Islam is the real positive change that you need to change for being a better person or a perfect human being, you can change yourself if you read QURAN, IF YOU DO THAT !! you will change this UMMAH, say I am not A Sunni or Shia, BUT I am just a MUSLIM. Be a walking QURAN among human-being AND GUIDE THEM TO THE RIGHT PATH.
President
Trump at a rally in Green Bay, Wis., on Saturday, during which he said
Washington was still “subsidizing” the Saudi military.CreditErin Schaff/The New York Times
President
Trump at a rally in Green Bay, Wis., on Saturday, during which he said
Washington was still “subsidizing” the Saudi military.CreditCreditErin Schaff/The New York Times
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — At a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wis., on Saturday,
President Trump tore into Saudi Arabia, an important Middle Eastern
ally, as yet another country giving the United States a bad deal.
He
said that although the kingdom had spent $450 billion in the United
States, Washington was still “subsidizing” the Saudi military. Mr. Trump
said during the rally that he had complained about that to the Saudi
monarch, King Salman, in a phone call.
“King!” Mr. Trump said he told the monarch. Using an expletive, he said, he griped that the United States was losing its shirt defending Saudi Arabia, “and you have a lot of money.”
It
is highly unlikely that the call took place as Mr. Trump described, but
in any case, the president appears to have mischaracterized the
relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
We fact-checked Mr. Trump’s claims.
Military support
The
relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has long rested
on a simple equation: The United States buys Saudi oil, and Saudi
Arabia buys American weaponry, with the understanding that America would
help protect the kingdom in case of a foreign attack.
Portraits
of President Trump and King Salman of Saudi Arabia were projected onto
the Ritz Hotel during the president’s visit to the kingdom in 2017.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times
Image
Portraits
of President Trump and King Salman of Saudi Arabia were projected onto
the Ritz Hotel during the president’s visit to the kingdom in 2017.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times
During
his visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, the first foreign trip of his
presidency, Mr. Trump said he had concluded a $110 billion arms deal
with the kingdom.
The
alleged deal, according to Mr. Riedel, was actually a conglomeration of
nonbinding letters of intent for future business and previous deals
initiated during the Obama administration, when the kingdom bought $112
billion in weapons.
Nearly
two years after Mr. Trump’s announcement, only one new major arms deal
has gone through. This month, the Pentagon awarded a $2.4 billion
contract to Lockheed Martin for missile defense technology. The Saudi
government was expected to pay $1.5 billion for its part of the deal, Reuters reported.
The
Saudi government has continued to pay the United States for munitions,
maintenance and training of its forces under previous contracts.
Saudi
Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and terminal in Saudi Arabia. The
United States buys Saudi oil, and Saudi Arabia buys American weaponry.CreditAhmed Jadallah/Reuters
Image
Saudi
Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and terminal in Saudi Arabia. The
United States buys Saudi oil, and Saudi Arabia buys American weaponry.CreditAhmed Jadallah/Reuters
As for subsidies, the kingdom receives about $10,000 per year in American military assistance, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Receiving this aid qualifies the kingdom for a discount on American training — which the kingdom also pays for.
Financial ties
Saudi Arabia has strong economic ties to the United States and is Washington’s largest trading partner in the Middle East.
The
kingdom has the world’s second-largest proven oil reserves, after
Venezuela, and is a top oil exporter, making it a major player in global
energy markets.
Despite the robust
trade, there is no publicly available information to back up Mr. Trump’s
claim of $450 billion in Saudi spending in the United States. The White
House has not detailed how Mr. Trump arrived at that number.
Total exports of goods and services to Saudi Arabia from the United States in 2018 were about $22.3 billion, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was down from about $25.4 billion in 2017.
Muslim
pilgrims praying at the Grand Mosque ahead of the annual Hajj
pilgrimage in Mecca in 2018. Saudi Arabia, as the protector of Islam’s
holiest sites — including Mecca — is often a valuable diplomatic
partner.CreditDar Yasin/Associated Press
Image
Muslim
pilgrims praying at the Grand Mosque ahead of the annual Hajj
pilgrimage in Mecca in 2018. Saudi Arabia, as the protector of Islam’s
holiest sites — including Mecca — is often a valuable diplomatic
partner.CreditDar Yasin/Associated Press
In
the long run, the rise in American oil production will probably
undermine the foundations of the trade relationship with Saudi Arabia.
The more oil that the United States produces, the less it needs to buy
from Saudi Arabia. And the kingdom produces little else that the United
States wants to buy.
Other benefits
The United States receives other advantages from its strong relationship with the kingdom.
Saudi
Arabia, with its clout in the Muslim world as the protector of Islam’s
holiest sites — including Mecca, in western Saudi Arabia — is often a
valuable diplomatic partner.
The two
countries’ intelligence services work together closely, sharing
information about terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic
State, and other threats.
Saudi
Arabia also often participates in American initiatives in the Middle
East, such as the United States-led coalition against the Islamic State.
In October, the kingdom gave $100 million to the United States to help stabilize parts of Syria liberated from the militants.
But even with security cooperation, the kingdom usually picks up the bill.
American
advisers work in important security, industrial, energy and cyber
security offices inside the Saudi government, their jobs paid for by the
Saudis, according to the Congressional Research Service.
“U.S.
training and security support to Saudi Arabia remains overwhelmingly
Saudi-funded via foreign military sales and other contracts,” the
service said.
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Muddles Facts Of Guns, Oil and Money In U.S.-Saudi Relations. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
US President Donald Trump has reiterated his support for Saudi Arabia
at a "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) rally where he also described a
negotiation tactic he used to get more money from the kingdom for the United States' military support.
During a rally with his supporters in
Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump indicated that he would remain a steadfast
supporter of the Saudi government, largely due to Riyadh's purchases
from US companies.
"They have nothing but cash, right?" he told the crowd. "They buy a lot from us, $450 billion they bought."
"You had people wanting to cut off Saudi Arabia ... I don't want to lose them," he said.
It's unclear where Trump drew the $450bn figure from. PolitiFact, a fact-checking website, has previously rated the claim as "Pants on Fire".
Trump then described a recent phone call with Saudi King Salman in
which he demanded more money from the oil-rich nation in exchange for
the defence the US provides.
"We lose $4.5 billion on a country to defend them, and they're rich," Trump said.
"So I called them. I said: listen, no good. They were in a state of
shock because they've never got a call like this in 25 years, right," he
said as the crowd cheered.
Trump went on: "I said we're losing $4.5 billion every
year, we can't do this anymore. This is crazy. He [King Salman] got very
upset, angry, said this is not fair. I said, of course, this is fair.
He said we'll give you $500 million more ... I said I want more. We
argued. So they paid us more than $500 million for one phone call, it
took me one call."
He said the king then asked him why he was calling, because "nobody had made such a call".
"That's because they were stupid!" Trump said.
Increased scrutiny
US-Saudi ties have faced increased criticism since the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
Khashoggi, a longtime royal insider who had become a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS), was killed and his body dismembered by a Saudi team, Turkey has alleged. The murder prompted a global outcry, with several countries imposing an arms embargo on the kingdom in light of the controversy.
But Trump stood with the Saudi leadership.
At the time of the murder, Trump said: "If we foolishly cancel these
contracts, Russia and China would be the enormous beneficiaries, and
very happy to acquire all of this newfound business.
"It would be a wonderful gift to them directly from the United States."
In November, the CIA concluded that MBS, the de facto ruler and heir to the Saudi throne, ordered the assassination.
Saudi authorities have strongly denied the claim, and in private
conversations with Western officials have instead criticised Turkish
authorities for failing to stop the murder.
"Their intelligence knew that a (Saudi) hit squad was coming. They
could have stopped them!" one of them quoted a Saudi official as saying.
copyrightDPA
The bomb - seen in the lower left - was uncovered during construction work
A 250kg (550lb) World War Two bomb caused damage in a German city when it exploded on Wednesday under controlled circumstances.
It was discovered in the southern city of Regensburg during construction work.
The
bomb could not be transported or defused, experts found. So they
instead evacuated some 4,500 people in a 1.5km (one mile) radius.
Despite the planned explosion, nearby buildings were damaged in the blast, their windows shattering.
Unexploded bombs from the war are not uncommon in Germany, which was heavily bombed by Britain and, later, the US.
Regional
newspaper Mittelbayerische Zeitung reported that the Regensburg bomb
was equipped with a particularly complicated detonator.
It also
presented a genuine threat, investigators decided - rather than being
considered a dud - and had to be detonated on the spot as soon as
possible.
A
bomb disposal robot was used to place an explosive charge next to the
bomb, it reported. The resulting explosion, shortly before 05:00 local
time (03:00 GMT) , could be heard kilometres away.
Police
then began a safety check of the area before allowing residents to
return to their homes. A full inspection of the damage caused will be
carried out on Wednesday.
The bomb has not been identified - but
British and US forces bombed the city multiple times during World War
Two, dropping hundreds of bombs, many of which did not explode.
A
US-made bomb was discovered in the city in January, which was defused
after a lengthy operation that resulted in the evacuation of more than
2,000 people.
In June 2017, a similar discovery made headlines
when more than 100 prisoners had to be evacuated when a bomb was found
near a jail - along with 1,500 residents.
