Chris Floyd: Bombs, Babes and Baksheesh: Civilization in Action

Bombs, Babes and Baksheesh: Civilization in Action
Written by Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 19 September 2007


If you want to know how the world works – how the free, enlightened, civilized West works – look no further than the deal announced yesterday between Her Majesty's Government of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There you will find the essence of our time in a nutshell (or perhaps a missile casing): bribes, bombs, babes, blackmail, terrorism, tyranny, secrecy and repression – all wrapped up with a shiny official ribbon and foisted on the public without a by-your-leave.

We reported here a few months ago how Britain's now-discarded leader, the exceedingly saintly Christian gentleman, Tony Blair, deep-sixed a two year investigation by his own Serious Fraud Office into the swamp of corruption oozing from a massive arms deal between the Saudis, the British government and its favorite master of war, BAE Systems (a multinational arms merchant that is also one of the top war profiteers in the United States). BAE had kicked back a billion dollars into the accounts of Saudi Prince Bandar (also known as "Bandar Bush" for his intimate ties with America's ruling family), and spread the grease around to a number of Saudi royals – including cash, cars and coquettes for hire – to keep them sweet in the long-running fighter-plane deal (£21 billion and counting) that stretches back to the Thatcher years.

For the past couple of years, BAE and its Downing Street subsidiary have been trying to extend the arms deal with a new batch of 72 Typhoon fighters. The base price of the new extension is £4.4 billion, but the true value is much higher, as the published figure doesn't include spare parts, maintenance and training, the Guardian reports. But the SFO's probe into Saudi-BAE sleaze didn't sit very well with the Keepers of the Two Holy Mosques, who objected to seeing the stains on their fine rainment exposed to the generality – and even more to the possibility of having to return the baksheesh that BAE had ladled out.

As the deadline loomed for finalizing the new arms deal, Dick Cheney took a hand in the game. (Where there's grease, there's Cheney, slithering from throne room to boardroom on a slimy trail of oil.) Cheney, meeting with the Saudi royals in hopes of getting them to lean on their Sunni proteges in Iraq, reportedly agreed to add his considerable weight to the Saudis' protestations to Blair over the SFO investigation. For their part, the most holy rulers of the one of the world's most ruthless totalitarian states decided to up the ante by threatening to cut off all cooperation with the UK on terrorism issues, especially the sharing of intelligence on the Islamic extremists who rise up with such marvelous fecundity from the Saudi sands. The proposition from Riyadh was brutally simple : kill the SFO probe, or risk having your people killed by our homegrown zealots while we turn a blind eye.

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http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2442/1/

the BFEE, and the Saudi royals are out of power, you will continue to see the dirtiest and most obscenely corrupt deals on this planet designed to enslave all us peons and pissants. I was going to type that the Saudis were the ones that deserved to be Shocked and Awed but then I realized what that statement actually meant. The same thing that happened when we attacked Iraq, that innocents would die. So I took it out.

But somehow Saudi Arabia needs to be reigned in. I just can never figure out what the solution to the problem is. But someone needs to come up with one. Soon.

The Saudis aren't mentioned enough, by anyone, so this should be read. Plus, this guy is a great writer.