay…………”

“According to a March 8 source, the closure of the Ersal-Qalamoun front “will reflect positively on the operations the Syrian army and its allies are carrying out in the Damascus countryside against armed extremist groups, which is something that Saudi Arabia and other countries supporting the Syrian opposition groups will never allow to happen.” Other sources added that “Saudi Arabia has put the $3 billion donation to the army on hold because of the presidential vacuum and also because of Washington’s opposition to this donation for many reasons including Riyadh’s intention to sign a $25 billion arms deal with Paris………..”

The Saudis have been trying for years to find a formula to weaken the grip of Hezbollah over Lebanese politics. Ever since Hezbollah defeated the occupying Israeli IDF in a long guerrilla war and forced it to withdraw from southern Lebanon in the year 2000. The Saudi campaign escalated after Hezbollah again defeated the IDF and forced it to abort its incursion into Lebanon in the summer of 2006. The only times an Arab army or armed group has ever defeated the IDF.

The Saudis’ best Lebanese man, the late Rafiq Hariri, was assassinated in 2005 by parties still unknown (and I mean truly unknown). Their second best man Saad Hariri decamped quickly for Paris after a short stint as prime minister (the job is part of the Sunni share of power). He is now reported by the media to have flown back to Paris after a short visit to Beirut. The rest, the Druze and the Falangist rightist warlords, represent smaller balancing factions within their own ethnic/confessional communities.

Money has not worked, mainly because money, even holy petroleum money, cannot overcome confessional and sectarian passions. Not even in Lebanon. Then the princes resorted to an explosive weapon: they have worked to escalate sectarian tensions in Lebanon. And they have succeeded spectacularly in that. They lit some fires in Beirut and especially in Tripoli and a few other places. Thanks to their efforts, Tripoli and regions near the Syrian border are now a hotbed of Salafi Jihadi activity. There are now also pockets of such activity in parts of Beirut and in some southern townships. That explains the increase in periodic attacks on army posts by armed Salafi groups.

Desperate times provoke desperate measures. They are now targeting the Lebanese army as the last Achilles Heel of Lebanese politics. Or, to continue with Greek mythology/history, as a possible Trojan Horse. They have settled on the Lebanese Army as a possible way to outflank Hezbollah. Except that the Lebanese army represents the demographic mix of Lebanon, its various religions and sects. At best that army can stay out of politics and remain united, at worst it can meddle in politics and break up into its ethnic and sectarian components. Back to the drawing board.

Targeting the army has started another external war. An apparent battle for weapons deals, and the conditions attached to them, between France and the United States. The original Saudi deal, announced months ago through Saad Hariri, was to pay for only a specific deal of French weapons to Lebanon (somewhere between $ 3-4 billion). Yet that deal, like all Saudi offers of foreign aid, has stalled as Riyadh tries to use it as leverage and to blackmail all parties with it. It is like a case of double or multiple  blackmail. The Saudis often try to pressure several foreign parties with one deal. They are now using this potential arms deal to influence the following: (1) French Middle East policy, (2) Lebanese internal politics, and (3) American Middle East policy.

Stay tuned for more on this battle for Saudi weapons deals.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Culture, Weapons deals, Wild West

Mayberry Militarized: Fallujah and Kandahar Come to the American Heartland……..

      

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“Pentagon data, reports the New York Times reveals the scale of military equipment turnover. Under the Obama administration, 432 MRAPs, 533 planes and helicopters, nearly 100,000 machine guns, and nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines have gone to police departments. That flow of military equipment to local police departments might have made more sense when the program was created in the 1990s. Violent crime, particularly in cities, peaked in that decade, sparking fears about our degenerating urban areas. But then, for reasons sociologists will debate over and over, violent crime has fallen drastically to the lowest rates we’ve seen in decades. And now, we find also ourselves with a surplus of war equipment. The militarization of police departments is also changing the role of local police……………..”


Helicopters, MRAPs, Drones, Machine guns invade small town America. Does Mayberry need Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles now? Mayberry as militarized as Fallujah or Kandahar. What would Aunt Bee think (but not necessarily say) if she were alive? What would Andy Griffith say if he were alive? What does Opie think now?

Hell, what would Matt Dillon and Wyatt Earp say? No doubt TWF was not cool in their days, not in Dodge City nor in Tombstone, if it was available (it was not). So, I shall say it on their behalf: WTF?……

Cheers
mhg

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Gaza, Iran, Israel, Weapons deals

Of International Law, Weapons Smuggled to Gaza, and Somali Pirates………

      

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“Israeli naval commandos intercepted and boarded a civilian ship in the southern Red Sea early Wednesday, preventing an attempt to smuggle an Iranian shipment of advanced rockets to Gaza, according to senior Israeli officials. The ship, identified as the Klos-C, was seized in international waters between Eritrea and Sudan, approximately 1,000 miles from the port of Eilat, Israel’s southernmost point. It was carrying Syrian-manufactured M-302 rockets with a range of about 100 miles, according to Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military. The takeover took place without violence; Israeli officials said the crew of 17 cooperated with the Israelis and seemed unaware of the vessel’s contents. The ship, which was also carrying civilian cargo, was flying under a Panamanian flag………………….”