Across Germany, evacuations for old bombs sometimes involve entire populations. About 18,500 people were evacuated from Ludwigshafen in August last year,while Frankfurt evacuated some 70,000 over the threat from a 1.4 tonne British "blockbuster" bomb in 2017.
Sudanese gather during a protest outside the army headquarters in the capital Khartoum on April 21, 2019. [AFP]
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)said on Sunday they had
agreed to send Sudan Sh300 billion ($3 billion ) worth of aid, throwing a
lifeline to the country’s new military leaders after protests led to
the ousting of president Omar al-Bashir.
The two Gulf Arab countries will deposit Sh50 billion ($500 million)
with the Sudanese Central Bank and send the rest in the form of food,
medicine and petroleum products, their state news agencies said in
parallel statements.
The aid comes amid wrangling between the Transitional Military Council
(TMC) and protesters and opposition groups who are demanding that
civilians lead a two-year transitional period.
The protesters who have kept up a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry since Bashir was removed on April 11.
SEE ALSO :New technology unveiled to fight workers exploitation
They have demonstrated in large numbers over the past three days, pressing for a rapid handover to civilian rule.
TMC head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan told state TV that the formation of a
joint military-civilian council - one of the activists’ demands - was
being considered. “The issue has been put forward for discussion and a
vision has yet to be reached,” he said.
“The role of the military council complements the uprising and the
blessed revolution,” said Burhan, adding that the TMC was committed to
handing power over to the people.
But a coalition of protesters and opposition groups said the TMC was not
serious about handing over power to civilians, describing the council
as an “extension of the old regime”.
“We have decided to opt for escalation with the military council, not to
recognise its legitimacy and to continue the sit-in and escalate the
protests on the streets,” Mohamed al-Amin Abdel-Aziz, of the Sudanese
Professional Association, told one of the largest crowds outside the
defence ministry.
SEE ALSO :Family seeks aid to bring kin stuck in Saudi
Burhan
also confirmed for the first time that Bashir and a number of former
officials, including presidential aide Nafie Ali Nafie, acting party
head Ahmed Haroun and former first vice president Ali Osman Taha, are
being held at a high-security prison in Khartoum.
Instructively, the Akashas' case in the US has excited a public
convinced it is definitive in Kenya’s fight against hard drugs. And this
exhilaration is because American authorities earlier promised to swoop
down on Akashas’ accomplices — judges, police officers, politicians, and
many other public servants who aided or abetted the enterprise founded
by Ibrahim Akasha, the poster boy of drug trafficking in Kenya.
EASY TARGET
Yet
the possibility of Americans prosecuting the Akashas’ allies and
accomplices — and other top local drug lords — is almost zero. Or to put
it in another way, the chance that Kenyan drug kingpins and barons will
be spirited to America is remote — unless there is a radical shift in
politics in 2022. And if Americans attempt to come for the Akasha
collaborators, it won’t be a walk in the park.
It
will be extremely difficult for Kenya’s political establishment to
relinquish its benefactors to Americans. There are explanations for
this, apart from the fact that their international operations were
linked to the US. The Akashas were an easy target because they failed to
bankroll politics and, therefore, fell out of favour with power
brokers. Kenya wouldn’t have surrendered the Akashas to America had they
been controlling political power.
“After
(the patriarch’s) death, the family continued to traffic drugs, but
there was infighting, and (it) came under scrutiny as the face of
Kenya’s heroin trade. As a result, they began to lose political
protection, culminating in their extradition,” according to the report The Heroin Coast: A political Economy Along the Estern African Seaboard,
published in June 2018 by Enhancing Africa’s Response to Transnational
Organised Crime (ENACT) through funding by the European Union and
considered groundbreaking research into the heroin economy on the East
African coastline.
It’s instructive
to note that during Mwai Kibaki’s presidency, the Akasha crime kinship
went underground after it was overwhelmed by rival drug cartels
controlled by five top politicians at the time.
To
buttress its fortunes against rivals such as the Akashas, one of the
cartels connected to elements at State House even imported the so-called
Artur brothers as hatchet men.
Two,
the newest drug lord is no longer the apolitical criminal or the
political lobbyist but the top politician, and if you like, the
government itself. The owners of the heroin and cocaine trade are those
who now control regional and national politics and business — and by
extension the two sets of government. They are firmly embedded in
politics and governance. So, how do you extradite the government? Or,
who will extradite the government?
During
the Akasha trial, the head of Kenya’s anti-narcotics unit, Salim Massa,
said in a sworn affidavit that the government “ordered the expulsions
of the Akashas on its own volition”. Instructively, Kenya had arrested
the Akasha brothers in 2014 yet, by the time they were extradited, they
had not been charged with drug trafficking.
