Links April 23rd to April 26th

Links from my del.icio.us account for April 23rd through April 26th:

0 thoughts on “Links April 23rd to April 26th”

  1. does anyone remember if this was to arms sale to authorize which (because of course the USA could not possibly give an Arab country a hedge over her) Israel asked for its own arms sale (for weapons of a higher level than those sold to the Saudi)?
    If so, does anyone know whether this sale to Israel has gone ahead anyway?

    Also, my impression is that all the Saudi army is not that fierce — didn’t it plead for help from the USA when Iraq invaded Kuwait?
    If so, what good will this arms sale do?

  2. “my impression … the Saudi army is not that fierce” – love it! I’m as badly informed as ever (a large part of my own impression of the Saudi army comes from being propositioned by pudgy little Saudi tank commander recently in the steam room at the Four Seasons in Sharm), and thoroughly biased, but “not that fierce” sounds about right. Sounds like it makes the Egyptian army look like a lean, mean and well organized fighting force to me. Sounds like a very expensive disaster looking for a place to happen. Sounds like selling them a bunch of tanks and guns is going to do about as much good as selling the Egyptian army a bunch of tanks and guns – clears out last years models to make space for the new line and makes a buck or two for the boys in the gold braid. There’s the added bonus, I guess, of giving the Iranians more to shoot at if it comes to that.

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