“The Israeli military seized a boatload of advanced Iranian weapons—and then launched a sophisticated PR campaign to tell the world why they shouldn’t trust Tehran. On Wednesday morning, the Israeli Navy announced that it had stopped an Iranian cargo vessel with advanced weapons destined for fighters in Gaza. By Wednesday afternoon, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz was telling members of the U.S. Congress that the interception of the sophisticated rockets revealed the “real nature of Iran”………….”

It is possible, although I reserve the right to be extremely doubtful. Hamas is much more opportunistic than principled. It has gone back to its old ties of dependence on the mullahs, now that the Muslim Brotherhood is on the run in Egypt and Ras al-Khaimah and the Syrian regime seems to be winning (for now). Yet, the timing of his weapons cache is too damn……. coincidental and so convenient.
A Panamanian ship, loaded in Iraq and Sudan: that is already a red signal, nay a huge flashing red light screaming: catch me, catch me! Headed directly toward the Israeli port of Eilat? That is a brighter flashing red light and a louder scream of: catch me, catch me! Many would suspect a ship loaded in Iraq and Sudan heading to the Red Sea, and almost everybody knows that. And when were the alleged weapons added to the cargo and by whom? Can the Iranians be THAT stupid, knowing from past experience that undefended ships can and are boarded in international waters? Could be: the mullahs have their fair share of schmucks, one of them was president until last summer. Or is the Israeli Mossad THAT clever to choreograph such an incident? They can and they have done it in the past.
Maybe the Iranians ARE that stupid. Maybe Mossad ARE that smart. Either way it coincided with a big AIPAC (Israeli lobby) conference in Washington last week, and it was enough to get many people in the USA, and not just honestly-worried Jewish-Americans, even more ‘worried’.


P.S: Does international ‘law’ reserve the privilege of boarding a ship with Panamanian flag in international waters exclusively for certain ‘decent’ countries (and Somali pirates)?
Cheers
mhg

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France, GCC, Iran, Weapons deals

French Fries, Nuclear Fries, Gulf Contract Fries…….

      

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“French or Freedom fries: What’s behind France’s move on Iranian nuclear deal? Far from the political stance that inspired ‘Freedom fries’ 10 years ago, France has aligned itself more with US conservatives in rejecting a ‘sucker’s deal’ on the Iran nuclear issue……………”

The French are always looking for ‘number one’, looking for their own financial interests. The country that devastated parts of the Pacific islands, e.g. Moruroa (Algeria is not in the Pacific) with their nuclear tests until recently have not gone religious. They are  most likely eying their royal Arab allies, the Saudi princes and UAE shaikhs, the ones who bestow fat weapons contracts and other contracts. The French have almost certainly decided to adopt their opposition to a nuclear deal with Iran, to keep that country blockaded and isolated. Look for France to get some new Gulf contracts soon.
They are also probably pissed (in French of course) about the Iranian role in events in Lebanon and Syria, as pissed as their royal Arab partners are.

Cheers
mhg

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GCC, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Weapons deals

German Leopards: Qatari Panzers Facing Saudi Religious Police…….

      

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“Qatar aims to buy 118 more Leopard tanks from Germany before the football World Cup championships in 2022 for several billion euros, a German newspaper reported on Sunday. It also plans to buy 16 tank howitzers, Bild am Sonntag reported citing government sources in Qatar. The equipment is made by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall. Spokesmen were not immediately available for comment in Qatar or at Krauss-Maffei or Rheinmetall. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government approved the purchase of 62 Leopard tanks and 24 howitzers in the spring..……….”

