Sheikh Your Money Maker

There are over 550 million firearms in
worldwide circulation.
That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet.
The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?
--Lord of War (2005)

Shake your money maker
Like somebody 'boutta pay ya
--Shake Your Money Maker, Ludacris
_______________

Obama's speech in Cairo mixed fact with fiction (the better to fool you with, my pretties.) Yet in the midst of this he stressed a need for honesty with the Arab world.

Why not try a little honesty with the American taxpayers? Here's some honesty:

The U.S. rewards the hostility, violence and corruption of the area. The largest recipients of U.S. aid are the region's destabilizers. Saudi Arabia is run by corrupt playboy princes just as corrupt and undemocratic as was the Shah's U.S.-supported dictatorship in Iran. Neither S.A. nor Iran are any less radical than the Taliban, but they are/were "allies".

U.S. military aid keeps the area well-armed and fully militarized, and not for external protection. (Only the Israeli military is a true defense force.) The other armies of the region are arrayed to suppress their own populations, and to maintain the power of the ruling elites from overthrow by the masses. Egypt, S.A., Iraq and Afghanistan all fit the bill. U.S. tax dollars pay to destabilize the region.

Here's more:

• Obama was elected on an antiwar platform, yet both wars are still being footed by us.

• The Middle East's problem with radical Islam resulted from Western European colonial expansion, conducted with U.S. complicity. U.S. policy was and is exploitation of oil assets and collusion with corrupt and despotic sovereigns.

• The Palestinians, the Pakistanis, the Afghans or the Iraqis have no product to sell to the U.S. other than holding us over the barrel of their oil reserves.

• The Palestinians produce nothing but violence, yet the U.S. and U.N. give them money in prodigious amounts. It is the psychological phenomenon of acting out in order to gain attention. It profits them. If there were no threat of violence from their corner of the world, what would they earn?

• The Afghan war has morphed into AFPAK, and we fear radical Islamists will get their hands on a Paki weapon. Channeling Mr. Kinison: Hello -- radical islamists already have their hands on nukes, and will use them without qualms if invaded by India.

Nukes getting into non-state actors hands is a problem, but the development of those nukes came about via U.S. involvement, either implicit or complicit. Iran was one of the first during the Nixon-Ford administrations, with nary a peep from the U.S. since the Shah was our ally.

Pakistan was a key ally when Russia invaded Afghansitan, and the dollars flowed to train Islamic extremists to fight the Russians. These are the progenitors of the majuhadeens walking the same trails today, almost 30 years on.

Honesty: Pakistan developed their nukes with U.S knowledge, but was not confronted due to their importance as an anti-Communist ally. In truth, they were only self-serving opportunists who sell their nuclear technology to N. Korea, Iran, Libya and anyone else willing to pony up the cash.

U.S. Mid East policy has been myopic and self-defeating, destabilizing and militarizing the region. The U.S. is not a part of the solution, but a part of the problem. For similar reasons, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo has argued the U.S. should cease its African intervention. (Not likely on the military front, with AFRICOM looming on the horizon.)

The region will never be stabilized because there is too much money to be made by remaining unstable. The radical Islamists should thank the U.S. every day for elevating them to the postion of world players.

Honesty: Assalamu Alaikum.