{"id":3553,"date":"2020-12-23T23:33:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T23:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=142975"},"modified":"2020-12-23T23:33:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T23:33:10","slug":"experts-on-military-industrial-complex-blast-trump-plan-to-sell-nearly-750-billion-in-bombs-to-criminal-saudi-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/23\/experts-on-military-industrial-complex-blast-trump-plan-to-sell-nearly-750-billion-in-bombs-to-criminal-saudi-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts on Military-Industrial Complex Blast Trump Plan to Sell Nearly $750 Billion in Bombs to Criminal Saudi Regime"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Experts on the adverse effects of the military-industrial complex on Wednesday blasted a plan by the Trump administration to sell nearly half a billion dollars worth of advanced U.S. bombs to Saudi Arabia, which for over five years has been leading an airstrike campaign and starvation blockade that have added tens of thousands<\/a> of civilian deaths to the already staggering toll in Yemen’s ongoing civil war. <\/p>\n

“The Biden administration has indicated a desire to rethink the U.S. relation[ship] with Saudi Arabia. The outgoing president should not use his lame-duck period to make that more difficult.”
\u2014Jeff Abramson,
Arms Control Association <\/span><\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/em> reports<\/a> the U.S. State Department has notified Congress of its intention to license the sale of some 7,500 Raytheon Paveway precision-guided, air-to-ground munitions valued at $478 million to the kingdom, despite its status as one of the world’s worst human rights violators<\/a> and prolific perpetrator of U.S.-backed war crimes<\/a> in Yemen. <\/p>\n

After the license is approved\u2014likely before President Donald Trump leaves office next month\u2014Raytheon will have a green light to sell the arms directly to the Saudi regime. <\/p>\n

Human rights advocates condemned the proposed sale, citing conduct by Saudi and allied military forces in Yemen. <\/p>\n

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Trump\u2019s finishing his to-do list:
Attempting a coup to overturn the election
Pardoning war criminals
Rushing bomb sales to authoritarians <\/p>\n

Congress must stop this sale to Saudi Arabia. #YemenCantWait<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/rzscio64vX<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Win Without War (@WinWithoutWar) December 23, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

“This deal should not be allowed to stand,” asserted William D. Hartung, director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, in a statement Wednesday. “The United States should not be selling precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia at this time, given their leading role in the air war in Yemen which has killed thousands of civilians and prolonged a conflict that is now the world’s worst <\/a>humanitarian catastrophe.”<\/p>\n

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Hartung continued:<\/p>\n

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Saudi access to tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions thus far has not diminished the civilian toll in Yemen, so Pentagon claims that more accurate bombs will reduce civilian casualties don’t hold up to scrutiny. A sale could also be seen as a reward to the Saudi regime at a time when it has yet to take responsibility for the murder of [journalist] Jamal Khashoggi or reduced its campaign of internal repression against regime critics and human rights defenders. Last but not least, this should be a decision for a new administration, not a lame-duck president.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jeff Abramson, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, accused the Trump administration of “dangerously pushing more weapons into the Middle East to countries that have a record of misusing them.:<\/p>\n

“The United States simply should not be selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, especially given their role in exacerbating the suffering in Yemen,” stressed Abramson. “The Biden administration has indicated a desire to rethink the U.S. relation[ship] with Saudi Arabia. The outgoing president should not use his lame-duck period to make that more difficult.”<\/p>\n

However, as Washington Post<\/em> military and national security reporter Missy Ryan noted<\/a> Wednesday, former four-star general Lloyd Austin, who is President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for defense secretary, is currently a member of Raytheon’s board of directors. <\/p>\n

The United Nations\u2014which has called the situation in Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis\u2014in September recommended<\/a> that the International Criminal Court investigate possible war crimes committed by all sides in the six-year civil war, which has claimed<\/a> over 100,000 lives. <\/p>\n

The U.N. cited U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition airstrikes<\/a> that have killed thousands of civilians, the Saudi-led blockade that has exacerbated famine conditions<\/a> and disease<\/a> that have killed at least tens of thousands of people, and a wide range of human rights violations by both Yemeni government forces and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, including unlawful imprisonment and killing, forced disappearances, and use of child soldiers.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts on the adverse effects of the military-industrial complex on Wednesday blasted a plan by the Trump administration to sell nearly half a billion dollars worth of advanced\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3554,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3553\/revisions\/3554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}