It’s around 10 p.m. on a Sunday evening in mid-February and I’ve decided to take a look at the latest news on Yahoo … when whoa! Our country is at war in Iraq, has severe issues with Iran, may never finish off the fighting in Afghanistan, and yet the Pentagon is apparently willing to sell anywhere from 4.6 to over 9 Billion dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Yup. Don’t take my word for it…anyone can look it up on the Internet. Jim Wolf with Reuters had this to report on July 29, 2006:

…the Bush administration has plans “to sell $4.6 billion of arms to moderate Arab states, including battle tanks worth as much as $2.9 billion to protect critical Saudi infrastructure.”

What the heck is “critical Saudi infrastructure?” I’m not all that smart, but sounds like something related to oil wells doesn’t it?

Wolf goes on to report that… “The announcement came two weeks after the administration said it would sell Israel its latest supply ofJP-8 aviation fuel valued at up to $280 million to help Israeli warplanes ‘keep peace and security in the region.”‘ That’s been working great so far, hasn’t it?

Taieb Mahjoub of ‘Agence France-Presse’ reported that over our 2007 three day President’s Day weekend the Biggest Mideast Arms Fair was taking place in the United Arab Emirates.

This 8th bi-annual International Defense Exhibition (IDEX-2007) was opened up by United Arabs Emirate President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan the day before our 2007 President’s day. Here’s what the Sheikh told the participants:

“Our country is a country of peace…but we think that peace needs a force to protect it.”

Some 825 companies from 46 countries, including Britain, the United States and France showed up to hawk their goods at the Middle East’s biggest “arms fair,” which offered live-fire demonstrations of artillery and missiles. Sure beats going to the fair just to gawk at chickens and pigs.

What really ticks me off is that the seven Gulf Arab states comprising UAE earned more than $400 billion in 2006 because of high oil prices, have record budget surpluses and money to spend (similar to Exxon), control around 45 percent of the world’s oil reserves, yet, according to Mustafa Alani, a security expert at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center “… will ultimately remain dependent for their protection on the Western countries that consume their oil.”

Security expert Alani goes on to say that, “Whatever their military expenditure is, the GCC countries will never manage to ensure their self-defense and will always need an ‘exterior defense’.”

In other words, and these are my own words, the seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajma-n, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain apparently have no plans to defend their countries, despite earning enormous amounts of dollars, mostly western, from their oil reserves, then spending billions of those dollars on weapons. Why buy Ml Abrams tanks, light armored vehicles. Blackhawk helicopters, and missiles if they’re not going to be used?

The United Arab Emirates will always need an “exterior defense’ and that defense will always be in American dollars, American sons and daughters, and American blood, including the blood of our Allies, most notably, Britain. If we are willing to take an honest look at the current world and political situation Greed and the desire for more and more stuff is why our kids, our fathers, our mothers, our wives, our husbands, our grandchildren, the people we care about and love will continue to march off to wars sponsored by weapons manufacturers and dealers. These companies don’t care who dies or who lives so long as the profits continue to grow.

Well, that may have sounded like a Bob Dylan song, but believe it or not, I’m not a peacenik, although peace would be a great thing to have year-round. Sometimes a good fight is what needs to happen … maybe when the next war rolls around you and I will be smart enough to tell our representatives, senators, governors and president when the proper time to fight or to make peace should occur. Until then, we’ll continue to watch our loved ones die in foreign countries on prime-time television while anus dealers rake in their blood money.

Ralph D. Warner

Ocean Park