Trump's $110 billion Bow. Dancing for Dollars

Two of a Kind

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

The Predator in Chief is over in Saudi Arabia on behalf of the US arms industry and as the picture shows, a good time is being had by all. Trump sealed a $110 billion arms deal as one of US imperialism’s staunchest allies in the region (the Apartheid Zionist regime being the other) must be getting short of weapons of mass destruction due to its murderous assault on the poverty stricken nation of Yemen.

Trump was elated, telling journalists (from the fake or real news I don’t know) that this was a “tremendous day” that will bring “hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs. So I would like to thank all the people of Saudi Arabia.”

Trump dragged country singer, Toby Keith along on the trip and he gave a concert apparently, although only men over the age of 21 could attend.  Many of Keith’s supporters may well refer to his audience at the concert as “Rag Heads” or Sand Ni%*ers as Keith is a pretty narrow minded individual when it comes to politics. He’s patriotic and proud which means he doesn’t question authority.  He also attacked the Dixie Chicks, especially the lead singer Natalie Maines.  If you haven’t seen it you should watch the movie “Shut up and Sing” it’s about that incident with the Dixie Chicks and Ms Maines, Keith doesn’t come close to this sister when it comes to courage and integrity.

It’s not quite clear if in his thanks to “all the people of Saudi Arabia” Trump included the young woman who was gang raped by seven men and received 100 lashes for it as a punishment. She appealed the punishment but got another100 added on. By appealing, she was attempting to "aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media", the judge said.  The woman’s original crime was driving in a car with a male who wasn’t a relative.  The lawyer representing her was also suspended.

Did Trump thank those Saudi’s who dare criticize the regime, or those who dare admit to being atheists which is designated as terrorism in Saudi Arabia? Perhaps the foreign workers from Nepal, the Philippines and Bangladesh that have been raped, murdered and tortured by rich Saudi’s that employ them.

Trump, Tillerson Wilbur Ross dancing with the Saudi's and salivating at the thought of the dollars

Don’t thinks so. Politics makes strange bed fellows as they say and the Saudi’s have a lot of money, no unions, a ruthless state machine that suppresses any dissent. The US arms sales are for national defense but also domestic oppression; the Saudi regime must be protected. The weapons are to ensure that the ruling class in Saudi Arabia, the main perpetrators of Islamic extremism, are safely in the drivers seat. The Arab Spring was also a warning to them and the US doesn’t want that oil wealth falling in to the hands of some crazy mass uprising wanting to democratize society to nationalize the oilfields and other crazy ideas.

It’s a great deal really. The US sells similar weaponry to the Zionist regime, another racist  regime in the area, but always ensure the Zionists have the edge, including certain technology that the Saudi’s don’t get.  Israel is a much more reliable ally, not because the US capitalist class loves Jews, just the opposite, but because of the potential power of the Arab masses, the Arab working class. The Arab Spring removed a few US installed and financed dictators in the area and it is this fear that makes Israel a better ally. The Arab regimes are too unstable and too hated by their own working class.

Trump’s talk of investment is hot air of course but what’s more absurd about it is when one thinks that hundreds of billions of dollars is paid to the US arms industry that could itself be invested in society.  More importantly, this wealth, in the form of weapons of mass destruction, is created by US workers.  The labor power, material and productive forces used in creating this product could be applied in a totally different way, in a way that would produce commodities and social necessities that aren’t used for mass slaughter and that aren’t produced for profit.

But that’s not how capitalism works is it.