Tomgram: Palumbo and Draper, Knockout in Washington
In the Oval Office (or the White House underground bunker) is a president who does just what he wants. Not long ago, for instance, his administration sent two million doses of his much-favored anti-malarial drug of the moment, hydroxychloroquine, to Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil where Covid-19 is raging. Bolsonaro, recently spotted wearing a tie with an assault-rifle design, is, of course, another head of state with an ultra-loyal “base.” He may, in fact, be the only leader on earth who makes Donald Trump look almost sane when it comes to the global pandemic. In the process, our president is providing a potentially dangerous drug to Brazilians suffering from the coronavirus even as he denies it to patients in the U.S. who actually need it for other diseases.
To cite another example of Donald Trump doing just what he wants, consider the weapons version of those anti-malarial drugs. After all, at a moment when you might think they’d have a few other things on their minds, the president and his men are at it again when it comes to selling yet more weaponry to Saudi Arabia! From the beginning of his presidency, when the Saudi royals, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, wined him, dined him, and sword-danced with him in Riyadh, he’s been desperate to peddle the products of major American arms makers to the kingdom and so (supposedly) create more jobs here at home.
Last year, Trump clashed with Congress over $8.1 billion in such sales and his administration declared an “emergency” to ink those deals without congressional approval. Now, add another half-billion-dollar deal for 7,500 Raytheon-made Paveway IV precision-guided munitions to the 60,000 of those weapons sold to that country in 2019. (And speaking of jobs, part of the agreement evidently is that Raytheon will produce ever more of those weapons in Saudi Arabia. Brilliant!) Such “precision” missiles have, of course, been used for years by the Saudis to take out Yemeni civilians -- in a country now hit by Covid-19 as well -- in what undoubtedly is the most devastating war on Planet Earth for a civilian population at this moment.
In that grim context, consider how what’s still officially labeled “U.S. foreign policy” in the Persian Gulf is actually being made. In today’s TomDispatch post, Morgan Palumbo and Jessica Draper, who work for the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative and the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, dramatically lay out the twenty-first-century version of such policy-making, move by move, blow by blow, PR firm by PR firm. Tom
To cite another example of Donald Trump doing just what he wants, consider the weapons version of those anti-malarial drugs. After all, at a moment when you might think they’d have a few other things on their minds, the president and his men are at it again when it comes to selling yet more weaponry to Saudi Arabia! From the beginning of his presidency, when the Saudi royals, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, wined him, dined him, and sword-danced with him in Riyadh, he’s been desperate to peddle the products of major American arms makers to the kingdom and so (supposedly) create more jobs here at home.
Last year, Trump clashed with Congress over $8.1 billion in such sales and his administration declared an “emergency” to ink those deals without congressional approval. Now, add another half-billion-dollar deal for 7,500 Raytheon-made Paveway IV precision-guided munitions to the 60,000 of those weapons sold to that country in 2019. (And speaking of jobs, part of the agreement evidently is that Raytheon will produce ever more of those weapons in Saudi Arabia. Brilliant!) Such “precision” missiles have, of course, been used for years by the Saudis to take out Yemeni civilians -- in a country now hit by Covid-19 as well -- in what undoubtedly is the most devastating war on Planet Earth for a civilian population at this moment.
In that grim context, consider how what’s still officially labeled “U.S. foreign policy” in the Persian Gulf is actually being made. In today’s TomDispatch post, Morgan Palumbo and Jessica Draper, who work for the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative and the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, dramatically lay out the twenty-first-century version of such policy-making, move by move, blow by blow, PR firm by PR firm. Tom
How the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Emiratis Took Washington
A Monumental Lobbying Battle Over American Foreign Policy
By Morgan Palumbo and Jessica Draper
It was a bare-knuckle brawl of the first order. It took place in Washington, D.C., and it resulted in a KO. The winners? Lobbyists and the defense industry. The losers? Us. And odds on, you didn’t even know that it happened. Few Americans did, which is why it’s worth telling the story of how Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari money flooded the nation’s capital and, in the process, American policy went down for the count.
The fight began three years ago this month. Sure, the pugilists hadn’t really liked each other that much before then, but what happened in 2017 was the foreign-policy equivalent of a sucker punch. On the morning of June 5th, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain announced that they were severing diplomatic ties with Qatar, the small but wealthy emirate in the Persian Gulf, and establishing a land, air, and sea blockade of their regional rival, purportedly because of its ties to terrorism.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten