The Rock N' Roll Induction ceremony happened this wekend. USA TODAY's Jerry Shriver captured the celebration. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies return here every few years to the hall's spiritual and literal home, music history often ignites. Such was the case Saturday night at the 30th annual gathering, which saw the inductions of Ringo Starr, Bill Withers, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Green Day, Lou Reed and the "5'' Royales.
They love rock 'n' roll: Black leather-clad Joan Jett and her Blackhearts opened the show at a sold-out Public Hall by tearing through early hits Bad Reputation and Cherry Bomb (the latter aided by Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl on guitar and vocals, and original bass player Gary Ryan). She then introduced friend Tommy James to sing psychedelic pop hit Crimson and Clover, a 1968 hit for him that became a 1982 cover hit for her. Grohl and Miley Cyrus joined in on vocals (as did the audience). Cyrus then took to the podium to induct the group wearing a midriff-baring top (and not the pasties she was seen in earlier). Cyrus who, at 22, is more than 30 years the junior of the Godmother of Punk, said she remembered early on wanting to have sex with the singer, whom she called "a wonder woman,'' an admirable activist and a "bada-- babe on the planet.''
Jett choked up during the long standing ovation that greeted her arrival at the podium, then acknowledged Cyrus as "another strong woman who does things her way.'' Before calling out the names of her bandmates in her first group, the Runaways, Jett noted that "rock 'n' roll is an idea and an ideal. Sometimes we forget the political impact it has on people around the world. ... It's about giving a voice to people who weren't satisfied with whatever box they were put into.''
Blues power: Electrified, Chicago-style blues music entered the rock mainstream in the mid-'60s via groups such as the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and J. Geils frontman and presenter Peter Wolf reminded the audience of that fact. "They always got the house on fire and played every night like it was the last night.'' Surviving members Mark Naftalin, Elvin Bishop and Sam Lay (frontmen Butterfield and guitarist Mike Bloomfield both died in the 1980s but were represented by family members) accepted the award. "That was a butt-kicking band and we helped the blues cross over,'' said Bishop.
A tough-sounding group led by Zac Brown, Tom Morello and harmonica player Jason Ricci reprised the group's Born in Chicago,with Brown showing impressive dexterity on guitar. Then, a Bishop-fronted band that included 80-year-old drummer/vocalist Lay and harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold ushered out their segment with the Muddy Waters classic Got My Mojo Workin'. Texas pride: Presenter John Mayer inducted Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, describing Vaughan as "the ultimate guitar hero,'' having the courage to overcome drug and alcohol addiction and "coming back stronger.'' That inspired Mayer to resist temptations in his own career, he said. "Heroes live forever.'' Double Trouble members Reese Wynans, Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon accepted on behalf of their leader, who died in 1990, joined by older brother Jimmie Vaughan, who gave a shout-out to inductees the "5'' Royales.
A band led by Mayer, Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall II and Gary Clark Jr., plus the Double Trouble members, blasted the rapturous auditorium with Stevie Ray's finest: Pride and Joy, Texas Flood and a Jimmie song about his brother, Six Strings Down. Great Green Day: Members of Fall Out Boy inducted the pop-punkers Green Day (Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnst and Tré Cool), joking that it was appropriate since fans often confuse the groups when posing for pictures in airports with fans. Armstrong, wearing a floppy tuxedo bow tie, honored his elders — Elvis, The Who, the Rolling Stones, Kool & the Gang, Def Leppard — adding, "I feel like my record collection is sitting here in this room.''
The group then showered the collected stars and fans with smart, sharp and furiously paced versions of American Idiot, When I Come Around and Basket Case. Armstrong's voice was especially clear and strong and bratty on Basket Case. Perfect night: Presenter Patti Smith and Lou Reed's widow, Laurie Anderson, both spoke movingly of the love affair between Reed and New York City, and how the Velvet Underground, said Smith, "were a great band to dance to.'' Reed, who died in 2013, now is a two-time member of the HOF, having been enshrined as a Velvet member in 1996, also by Smith.
