Selling F-16s to Dictators

The US authorities have decided it is okay to sell F-16s to Pakistan. Pakistan is a dictatorship, and if free and democratic elections were held today, they would vote in some very anti-American leaders. The majority of the people there hate the US policies in the Middle East.

Now, F-16s can only be used to drop bombs, including nuclear bombs. The dropping of bombs means lots and lots of innocent people who never did anything to us (the very reason why they hate us so much! Not hard to figure out, is it?) will get killed. Yet Bush had this to say yesterday about a family tragedy (that passes as "news" in our country):

"In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life."

What a hypocrite.


What the Bush administration is pursuing is spreading instability and violence everywhere in the Middle East. They care NOT how many innocents die, which is why there is no attempt to count the dead in Iraq - indeed, there are serious efforts to stop anyone else from counting and reporting on this. If they cared, they would count and take note of how many died in Iraq.

Helena Cobban, a blogger (Just World News) and journalist (who writes for the Christian Science Monitor) who knows quite a bit about the Middle East, said this: "She (Rice) reveals a totally cavalier attitude to the whole non-trivial concept of social-political stability in Middle Eastern countries." and "So it looks as though Arc of Instability may now actually be the goal of U.S. policy, rather than its diagnosis of an existing problem. " She was talking about Lebanon, but the same idea applies to selling F-16s to Pakistan.

But, hey, Lockheed Martin is happy to sell these F-16s to Pakistan and make a bunch of money. I have not watched Aaron Brown's show Newsnight on CNN for months now, but last time I did I saw that Lockheed Martin was advertising on CNN. Why would Lockheed Martin be advertising to the American public? When was the last time YOU purchased a fighter jet? Well, I propose they are doing so as a "kickback" to CNN. They want CNN to keep feeding up slop (like celebrity crime and family tragedies) as "news" and slanting whatever little foreign news they do present as favorable to Lockheed Martin. No mention of the innocents killed by the bombs and airplanes of the USA on CNN. No, if you watch them, you would think that no innocent was every killed by our "smart" bombs.

Oh, and they are a bunch of hypocrites, too.

But keep in mind: F-16s are meant to drop big bombs on people, and kill a whole bunch of them, innocents included. This does not bother Lockheed Martin, CNN or Mr. Bush, in spite of the nonsense that comes out of his mouth.

And how did India respond to the sale of F-16s to Pakistan? From an Indian newspaper:

"NEW DELHI - The reaction has been quicker than expected. Peeved at the US decision to supply F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, India has made it more than apparent that it is not at all happy and will play hard to get in all defense negotiations with the US. Making India's irritation clear, Delhi has announced new defense orders to Russia, Germany, Italy, Israel and even Qatar, worth a total of US$746 million."

Now, even if these F-16s are never used to drop bombs and directly kill innocents, they will take health care and food away from some of the poorest people on the planet. They will, guaranteed, kill innocents.

No doubt about it.