I can’t believe the Qataris need the 118 tanks and howitzers for the FIFA World Cup of 2022. Some football (soccer) fans can be rowdy, but not that rowdy. Even the worst of them, the English fans, are not rowdy enough for tanks and howitzers. North Korea is unlikely to invade Qatar if they get to the World Cup and get knocked out.
Qatar is a small peninsula that is surrounded by Gulf waters on all sides except for one unfortunate side. That one side is the border with Saudi Arabia. The Qataris can’t be afraid of little Bahrain with whom they have had offshore territorial disputes (which they won). The Bahrain regime can’t even put down its own people’s uprising without foreign mercenaries and Saudi troops. The other Gulf GCC states are too far for any border disputes with Qatar. The Qataris share a huge offshore natural gas field with Iran, but they seem to get along with that. The Iranian mullahs, contrary to Saudi and some Western propaganda are not likely to storm across the Gulf and attack Qatar. Besides, they would have to deal with the huge American armada in the Persian Gulf before crossing the water. Not easy, going through the U.S. Navy.
Which brings me back to the Qatari border with Saudi Arabia.
Of course Gulf GCC countries often purchase expensive weapons that they could never use. They do that partly for the fat commissions (kickbacks) some of their influential potentates get. Or maybe they like having the most advanced weapons sit in their warehouses.
Or maybe in case they need their Panzers to liberate Syria from the Al Assad regime, single handed and without any help from NATO.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, Syria, Weapons deals

Of MANPADS and Syrian Salafis and Gulf Potentates……….

      

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“The main conduit runs from Turkey into northern Syria, where the rebels control swathes of land, including all the main border crossings. Large shipments of arms come mainly from Qatar, which flies in weapons from Libya, an ally that was plentifully supplied by the Qataris during the uprising two years ago against Muammar Qaddafi. Turkish intelligence agents accompany the weapons into liberated parts of Syria, to be handed over to chosen groups, such as Liwa al-Tawheed, a large one active around Aleppo. The arms are distributed down the chain. Rebel commanders say Turkey’s fairly open-door policy also lets arms provided by private donors be smuggled in. Some come from Libyan revolutionaries, others from rich Salafist sheikhs in the Gulf. A black market functions energetically, too. That may explain some of the sophisticated anti-tank missiles seen in rebel hands. The New York Times has reported that Qatar has supplied some man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), despite American pleas that they should not.………………”

Funny: these weapons, the MANPADS are not manufactured in Qatar of Saudi Arabia. They are made in the West, mainly the USA, and sold to these potentates normally with restrictions on their re-export. So, if they abuse their weapons, break their contracts, just stop selling it to them. You’d think at least The Economist knows that, even if the Western governments did not.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Weapons deals

Europeans for Freedom, Democracy, Espionage, and Arab Police States…………

         

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“Mr. Muhafdha continues to fight for human rights even though the Bahraini government has clamped down on any opposition, intensifying its electronic surveillance. “No matter how I communicate, they know,” Mr. Muhafdha said in an interview. “The regime has sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment allowing it to spy on everything we do by social media, e-mail and phone.” In a bid to prevent European companies from selling such equipment to Bahrain, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Reporters Without Borders and other nongovernmental organizations took action this month. They filed a complaint against two companies at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which represents the developed economies. The O.E.C.D. has guidelines for “responsible business conduct,” including human rights. Its National Contact Point offices in the member states try to encourage businesses to observe the guidelines and encourage individuals or organizations to complain about questionable business practices. The two companies in question are Gamma International, which is British-German, and Trovicor, which is German…………..”

The regime in Bahrain keeps getting weapons, teargas, armored vehicles, and sophisticated means of espionage. In other words, everything the ruling Al Khalifa family needs to control the people of Bahrain and crush their protests. The Obama administration is selling them ‘some’ equipment while allowing allies in Turkey and the Humorless Kingdom of Jordan and Saudi Arabia to supply them the rest. The Obama administration likes to pretend to be taking the high moral ground, while it keeps the flow of the means of killing and repression going.
The British Cameron government is the worst offender: it acts as if this is the 1950s and 1960s, when British governments supplied the weapons and the personnel to keep the people of Bahrain oppressed by the Al Khalifa clan and their tribal retainers. The jailers and killers of Bahrain are now regularly received at 10 Downing Street and at Buckingham Palace and publicly feted. In Washington it is low key: they are quietly snuck into the White House for brief chats (I hear that sometimes they are met only by minor functionaries like the White House chef or First Dog Bo Obama).

Cheers
mhg

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Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Persian-American Gulf, Weapons deals

Bahrain Navy all Set to Defend the Gulf against NBC and CNN …………

         

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“A special committee at the General Staff of the Bahraini Navy is said to have recommended the necessity of buying advanced defensive systems to confront nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) threats in the Gulf region. The following 358-word report sheds light on the Bahraini Navy’s recommendation and tells what about the Bahraini plans to buy the necessary NBC equipment and………………”

Field Marshal Admiral Shaikh Bin Technocrat Al Khalifa von Rommel Al Nelson Hornblower getting set to defend the Persian-American Gulf against all comers. Now we can all rest assured. Ever try some of all that teargas you guys have been using every day for two years on your people and their villages?
(Okay, so which Al Khalifa shaikh will get the commission for this purchase? Unless they have a common fund that the whole family shares, just like they do for waiters at restaurants).