Karen O and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sang a feisty version of Vicious before giving way to Beck, who performed a delightful version of Satellite of Love. Wither Withers?: Speculation was rampant before the ceremony as to whether inductee Bill Withers, who hasn't recorded since the mid-'80s and who has performed only rarely during the past 20 years, would sing. The question was answered — partially — following Stevie Wonder's dignified induction speech. Withers, 76, accepted his award saying, "Stevie Wonder inducting Bill Withers into the Hall of Fame is like a lion opening a door for a kitty cat.'' Later he cracked that, "This has to be the largest AA meeting in the Western hemisphere.''
Withers led Wonder to a harpejji (keyboard instrument) on the stage and sat next to him silently during a moody and powerful Ain't No Sunshine, which they had to restart when Wonder discovered he or the band were playing in the wrong key. Withers then escorted him to another keyboard as a band filed onstage, led by John Legend. His Use Me was properly dark and funky, and punctuated by jabbing horns. For set closer Lean on Me, Legend took the first verse, Wonder the second, and then Legend led Withers to the stage to sing along with the group.
It didn't come easy: Ringo Starr was the last of The Beatles to be inducted for his solo work, even though he scored several of the first post-Beatles solo hits. In the building where the group played in 1964, Paul McCartney did the induction, recounting shared hotel rooms and moments of musical amazement, saying "it's a great honor for me to induce him, uh, induct him in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tonight.'' Starr said he "felt lucky'' that the ceremony was in Cleveland. While working in a factory in England, he picked up radio broadcasts out of Luxembourg which carried rock 'n' roll shows hosted by Cleveland DJ Alan Freed, and that spurred his love of the music. He later cracked that an agreement among his mates to fess up to passing gas "is why we all got on so well.''
Ringo then climbed behind a drum kit and launched into Boys, backed by Green Day. After a lengthy break, during which Starr accepted a few hugs from the crowd ("Hugs are fine, but watch the crazy eyes,'' he cracked) he joined an all-star group for the ceremony-closing jam session. Starr's brother-in-law Joe Walsh kicked off the intro to It Don't Come Easy, with Ringo adding jaunty vocals and flashing a peace sign.
Saying "the stage feels a little empty to me,'' Starr summoned Sir Paul to join him for With a Little Help From my Friends. But they were the frosting as most of the night's inductees and performers also joined in a lusty rendition of the Beatles classic. The supergroup brought down the auditorium with I Wanna Be Your Man, as Wonder, McCartney, Armstrong, Legend, Mayer, Wolf, Walsh, Morello, Cyrus, Brown, Grohl and anyone else who could carry a tune or a guitar drove it home. Starr's ocean-wide grin said it all.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will air May 30 (8 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO.
At NH summit, GOP 2016 hopefuls take turns attacking Clinton ahead of her arrival. GOP presidential hopefuls turned up their attacks Saturday on Hillary Clinton -- taking turns piling on the 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner during a party summit in New Hampshire.
The first five 2016 GOP presidential candidates or potential candidates used at least some of their stage time at the Republican Leadership Summit, in Nashua, N.H., to criticize Clinton, who is scheduled to be in the state Monday and Tuesday. “I’m starting to worry that when Clinton travels she'll need two planes -- one for her and her entourage and one for her baggage,” said Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, particularly critical of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state in which four Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya, and she used a private server and email address for official business.
“When I think of scandals, the one that bothers me the most is Benghazi,” he continued. “What I fault Hillary most for is for nine months (Americans in Benghazi) pleaded for help.” Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects were on the program for the weekend conference that ended Saturday afternoon. Paul was followed by former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, the only high-profile, potential 2016 GOP White House female candidate so far this year.
“Hillary Clinton must not be president of the United States,” said Fiorina, who repeated her criticism that Clinton’s extensive travelogue as the country’s top diplomat is not a marker of success. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal began his remarks by pretending to have mistakenly read a Clinton stump speech, saying he wanted to talk about President Obama’s “great success” in the Middle East. “I’m sorry, this is Hillary Clinton’s speech, not my speech,” Jindal said to laughter and applause. He later said: “We can win, we must win, we will win. It is critical we beat Hillary Clinton.” N.Y. real estate mogul Donald Trump was perhaps the easiest on Clinton, suggesting she was not invincible. “I know Hillary very well,” he said. “I can beat her. And I think most people cannot.”
