Jobs Are No Excuse for
Arming a Murderous Regime
If the Saudi government is indeed behind the murder
of journalist Jamal Khashoggi there should be consequences – political,
military, economic, and reputational.
Unfortunately, President Trump begs to differ. His
reaction to questions about whether the United States would cut off arms sales
to Saudi Arabia if Riyadh is proven to be behind the killing of Khashoggi has been
to say that he does not want to jeopardize the alleged $110
billion in arms deals his administration has struck with the Saudi regime, and
the U.S. jobs that come with them.
In his recent interview with CBS 60 Minutes,
Trump specifically cites the needs of US weapons manufacturers as reasons to
keep US arms flowing to the Saudi regime, even if it ends up being responsible
for the murder of Khashoggi:
They are ordering military equipment. Everybody in
the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it…I
tell you what I don’t wanna do. Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, all these
[companies]…I don’t wanna hurt jobs. I don’t wanna lose an order like that.
Trump tells CBS’s Leslie Stahl that “there are
other ways of punishing” Saudi Arabia without cutting of US arms sales, but he
fails to specify what those might be.
Regardless of what ultimately happened to
Khashoggi, continuing US arms sales and military support to Saudi Arabia under
current circumstances is immoral. Jobs should not be an excuse to arm a
murderous regime that not only may be behind the assassination of a US resident
and respected commentator but is responsible for thousands of civilian
casualties in its three-and-one-half-year military
intervention in Yemen – the majority killed with U.S-supplied bombs and combat
aircraft and US refueling and targeting assistance.
The Khashoggi case merely underscores the approach
of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the power behind the throne in
Riyadh who is the most ruthless and reckless leader in Saudi history. Rep. Ted
Lieu (D-CA), one of a growing list of congressional critics of the regime,
has asserted that the actions of
the Saudi/UAE coalition in Yemen “look like war crimes.” And the impacts go
well beyond the indiscriminate air strikes that have targeted hospitals,
civilian market places, funerals, a wedding, and most recently aschool bus carrying 40 children.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also spearheading a partial blockade that has made
it extremely difficult to get urgently need humanitarian assistance to Yemenis
who desperately need it, putting millions of people on the brink of
starvation. And their bombings of water treatment plants and other civilian
infrastructure are responsible for the most serious outbreak of cholera in recent
memory, a totally preventable consequence of the war.
Even if it were acceptable to favor jobs over human
rights in this case, the economic benefits are in fact marginal. Trump strongly
implies that if the United States were to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia,
the $110 billion arms “deal” he has made with Riyadh would be in jeopardy. But
as the fact checker for The Washington Post has pointed out, the idea that there ever
was a $110 billion arms deal is “fake news.” It is a public relations figure
cooked up by the Trump administration that combines offers made under the Obama
administration, a few new deals, and a long wish list of sales that may never
materialize.
In reality, since Trump took office, Saudi Arabia
has signed commitments for about $14.5 billion in US weaponry, only
slightly more than 10% of the $110 billion figure Trump boasts about at every
opportunity.
To cite one pertinent example, the precision-guided
bomb sale to Saudi Arabia that the Trump administration green-lighted last year
will support at most a few thousand jobs in an economy that employs over 125 million
people.
Military procurement generates fewer jobs than virtually any
other form of economic activity, and many of the jobs associated with US arms
sales are created overseas in the purchasing nation as a condition of the sale.
For example, as part of Mohammed bin Salman’s much-touted economic plan, the
goal is to have a full 50% of the work generated
by Saudi arms imports done in the kingdom by 2030. US firms are already jumping
to comply with this mandate by setting up subsidiaries in Saudi Arabia and
signing off on the assembly of U.S.-supplied weapons there.
Trump’s claim that Russia or China will quickly
swoop in to grab any arms deal the United States declines to conclude with the
Saudi regime is also suspect. The Saudi arsenal is heavily dependent on US and
UK-supplied weaponry. It would take many years and tens of billions of dollars
to change course in any meaningful way – money that Riyadh can ill afford as it
hemorrhages money for its brutal war in Yemen and tries to cope with unstable
oil prices. It’s always possible that the Saudi military would make a token purchase
from Russia or China to send a signal, but the idea that the United States
would lose out on a huge volume of arms sales as a result is unlikely in the
extreme.
There are other ways to promote jobs in the United
States that do not involve accepting blood money from the Saudi regime.
Congress should not be dissuaded from doing the right thing due to false claims
about the economic benefits of the U.S.-Saudi arms trade.
The ball is now in the congressional court, where
bipartisan opposition to the Trump administration’s cozy relationship with
Saudi Arabia is growing. Most recently the House is seeking to end US support for
the Saudi-led war in Yemen under the War Powers Resolution, an effort led by
Mark Pocan (D-WI), Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Adam Smith (D-WA) and co-sponsored by
a bipartisan group of dozens of their colleagues. There will also be strong
opposition to a long-discussed sale of precision-guided US bombs to Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates once it comes up for formal consideration.
The case of Jamal Khashoggi is just one of many
reasons for the United States to distance itself from the Saudi regime. The
time to act is now.
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and
Security Project at the Center for International Policy and the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed
Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex. Originally
published in Lobelog. Reprinted with permission
from Foreign Policy in
Focus.
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