Money for War in the Middle East - No Problem

If war is going to spread throughout the Middle East it won't be for a lack of military aid from the USA.

The United States framed its commitment last month to more than 60 billion dollars in weapons sales to the Middle East as a measure against Iran. The packaging is intended to blunt Arab objections to an aid boost to Israel, and to win congressional support for military aid to Arab countries.

Is there any concern that someday we might be fighting the very countries that we have supplied with weapons (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan maybe). And for every advanced weapon we sell to these middle east allies, Israel get even more advanced weapons to counteract them.

Saudi Arabia gets $20 billion worth of weapons.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was more blunt in his criticism of the Saudis.

He said the United States had permitted the Saudis to "get off the hook" on failure to counter terrorism. "They have to prove they are not in a secret coalition with terrorists" to harm Americans, Rohrabacher said.

And what about the sale of $5 billion worth of advanced F-16 fighters to our ally Pakistan? Are there any concerns about Pakistan transfering US technology to other "third parties"? Has Pakistan ever done anything like that in the past? I wonder how our ally India feels about that? It's not like we need to be concerned about these two nuclear weapon armed countries.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Bush administration put as much effort into diplomacy in the Middle East?