South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsay Graham was critical of Clinton’s now 8-day-old campaign in which her interactions with people in Iowa, and those she met along the way in her van, appear to be carefully managed. “Hillary Clinton couldn't be here today because we didn't ask her,” said Graham, also critical of Clinton before, during and after the Benghazi attacks. “And the reason she isn't (here) is because you can ask questions. This listening tour is like North Korea. Is there anything you'd like to ask the dear leader? How does she get away with this? I don't know. If you want to meet her you better be able to run 35mph” to catch her van. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CNN Reported that GOP presidential hopefuls woo party faithful in New Hampshire. By GOP presidential hopefuls descended on New Hampshire over the weekend as part of the Republican Leadership Summit, a two-day event that drew about 500 activists and the party's entire 2016 field to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nashua. The event's speakers ranged from party front-runners to little-known candidates, all of whom offered up criticisms of President Barack Obama, espoused conservative principles and sought to distinguish themselves from the rest of the GOP pack.
On Saturday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, real estate mogul Donald Trump, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul took the stage. The day before, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry made their case.
Here's a look at what the candidates had to say:
Scott Walker: The Wisconsin governor loved to talk about Kohl's. His tax theory was the "Kohl's curve." His attack on Hillary Clinton's aloofness was that she's probably never shopped at Kohl's. His suit came from Jos. A. Bank, but the shirt? That was from Kohl's. And probably purchased with coupons he pulled out of the newspaper. For Walker, it was his way of emphasizing his penny-pinching conservative ways, as well as the value of a dollar for an up-and-coming family. Walker talked of working at McDonald's (at the same time Rep. Paul Ryan worked at another McDonald's down the road). He said his first job was at a countryside restaurant, washing dishes. Then Walker transitioned into a riff on the American dream—and how Republicans should measure their success by the number of citizens they are able to shift off welfare programs. "It comes from empowering people to live their own lives and their own destinies with the dignity that is borne of work," Walker said. He added: "In America, you can do and be anything that you want. The opportunity is open to all. But the outcome should be up to each and every one of us." Walker also promised to "bring the fight to them" when it comes to the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He said Clinton is "really an extension of the third term of Barack Obama ... and we've got a real choice out there."
Ted Cruz: The most fiery comments of the day came from the Texas senator, who laid into President Obama's handling of immigration and foreign threats. The Obama administration is so bad, he told the all-Republican crowd, that the final 20 months of its second term will be "like Lord of the Flies." "If only the terrorists attacked a golf course," Cruz said, taking a long pause, "that might actually get the White House's attention." He said he won't vote for Obama's nominee for attorney general, Loretta Lynch, drawing applause. Cruz also praised New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who, like Cruz, was among the 47 Senate Republicans who signed a letter to Iran's leader warning that the nuclear deal negotiated by the United States and five other world powers might not survive Obama's presidency. He also mocked Democrats who have called that letter a political vulnerability for its signers, and said his only regret is that, like John Hancock, he didn't sign his name larger.
Mike Huckabee: Introduced as "the real hope from Arkansas"—a play on the hometown of Hope that he and Bill Clinton share—the former Arkansas governor talked about running against "the Clinton machine." Huckabee said he opposed a Clinton himself or a candidate for whom the Democratic family was campaigning in nearly every run for office he's made. "If somebody wants to know what is it like running against their organization and their apparatus, come see me. ... I've got some scars," he said. Huckabee offered red meat, hitting President Obama's executive actions on immigration, and added that "I want the Republican Party to start acting like the Republican Party." He called for term limits for both Congress and judges, compared challenges the United States faces in the Middle East, particularly Iran, to "a viper that will bite us," and called for a "fair tax" that would replace all others with a national consumption tax on retail sales. He also railed against the IRS, which he said has become "a criminal enterprise, and we need to get rid of it."
