Tuesday 31 July 2007

How NOT To Bring About Peace

Imagine the scene as the US administration sit around the table discussing the Middle East. Death, disaster and mindless violence everywhere you look so the only obvious solution is to pour billion of dollars worth of military weapons into the region and to hand it to some of the worst offenders.
Saudi Arabia supplies over 50% of jihadists in Iraq as well as providing the men who flew two planes into the World Trade Centre, is set to benefit from US military assistance. This is despite gross human rights violations including domestic violence against women being legally and religiously sanctioned, bodily mutilations conducted as judicial punishments, oppression of religious and political minorities, torture of prisoners and public demonstrations forbidden.
All religions other than Sunni Islam are banned and churches and temples are not allowed but they are still deemed fit to be handed a devastating arsenal.
Israel, handed $30bn in military aid, has been the subject of 138 resolutions, most of them calling upon Israel to comply with basic principles of international law and condemning actions taken by Israel in a territory they have occupied for 40 years and resolutions demanding the country to comply with previous resolutions.
Egypt has a long standing history of suppression and torture overseen by the ruling authoritarian regime and has been heavily criticised by Amnesty for Human Rights abuses but still stand to profit by $13bn worth of US weaponry.
Good plan boys, i am sure the best way to bring about peace in the middle east is to arm half of it to the teeth.

11 comments:

Paula said...

It's utterly insane. I wonder what they've been smoking?

Falling on a bruise said...

I was reading about how the US administration were getting annoyed at Saudi Arabia's lack of help in Iraq and reluctance to stop the flood of insurgents from Saudi Arabia into Iraq one day, then this the next day.
I really despair of the people making the decisions sometimes.

Cody Bones said...

Well Lucy, at least I agree with 2/3rds of your post. I love common ground.

Daniel said...

Arm half and label the other half terrorists = endless war and booming stock market.

The capitalist mind is very simple! And very greedy.

Cheezy said...

Don't say anything nasty about the Sauds, Lucy - they're our friends... our (incredibly rich, rolling-in-oil, you-scratch-my-back-I'll-watch-your's) friends :-/

carl r said...

I don't think that Israel is anywhere near as bad an "offender" as Egypt or Saudi Arabia...

After all, Israel has had to deal with a relentless terrorist campaign for almost 60 years, and so far, the Palestinians have given no indication that they would live peacefully with anyone.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure this makes perfect sense to those who thought that taking down a secular government would help in a fight against radical Islamic fundamentalism. I'm sure it is a perfectly reasonable move to our friends who claim that taking down Saddam IMPROVED women's rights in Iraq.

You know, morons.

Paula said...

I don't mind the aid to Israel as much as the others, but still it just galls me that we give so much away yet can't provide decent healthcare to all our own citizens.

The Fez Monkey said...

Oh, Lucy - you are so naive.

See, the terrorists are bad guys. They hate freedom. They're really bad guys that hate our freedom. So they do bad things. They want to kill us. They're called terrorists because they want to make us feel terrified for being free. They hate freedom.

Then on the other hand you have our good friends in the area who are our friends, and who don't hate freedom. They just don't have it, but they don't hate it, so they are our friends. They're friendly to us, so we give them a lot of money and weapons because they're our friends.

But the terrorists hate us because we are free and they are bad.

There. That comes straight from the GOP talking points. Does it make things clearer now?

Ook ook

Cheezy said...

By jove, I think Fez has got it! Team Bush Foreign Policy one-oh-one. In a nutshell! :)

Falling on a bruise said...

About as clear as the 7m barrels of oil Saudi Arabia produce daily Fez.
Hang about....