That damn Bernie Sanders and his F-35...grumble..grumble...

[Bread and Circus]

Emails Show Hillary Clinton Aides Celebrating F-15 Sales to Saudi Arabia: “Good News”

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/22/saudi-christmas-present/

The shockingly brutal Saudi air campaign in Yemen has been led by American-made F-15 jet fighters.

The indiscriminate bombing of civilians and rescuers from the air has prompted human rights organizations to claim that some Saudi-led strikes on Yemen may amount to war crimes. At least 2,800 civilians have been killed in the conflict so far, according to the United Nations — mostly by airstrikes. The strikes have killed journalists and ambulance drivers.

The planes, made by Boeing, have been implicated in the bombing of three facilities supported by Doctors Without Borders (Médicins Sans Frontières). The U.N. Secretary General has decried “intense airstrikes in residential areas and on civilian buildings in Sanaa, including the chamber of commerce, a wedding hall, and a center for the blind,” and has warned that reports of cluster bombs being used in populated areas “may amount to a war crime due to their indiscriminate nature.”

Bombs dropped by fighter jets are pulverizing Yemen’s architectural history, possibly in violation of international humanitarian law.

A few years earlier, as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton made weapons transfer to the Saudi government a “top priority,” according to her closest military aide.

[MADem]

1. Better they fight their OWN wars than we do it for them--we used to be their mercenary military.

How soon people forget that US servicemembers BY THE TENS OF THOUSANDS had sand in their boots, courtesy of KSA. Would it be preferable if we'd continued that arrangement?

Do you seriously think they would have said "OH, we can't get the Boeings? Well, let's forget ALL ABOUT trying to kit out an Air Force, then, shall we? Yeaaaaah....never mind, then!!!"

Don't be silly--they would have bought the Eurofighter, or the MIG or something else, maybe from China. They'd have planes, and those planes would put ordnance on target. And maybe not as accurately as Boeing manages to do.

The only difference is that the OIL money they were spending on those aircraft wouldn't have benefitted US aviation workers. Some other nation--Russia, say, or France--would have gotten that money. Some other nation would benefit from the spare parts and ordnance sales, too. AND we'd have no opportunity to manage that pipeline, either, if needs must.

The problem with the F-35 is this: It is a PIECE OF SHIT AIRCRAFT. Obscenely expensive, BUGGY as hell. Sanders is a hypocrite to play the peacenik, on the one hand, and then back this PIECE OF SHIT AIRCRAFT just because the Senator from Lockheed Martin thinks it's a good idea to have this dangerous, buggy, PIECE OF SHIT AIRCRAFT flying around his former fiefdom of Burlington.

All Politics is LOCAL--and that PIECE OF SHIT AIRCRAFT is probably the ugliest example of pork Vermont has EVER seen.

[Bread and Circus]

2. Oooh yes...so much better!!!

[jmg257]

3. Just fucking amazing...

As weapons transfers were being approved, both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Boeing made donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Washington Post revealed that a Boeing lobbyist helped with fundraising in the early stages of Hillary Clinton’s current presidential campaign.

[polly7]

4. Using them to commit war-crimes against the children of Yemen.

Has she spoken at all of those atrocities cited by HRW and others?

And ............ why would anyone celebrate enabling the sales of weapons of mass destruction to nations with such gross human-rights abuse records? I don't understand the logic. Did she believe they'd suddenly become humanitarian forces once they'd gotten them, given their ugly and horrific military ambitions in the area over the last decades, as well as their support of IS and other barbaric groups they've used to destabilize other nations and cause the suffering for millions of human beings?

[msongs]

5. bernie and lockheed sitting in a tree....everybody sing along now nt

[polly7]

6. Even I, as much as I HATE war, realize there is a need for weapons for self-defense

and to join with allies to fight against such horrors as WWII and the Holocaust.

Also a tremendous need for manufacturing for every state/province/country in the world - whatever product it may be.

Do you have any information/documentation - recently released emails, etc. on Sanders dealing with HR abusers committing war-crimes and making tens of millions doing so with these jets?

[Scuba]

7. Yippee! We sold WMD to a brutal dictatorship! Hooray!!!!!!!

[DrDan]

8. this took congressional approval - how did Bernie vote?

[DanTex]

9. Bernie's whole foreign policy plan is to get Saudi Arabia and other ME countries to fight ISIS.

Does he want them to fight without any weapons?

[Trenzalore]

10. You could have stopped with Bernie's plan

After you scratch the surface there is no there there.

[Bread and Circus]

11. grumble grumble...