John Kasich: The Ohio governor who's weighing a dark-horse bid for the White House sought to leverage his more than three decades as a player in Republican politics as he offered what he described as a message of unity. He started from the beginning: 1982, when President Ronald Reagan's popularity was flagging, but Kasich embraced the Republican president during his first run for Congress. "I was the only Republican in America that year to defeat an incumbent Democrat," he said. Kasich climbed the ranks in Congress, eventually becoming the House Budget Committee chairman, where he helped negotiate a 1997 budget that put the United States on track for a major surplus. After leaving the House, he eventually ran for Ohio governor and was elected twice, winning a second term in 2014 with nearly 64% of the vote in the "swingiest of swing states," he said. "So what's the lesson of leadership? No polls, no focus groups, no consultants in the back telling you what to say. None of that. You, as a leader, need to know what you're for," he said.
Lindsey Graham: Warning that "9/11 is coming again" if the United States doesn't combat the rising threat of terrorism, Graham called for new U.S. military action in the Middle East. "You know how you defeat radical Islam? You go over there and you fight them so they don't come here," he said. Republicans are banking on foreign policy being an asset in the presidential race, but do any potential candidates have the credentials to make that case? Graham was self-deprecating, joking about having gone to law school ("nobody's perfect"), his pay as a senator ("I'm not saying I'm worth it, but it's what I make"), and the reality, in his view, that any of the Republican presidential contenders are a better option than Hillary Clinton. "She's a third term of Barack Obama," Graham said. "She's the architect of this foreign policy. Bill and Hillary did a better job selling Obamacare than he did." Graham was heavy on a hardscrabble personal biography, and said he supports means-testing for entitlement programs like Social Security. And he defended his push for immigration reform legislation. "I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I have been knocked down like a lot of people in this country. I have tried to work with Democrats when it made sense to me," he said.
Donald Trump: Virtually no one believes he'll actually run for president, but Trump tried his best to convince the audience that this time, he's serious about it. "If I decide to run—and I think I'm gonna surprise a lot of people, a lot of people ... I will make this country great again," Trump said. During his speech, Trump pitched his own book, and told the audience he wasn't really enjoying himself. "I'm not having a great time. I can think of other things, many other things, where I can have a good time," he said. But he said he's considering a presidential run because U.S. trade negotiations and diplomatic efforts are being handled by "babies that don't have a clue," and said he'd hire "all the killers on Wall Street" to work in his administration. "We don't use our best, our brightest and our sharpest, and it's a big, big problem with our country," Trump said.
Bobby Jindal: The Louisiana governor threw his support behind President Obama's efforts to negotiate massive free trade pacts with Pacific Rim countries and the European Union, but added one condition: "We need to make sure the administration actually gets it right." Jindal said the United States' biggest long-term threat is the rise of China, and said trade could be a key way to make sure the United States doesn't "cede that sphere of influence to China." The comment came in an answer to a question about U.S. sovereignty during remarks that were otherwise heavily focused on Jindal's personal biography—particularly his father's work ethic. He also hammered the issue of educational choice, saying he wants to shrink the size of the federal Department of Education and end states' reliance on Common Core.
Carly Fiorina: The former Hewlett-Packard executive rebuked a Dallas businesswoman's comment that only men should be elected president because of women's hormones, and in doing so, took a shot at Bill Clinton's White House affair with Monica Lewinsky. "Not that we have seen a man's judgment clouded by hormones, including in the Oval Office," Fiorina said sarcastically, drawing laughs and applause. The comment was a high point in a speech and question-and-answer session that focused almost entirely on Fiorina's view of leadership, rather than her take on specific issues. "Wherever there are problems, there are people who know how to solve them, but they need to be asked," she said.
