The Saudi Arms Deal: What You’re Not Being Told

by James Corbett, The International Forecaster:

That crazy, creepy glowing orb. 1000 years from now it could very well be that the only thing the historians of the future remember about our era is that some group of dignitaries touched a glowing orb in a darkened room and the internet lost its collective mind.

Unless you’re living under a rock, you have no doubt heard something about Donald Trump’s first pilgrimage as Commander-in-Chief. (Sidebar: If you are living under a rock that somehow shields you from the 24/7 news cycle, please let me know where that rock is located and how much the rent is, because I may just move in with you.)

For the past week, Trump has been jetting between the home bases of the world’s four major religions. He spoke to the Muslims in Saudi Arabia. He spoke to the Jews in Israel. He spoke to the Catholics at the Vatican. And he spoke to the holiest of them all, the High Priests of Death (war be upon them) at NATO’s shiny new billion-dollar headquarters in Brussels, complete with charred 9/11 wreckage at the entrance!

Although thousands of gallons of ink could, should and has been spilled on each leg of this remarkable trip, there are still many important stories that you aren’t going to hear about if you’re only reading the MSM headlines (surprise, surprise).

But don’t fret! I’m here to help fill in some of the gaps for you! However since I haven’t quite figured out how to clone myself several times over yet I’ll have to limit myself to the stories you weren’t told about the Saudi trip.

So, without further ado, here are three stories about the much-ballyhooed $110 billion Saudi arms deal you aren’t going to be reading in the lamestream news.

1. The Arms Deal is Mostly Old News and Paper Promises

The Saudi arms deal is the stuff that headline writers dream about. $110 billion in “defense equipment and services” sales to Saudi Arabia, payable immediately. $350 billion in sales over the next 10 years. The largest single arms sale in US history. It’s got a trademark Donald J. Trump “bigly” written all over it.

Except…

It’s always good to read the fine print on anything, and massive arms deals like this are no exception. The White House has so far been a bit coy about the particulars of the deal and how exactly they added up the $110 billion total. The State Department press release on the deal is heavy on rhetoric and short on facts, to the surprise of no one. So exactly how much of this deal was really the work of the Great Dealmaker Himself and how much is the work of his predecessor is an open question.

In his article on the subject, “There’s Less Than Meets the Eye in Trump’s Saudi Arms Deal,” policy analyst William Hartung notes that “Many of the items mentioned as part of the package had already been offered to Riyadh during the Obama administration, including a Patriot missile defense system, Multi-mission Surface Combatants, attack and transport helicopters, and artillery systems.” The value of these offers, already on the books before Trump stepped into the Oval Office, represented tens of billions of dollars of that $110 billion takeaway figure.

And as for the $350 billion? This is a ten-year projection of a possible total of what could result if everything goes according to what has been promised. If you noticed all the qualifiers in that sentence, then congratulations for paying attention.

To put in perspective what promises like these represent in real dollar terms, cast your mind back to the previous puppet administration. Do you remember last September when Hartung added up all the 42 different arms deals that Obama concluded with the Saudis? Well, he discovered that the Obama White House had notified Congress of $115 billion in weapons, equipment and services offers to Riyadh during his time in office.

And of that $115 billion in promises, do you know how much was actually delivered? About $20 billion. So, like everything else at the White House, these paper promises aren’t worth the cocktail napkins they’re written on.

Of course, we’re talking about arms sales here, so it’s actually a good thing that they’re lying about the numbers to make it sound more impressive than it really is. In fact, it would be best for the world’s sake if the actual value of this deal was $0 because…

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