Opinion (Robert Scheer): More weapons for the Mid-East maelstrom

Go figure: From the White House comes the news that self-styled anti-terrorism crusader George Bush wants to sell $20 billion in high-tech military equipment to Saudi Arabia, the source of most of the financing, and 15 of the 19 hijackers, for the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks on the United States. The justification can't be that this is yet another boondoggle for the military-industrial complex — the big winner in the war on terror — so we are told instead that the Sunni-dominated Saudi kingdom needs this weaponry to withstand a future challenge from those dastardly Shiite fellows in Iran.

Yes, the very same extremists whose surrogates are now, as a consequence of the U.S. invasion, pretending to be the indigenous government of Iraq. Recall that the Shiite militants who rule Tehran, along with the Sunni nuts around Osama bin Laden, were both the sworn enemy of Saddam Hussein. Now both of those forces are the main players, according to the Bush administration, vying for power in "liberated" Iraq, and our president is in the inane position of playing one group of fanatics against the other in the name of securing Iraq as a democratic haven.

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