Rand Paul: The Kentucky senator launched the toughest set of broadsides yet against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton yet, chiding her over Benghazi, her private email server and her family foundation's foreign donations. "When Hillary Clinton travels, there's going to need to be two planes: One for her and her entourage, and one for her baggage," Paul told the crowd. He earned his biggest applause as he laid into Clinton for failing to do enough to secure the U.S. Embassy in Libya, saying that "her dereliction of duty, not doing the job, not providing security, should preclude her from ever holding higher office." On Clinton's use of a private email address on a home server, which she has asserted was protected by the Secret Service, Paul said: "Does she think there's, like, floppy disks in her basement?" And on the Clinton Foundation, which is under fire for accepting donations from foreign leaders, Paul suggested the controversy won't die down soon, promising that "there's more to come." Clinton wasn't Paul's only target. He criticized the U.S. military intervention in Libya, saying the country should never have waded into the conflict there in the first place and that his rival Republican White House hopefuls "would have done the same thing, just 10 times over." The rest of his speech was focused on individual liberty. Paul said national surveillance programs are violating Americans' rights, and also blasted police use of civil forfeiture laws and slow trials. "Everything goes right for the high school quarterback. Everything goes right for the prom queen," he said. "The Bill of Rights is for the least among us."
Marco Rubio: The first-term Florida senator went for the heartstrings in his speech Friday night, framing his comments on foreign policy, the economy and entitlement reforms around his parents and his children. The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio posited 2016 as a "referendum on our national identity," saying that his children and their generation would be "the first to inherit a diminished country from their parents." Calling for an overhaul of Medicare and Social Security, Rubio said he wants to make sure the changes don't "impact anyone like my mother—people who are currently in the program or about to retire." But he told a University of New Hampshire student that reforms like a higher retirement age "will require my generation and your generation to accept that ... it's going to look different than our parents' Social Security and their Medicare."
Jeb Bush: The former Florida governor tried again to separate himself from his family—particularly important in this state, which didn't help his father or brother become president—and tried to strike a positive tone overall during his speech Friday afternoon. "We will not win if we just complain about how bad things are," Bush said. "We also have to offer a compelling alternative so that more and more and more people join our cause." To a question on same-sex marriage, Bush asserted that he is "for traditional marriage" but that he has "no hatred or bitterness in my heart for people who have a different view," and said that issue shouldn't distract from a campaign that should be about economic growth and a tougher foreign policy. Much of Bush's effort was focused on winning over his many skeptics in the crowd. Asked by one audience member about worries of a dynastic Clinton vs. Bush general election, he joked, "I don't see any coronation coming my way, trust me." "I mean, come on," he said. "What are you seeing that I'm not seeing?" Bush touted his record during eight years as Florida's top executive, saying that it's an "I'm-not-kidding conservative one."
Chris Christie: Just days after unveiling a raft of reforms to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, the New Jersey governor said his willingness to wade into such politically challenging issues underscores his biggest selling point: that he's a truth-teller. "There is no political advantage to talking about those issues," Christie said. "The reason you talk about them is because you want to really make suggestions that will help solve the problems that our country confronts." He touted his five vetoes of tax increases sent to his desk by New Jersey's Democratic-led legislature, and said he balanced a state budget that was in an $11 billion deficit when he took office. He also lambasted Obama, saying he only cares about two Ls: "legacy and library." "I'm not looking to be the most popular guy in the world. I'm looking to be the most respectable," Christie said. He said entitlement programs are bankrupting the country, swallowing up 71% of federal spending today versus 26% five decades ago. Christie called for Social Security benefits to be eliminated for Americans earning more than $200,000 in annual retirement income. In speeches this week, he's also proposed a means test for those whose retirement income tops $80,000—with similar means testing for Medicare, with those with high retirement income paying a larger share of their premiums. He also suggested raising the eligibility age to 69 for both programs, though those changes would be phased in slowly. "There are ways that we can put our fiscal house in order in this country, and we need to, and everybody who's considering running for President of the United States should have to answer to you" about how they'll reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Christie said.
