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Title: Iraq Looks to Buy New Fighter Jet Fleet - O Yes The US is INSANE
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Published: Sep 5, 2008
Author: wired
Post Date: 2008-09-05 10:36:27 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 178
Comments: 10
Iraq Looks to Buy New Fighter Jet Fleet By Noah Shachtman EmailSeptember 05, 2008 | 9:58:00 AMCategories: Cash Rules Everything Around Me, Iraq's Insanity, Money Money Money, Planes, Copters, Blimps 070216f3431h081 Critics have blasted Iraq's government, for not spending more of its $79 billion surplus on rebuilding the country, while the U.S. continues to pour $10 billion a month into operations there. But Baghdad is finally starting to put at least some of that money to work. It's "seeking to buy 36 advanced F-16 fighters from the U.S.," the Wall Street Journal reports. The Journal characterizes the move as one that "could help reduce its reliance on U.S. air power and potentially allow more American forces to withdraw from the country than had been proposed." (Which ain't that many, as we learned this morning.) The paper also says the jets could serve "powerful new weapon[s] to use against the country's Shiite and Sunni insurgents." (Although fighter jets aren't primarily thought of as counterinsurgency-first tools.) Iraq has quickly become one of the biggest arms-markets on the planet, as Sharon noted in July. "The United States is funneling billions of dollars into modernizing Iraq's army so that the country's government can fend for itself after coalition troops withdraw." Some of the gear sold to Iraq has been relatively low-tech hardware from the former Soviet bloc -- Saddam's military was equipped by Moscow, after all. Other purchases are for more sophisticated, American items, like tanks and attack helicopters. Which means U.S. taxpayer money makes a bit of a round trip: from Washington to Baghdad, and then back into the coffers of American defense contractors. The F-16s would be "the most sophisticated weapons system Iraq has attempted to purchase so far," the Journal notes. The deal would be worth, by my back-of-the-napkin calculations, about $3 billion. If the sale goes through, however, it'd hardly be the only case of an American ally using U.S. cash to buy back our jets. Both Pakistan and Israel have bought F-16s of their own. [Photo: USAF]
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#1. To: tom007 (#0)
(Edited)
Tom... What was it Ike said about 50 years ago????
I really thought of you when I posted this. I know what Ike tried to tell the American peoples, but as the only thing we have learned from history is that we learn nothing from history we appear doomed to be led into senseless wars and soul killing conflicts by authoritarian meglomanics - over and over again. America is the problem country of the current world.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" this is the democracy and freedom [we're] bringing to iraq. doncha just love how the defense contractors make out like bandits.
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
I would say the American government is the problem. They are our enemy. The worlds enemy. You recall those instant brief images that are burned into your memory for a lifetime? I can remember and recall the instant Ike spoke those words because I was only half paying attention and it jolted me awake. Here was a man that spent a lifetime as a huge part of the MIC blowing the whistle on his friends and comrades. He was almost as good as Gen. Butler. Butlers words were swept under the rug as were Ikes.
I wonder if Iraq now has the same deal with Washington, DC like Israel has where when Israel announces it is going to "buy" something it is the American taxpayer actually making the purchase (with the money, of course, be printed out of thin air and added to the federal debt)?
AIPAC/PNAC/ADL/NAACP/FEDERAL RESERVE/SPLC/JINSA/ACLU/CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS/AEI/FEDERAL MEDIA & HOLLYWOOD: Oh, those Islamofascists.
Cynicism is my gig and I am wary of others that become so oriented. LOL
One of the most intelligent and honorable Americans ever.
AIPAC/PNAC/ADL/NAACP/FEDERAL RESERVE/SPLC/JINSA/ACLU/CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS/AEI/FEDERAL MEDIA & HOLLYWOOD: Oh, those Islamofascists.
You recall those instant brief images that are burned into your memory for a lifetime? You are more precise. I have heard that Ike was going to say "Military Industrial POLITICAL complex" but was dissuaded from including the "political" at the last minute. I have no sources fro this though, so it may not be true.
"Satan / Cheney in "08" Perhaps you recall the address by Ike? That moment? Bit of history on Ike... He was a desk soldier all his career, a glad hander, a paper shuffler, never in all those years got his hands dirty. After West Point he latched onto a General Fox Connor to enable him to climb the ladder.. Connor got him into all the needed Army schools and kept him active when better men were being dismissed from a peacetime Army. After Connor he came under the wing of Bernard Baruch, the man that got him promoted over dozens of older better qualified men, including Patton.. It was Baruch that placed him as the candidate in the republican party, even tho Baruch was a democrat. Thus when Ike made his farewell address, it was a shocker.
a la David Rockefeller & Jimmy Carter...
"The 'uniter' has brought the entire world together - to despise and deride us." lodwick
#2. To: Cynicom (#1)
#3. To: tom007 (#0)
Which means U.S. taxpayer money makes a bit of a round trip: from Washington to Baghdad, and then back into the coffers of American defense contractors.
#4. To: tom007 (#2)
America is the problem country of the current world.
#5. To: tom007, cynicom (#0)
It's "seeking to buy 36 advanced F-16 fighters from the U.S.," the Wall Street Journal reports.
#6. To: wbales (#5)
when Israel announces it is going to "buy" something it is the American taxpayer actually making the purchase (with the money, of course, be printed out of thin air and added to the federal debt)?
#7. To: Cynicom (#5)
Gen. Butler
#8. To: Cynicom, christine (#4)
I would say the American government is the problem. They are our enemy. The worlds enemy.
#9. To: tom007 (#8)
I have no sources fro this though, so it may not be true.
#10. To: Cynicom (#9)
It was Baruch that placed him as the candidate in the republican party, even tho Baruch was a democrat
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