While
it’s politically viable to hand over to foreign legal jurisdictions
fringe drug barons like the Akashas, it’s obviously imprudent to
surrender the political franchise. “Franchise” meaning the barons who
work for the benefit of the political establishment. According to ENACT,
“for decades now, the political patronage system (in Kenya) has been
influenced by money — cash that is needed to bribe, buy votes and
manipulate the political process … Political slush funds come from those
involved in transnational crime, including drug trafficking”.
PAPER TRAIL
The
modern Ibrahim Akasha isn’t the original morsel drug lord of the 1990s
who only dealt in the destructive merchandise because cleaning the
ill-gotten wealth wasn’t a hustle nor illegitimate, for laws against
money laundering were either absent or too lenient to deter the crime.
The new drug kingpin is a dollar billionaire controlling a matrix of
illicit business, not just drug trafficking.
What
we have is a big-time politician or influential business person who
handily combines drug trafficking with real estate, all forms of
trans-border smuggling, counterfeiting, poaching, and manipulation of
public procurement, and embracing it with legitimate business such as
banking or money lending, civil construction, clearing and forwarding,
and the service industry.
This is an
influential person able to covertly conjoin crime and legitimate
business, in an atmosphere of complacent and expedient politics whose
philosophy is that money buys political authority. Real business merely
facilitates illicit trade. Yet this diversification is not just to make
it possible for the drug lords to stay afloat during a slump in any of
their businesses. It is to circumvent the harsh banking regulations and
to avoid a financial paper trail.
Drug
trafficking is a hugely risky venture. But it is extremely profitable —
in fact more handy than Kenya’s newest cash cow, tenderpreneurship.
Unlike procurement manipulation, which often leaves a paper trail, the
evidence in drug trafficking is always the mule who is often sworn to
secrecy. The big fellow, the drug lord, will always survive as mules rot
in jails.
“One of the notable
evolutions in Kenya’s criminal economy is the increased integration of
drug networks and political office. Money derived from heroin and
cocaine has been used to fund multiple election campaigns, and drug
traffickers themselves have campaigned for political power funded by
drug money,” says the ENACT report — based on over 240 interviews in
Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa. The report quotes a source
who quips, “They (Kenya drug lords) are no longer seeking to compromise
the political system … They are seeking to control the political
system”.
ELECTORAL CAMPAIGNS
The
current Uhuru Kenyatta succession politics has exposed an urgent need
by the political class to amass wealth to fund election campaigns. Thus
there has emerged ferocious individuals ready to compromise public
procurement to make political fortunes in a blatant mix of crime and
political power.
Against this
background, it becomes increasingly obvious that the government and/or
controllers of politics will unlikely relinquish their benefactors to
foreign lands like America. The goodwill will not be there. And this
partly explains why all major heroin and cocaine seizures have been at
the hand of external forces — in particular the Combined Marine Forces
that patrol the Indian Ocean against Somali pirates — and not Kenyan
authorities.
“In general, people we
spoke to were extremely cynical about the prospect for any major change,
including efforts towards dismantling Kenya’s illicit networks, as the
structural features that allow for the current situation show no signs
of changing.”
All told, Kenya’s
narco-industry is widespread, beyond the understanding of the common
person. It’s deeply entrenched in national politics and governance and
has thus become the first-choice playground for foreign networks under
the protection, or in the employ, of top Kenyans. That’s why the country
is eagerly awaiting the Director of Public Prosecutions to furnish
Parliament a list of Kenyan drug traffickers, as recently demanded by
Chief Whip Benjamin Washiali.
STOLEN ELECTIONS
As
stated earlier, the Akashas may be the prototype drug enterprise. But
the controllers of the trade are entrenched in the country’s governance
system. As long as they provide the requisite balance in this highly
ethnicised Kenyatta succession politics, the possibility that they will
be prosecuted — within and without Kenya — is remote. If anything, there
are Kenyans being sought by foreign or international legal
jurisdictions but the government has conveniently declined to play ball,
as it were.
The Akashas extradition
may have been alluring to the then political power brokers eager to
curry favour with the then just-elected President Donald Trump. A
leadership weighed down by the International Criminal Court indictments
and accused of benefiting from a stolen 2013 election was seeking
international legitimacy. This is no longer tenable in Jubilee’s second
and last term.
![US President Donald Trump speaks to his supporters at a MAGA rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin [Darren Hauck/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/4/28/df0c7342722c4a92a29aa0254c7038a6_18.jpg "Trump: 'Saudi Arabia buys a lot, I don't want to lose them'")