Rick Perry: The former Texas governor told the crowd he's in much better physical shape and much wiser on the issues as he considers a second run for the presidency—this time, from the back of the pack, rather than from the front-runner status he enjoyed in the late summer of 2011. Perry, 65, acknowledged that his major back surgery that year, just weeks before he launched his presidential campaign, hurt his preparation. "To be prepared, to stand on the stage and talk about this myriad of issues, whether it's domestic policy, monetary policy or foreign policy, it takes years of intense studies," Perry said. "I spent the last three years in that mode—being able to stand up and discuss all of these issues and do it in a way that is very profound and impactful." He played up his 14 years in the governor's office of the nation's largest Republican-voting state, offering it as a contrast to both President Barack Obama's four years in the Senate and the three first-term Republican senators who have entered the race so far: Rubio, Paul and Cruz. And Perry said that "change is only going to come from the outside." "We've spent eight years with a young, inexperienced United States senator. Economically, militarily and foreign policy-wise, we're paying a heavy price," Perry said. "They didn't hand me a manual to say, 'Here's how you deal with a space shuttle disintegrating in your state,'" he said. "They didn't hand me a manual when Katrina came into Louisiana, and there were literally hundreds of thousands of people that were displaced. They didn't hand me a manual when all of those people showed up at our border last year, or, for that matter, when Ebola ended up on the shores of America in Dallas, Texas."
Another big story hitting the media wires this weekend is from the New York Times and written byu someone I inmterviewed with when he worked at A&M Records (Mark Mazzetti (and Helen Cooper)). To wage war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is using F-15 fighter jets bought from Boeing. Pilots from the United Arab Emirates are flying Lockheed Martin’s F-16 to bomb both Yemen and Syria. Soon, the Emirates are expected to complete a deal with General Atomics for a fleet of Predator drones to run spying missions in their neighborhood. As the Middle East descends into proxy wars, sectarian conflicts and battles against terrorist networks, countries in the region that have stockpiled American military hardware are now actually using it and wanting more. The result is a boom for American defense contractors looking for foreign business in an era of shrinking Pentagon budgets — but also the prospect of a dangerous new arms race in a region where the map of alliances has been sharply redrawn.
Army and Navy technicians prepare unexploded ordnance for demolition in 2003 near Baghdad.The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons. Last week, defense industry officials told Congress that they were expecting within days a request from Arab allies fighting the Islamic State — Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt — to buy thousands of American-made missiles, bombs and other weapons, replenishing an arsenal that has been depleted over the past year. The United States has long put restrictions on the types of weapons that American defense firms can sell to Arab nations, meant to ensure that Israel keeps a military advantage against its traditional adversaries in the region. But because Israel and the Arab states are now in a de facto alliance against Iran, the Obama administration has been far more willing to allow the sale of advanced weapons in the Persian Gulf, with few public objections from Israel.
“When you look at it, Israel’s strategic calculation is a simple one,” said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The gulf countries “do not represent a meaningful threat” to Israel, he said. “They do represent a meaningful counterbalance to Iran.” Industry analysts and Middle East experts say that the region’s turmoil, and the determination of the wealthy Sunni nations to battle Shiite Iran for regional supremacy, will lead to a surge in new orders for the defense industry’s latest, most high-tech hardware. The militaries of gulf nations have been “a combination of something between symbols of deterrence and national flying clubs,” said Richard L. Aboulafia, a defense analyst at the Teal Group. “Now they’re suddenly being used.”
Saudi Arabia spent more than $80 billion on weaponry last year — the most ever, and more than either France or Britain — and has become the world’s fourth-largest defense market, according to figures released last week by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks global military spending. The Emirates spent nearly $23 billion last year, more than three times what they spent in 2006. Qatar, another gulf country with bulging coffers and a desire to assert its influence around the Middle East, is on a shopping spree. Last year, Qatar signed an $11 billion deal with the Pentagon to purchase Apache attack helicopters and Patriot and Javelin air-defense systems. Now the tiny nation is hoping to make a large purchase of Boeing F-15 fighters to replace its aging fleet of French Mirage jets. Qatari officials are expected to present the Obama administration with a wish list of advanced weapons before they come to Washington next month for meetings with other gulf nations.
American defense firms are following the money. Boeing opened an office in Doha, Qatar, in 2011, and Lockheed Martin set up an office there this year. Lockheed created a division in 2013 devoted solely to foreign military sales, and the company’s chief executive, Marillyn Hewson, has said that Lockheed needs to increase foreign business — with a goal of global arms sales’ becoming 25 percent to 30 percent of its revenue — in part to offset the shrinking of the Pentagon budget after the post-Sept. 11 boom.
