Economics and Arms Sales

It turns out that the largest human disaster in the world right now is in Yemen, that is getting fucked over heavily by a Saudi Arabian led Coalition. Cholera has been rampant, and the country is otherwise in rough shape, supposedly because some militias are a threat.

More recently, a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, went missing in a Saudi consulate and is presumed murdered by the regime. He was applying to get married, I don’t suppose he just ran off on his fiance.

Here in Canada, several years ago the former federal Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper negotiated an arms deal with the Saudis to a near tune of $15 billion (Canadian, but still a few bucks), mainly vehicles and parts. When the federal Liberals of Justin Trudeau (he is the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, although Justin got elected like anyone else and wasn’t handed the job, sort of like Bashar Al-Assad in Syria was), got into office, the Saudis were already a concern, and Trudeau was asked if the deal might be cancelled based on moral grounds. He said then that the previous government had done most of the work on it, and it would look bad if Canada doesn’t honour commitments made to other countries. Basically, it was too late. More recently this:

There is some sweet economic activity along with this, and thus this latest Nazi punching thread. Angela Merkel over in Germany, which sells some stuff to the Saudis, is making noises that shit needs to be put in better order, the British are just protecting jobs, and then there is us (and US?). How much geopolitical noise should a government make when there is a voting labour force domestically?

I myself would hope that if the Saudis can have a military coalition, maybe the provider countries can have a united front at the same time and starve out the Saudis until they get reasonable, and then continue at least a lot of the sales then.

Merkel is the biggest windage in the world and should fuck right the fuck off with her bullshit that she expects the rest of the world to do, but won’t do herself.

The last time I read on this subject, a quarter of American manufacturing jobs involved making weapons, probably because it is one thing the Pentagon will not allow to be outsourced to China. The same article asserted that the Pentagon goes along with (and possibly even helps) US companies export weapons because then the companies can make a lot more of them and then thanks to the miracle of mass production charge the military less money for the weapons they buy.