Cheers
mhg

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Africa, Europe, Horn of Africa, Iran, Weapons deals

Iranian Guns and Western Flowers for Africa ………………

        

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“When the investigators’ breakthrough came, it carried a surprise. The manufacturer was not one of Africa’s usual suspects. It was Iran. Iran has a well-developed military manufacturing sector, but has not exported its weapons in quantities rivaling those of the heavyweights in the global arms trade, including the United States, Russia, China and several European countries. But its export choices in this case were significant. While small-arms ammunition attracts less attention than strategic weapons or arms that have drawn international condemnation, like land mines and cluster bombs, it is a basic ingredient of organized violence, and is involved each year and at each war in uncountable deaths and crimes………… Iran’s role in providing arms to allies and to those who fight its enemies has long been broadly understood. Some of these practices were most recently reported in the transfer of Fajr-5 ground-to-ground rockets to Gaza. Its expanding footprint of small-arms ammunition exports has pushed questions about its roles in a shadowy ammunition trade high onto the list of research priorities for trafficking investigators. “If you had asked me not too long ago what Iran’s role in small-arms ammunition trafficking to Africa had been, I would have said, ‘Not much,’ ”………………”

This is news only because for the past two centuries the West, mainly Europe, has considered Africa as its own turf. The private market and testing ground for its weapons. I have no doubt of the results if you survey all the weapon exports into Africa, and which weapons have killed the most people. Western weapons probably have killed more Africans in the past quarter century than any other source of weapons in the past thousand years. European weapons have probably killed more Africans during the past two or three centuries than any other weapons from any other source have done for the past five thousand years. (No mention of slavery is needed, that was long ago). Western and more recently Russian and Chinese, and perhaps a few others.
Suddenly the NY Times and one of its writers throws in Darfour and Iran in one sentence. I doubt that they flew Iranian warplanes over Darfour. Almost all the killing weapons originated from outside the Middle East. I also doubt that much of the bullets or machetes used to massacre civilians were made anywhere in the Middle East. The killing fields from Rwanda to Liberia to Sierra Leone to the Congo and the rest of the African tragedies were nourished by weapons from the West (mainly) and then Russia and China and maybe a couple of other sources.
No doubt the Iranians supply some weapons to their allies in Africa, some of them unsavory repressive allies. No doubt these pale compared to the other sources I mentioned. No doubt many of the allies of Western powers in Africa are no sweethearts either. No doubt hypocrisy is not monopolized by one side.
Cheers
mhg

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Anthropology, Arabian Peninsula, Weapons deals

Stone-Age Military Industrial Complex: Eurpeans and Gruntgrunt Tribe of the Gulf…………….

   

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                                Neck of the woods

“The date when stone-age humans first invented the lethal technology of spears and arrows has been set back many thousands of years with the discovery of small stone blades dating to 71,000 years ago. Archaeologists believe the “bladelets” were used as the sharp tips for arrows or spears and were made by a relatively sophisticated technique involving the heat treatment of stone before shaping the final cutting edges. The fine stone blades were excavated from a prehistoric site called Pinnacle Point on the southern coast of South Africa and are between 6,000 and 11,000 years older than the previous oldest known samples of spear and arrow blades, scientists said. The discovery suggests that the invention of lethal projectile weapons came far earlier in the course of human prehistory than previously realised and that, once invented, the knowledge was passed down the generations, according to a study in Nature led by Curtis Marean of Arizona State University..……………..”

Everybody loves Anthropology, no matter what their major. Well, maybe there are exceptions: some ayatollahs, Wahhabi clerics, Orthodox priests, Salafis, Muslim Brothers, and most U.S. Republican Congressmen, among others.
Do you think they did in those days what they do now? Do you think leading Western cavemen from Europe traveled to the Middle East peddling their axes and stone (obsidian) spears to our leading cavemen of the ruling “Gruntgrunt” tribe? Is it possible that someone who looked like Mr.Cameron, all hairy and clad in animal skin (no underwear of course) walked to the Gulf to sell sharpened stones attached to pieces of wood as well as rock-encrusted clubs as defensive weapons? And what about ‘crowd control’? There was no tear gas in those days, no stun weapons. Did he advise the use of human waste as the second best thing to tear gas? Use of “stink bombs” as opposed to the modern version of crowd control weapons?
Did he advise the leading cave-men that, after bashing their fellow cave–men’s (and cave–women’s) brains with his clubs, they ought to start thinking about considering the possibility of looking into the idea of perhaps allowing them to entertain thoughts of being allowed to tell them that they stink and perhaps ought to dunk themselves in the Gulf waters once in a while.
Fanciful but interesting speculation. No?
mhg
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