Ron Paul: Saudi Arms Deal Is About Iran

by Rep. Ron Paul, Antiwar.com, November 02, 2010

Listen to Rep. Paul deliver this speech by clicking here.

This month the U.S. administration notified Congress that it intends to complete one of the largest arms sales in U.S. history to one of the most repressive regimes on earth. Saudi Arabia has been given the green light by the administration to spend $60 billion on some 84 new F-15 aircraft, dozens of the latest helicopters, and other missiles, bombs, and high-tech military products from the U.S. weapons industry.

Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers came from, is a family-run dictatorship, where there are no political parties, no independent press, and where any form of political dissent is met with the most severe punishment. We are told that we must occupy Afghanistan to encourage more rights for women, an issue on which the Saudi regime makes the Taliban look rather liberal by comparison. We are told that our increasingly aggressive policies toward Iran are justified by that country’s rigid Islamic laws and human-rights violations, while the even more repressive Islamic rule in Saudi Arabia is never mentioned.

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