American intelligence agencies believe that the proxy wars in the Middle East could last for years, which will make countries in the region even more eager for the F-35 fighter jet, considered to be the jewel of America’s future arsenal of weapons. The plane, the world’s most expensive weapons project, has stealth capabilities and has been marketed heavily to European and Asian allies. It has not yet been peddled to Arab allies because of concerns about preserving Israel’s military edge.
But with the balance of power in the Middle East in flux, several defense analysts said that could change. Russia is a major arms supplier to Iran, and a decision by President Vladimir V. Putin to sell an advanced air defense system to Iran could increase demand for the F-35, which is likely to have the ability to penetrate Russian-made defenses. “This could be the precipitating event: the emerging Sunni-Shia civil war coupled with the sale of advanced Russian air defense systems to Iran,” Mr. Aboulafia said. “If anything is going to result in F-35 clearance to the gulf states, this is the combination of events.”
At the same time, giving the gulf states the ability to strike Iran at a time of their choosing might be the last thing the United States wants. There are already questions about how judicious Washington’s allies are in using American weaponry. “A good number of the American arms that have been used in Yemen by the Saudis have been used against civilian populations,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an assertion that Saudi Arabia denies. Mr. Kimball said he viewed the increase in arms sales to the region “with a great deal of trepidation, as it is leading to an escalation in the type and number and sophistication in the weaponry in these countries.”
Congress enacted a law in 2008 requiring that arms sales allow Israel to maintain a “qualitative military edge” in the region. All sales to the Middle East are evaluated based on how they will affect Israeli military superiority. But the Obama administration has also viewed improving the militaries of select Arab nations — those that see Iran as a threat in the region — as critical to Israeli security. “It is also important to note that our close relationships with countries in the region are critical to regional stability and Israel’s security,” Andrew J. Shapiro said in a speech in 2011, when he was an assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. “Our relationships with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and many Gulf countries allow the United States to strongly advocate for peace and stability in the region.”
There is an unquestionably sectarian character to the current conflicts in the Middle East, nowhere more so than in the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen. The Saudis have assembled a group of Sunni nations to attack Houthi militia fighters who have taken over Yemen’s capital, Sana, and ousted a government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States. Saudi officials have said that the Houthis, a Shiite group, are being covertly backed by Iran. Other nations that have joined the coalition against the Houthis, like Morocco, have characterized their participation in blunt sectarian terms.
“It’s a question of protecting the Sunnis,” Mbarka Bouaida, Morocco’s deputy foreign minister, said in an interview. But Sunni nations have also shown a new determination to use military force against radical Sunni groups like the Islamic State. A number of Arab countries are using an air base in Jordan to launch attacks against Islamic State fighters in Syria. Separately, the Emirates and Egypt have carried out airstrikes in Libya against Sunni militias there. Meanwhile, the deal to sell Predator drones to the Emirates is nearing final approval. The drones will be unarmed, but they will be equipped with lasers to allow them to better identify targets on the ground. If the sale goes through, it will be the first time that the drones will go to an American ally outside of NATO.
The great irony about it is what the panel has said and what i have said in writing in that the neighboring countries are already poising themselves to arm themselves with Nuclear Weaponry. Therfore, if the likes of iran gets the ability to use it, Egypt will do it too. The UAB will do it too and Suadi Arabia will do it too. Like I said here just now, they have already started thyat process during the Nuclear Arms talks between the five countries and with Iran. Do Not get me wrong because I believe it is all about postering today but still, they are sending the world that message and it is in our faces.
Over the last decade, the Middle East has become a focal point of the world arms buildup. Each year, the regional arsenal grows, as the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Britain and others ship billions of dollars worth of weapons to the countries there. During the 1970s, while the world arms trade doubled, Middle East arms imports rose fourfold (in constant dollars). [1] Today, the region receives over half of all arms deliveries to the Third World, and more than a quarter of all world arms shipments.
Among the differences between various estimates of arms sales and militarization indices is the geographical definition of the Middle East. Where possible, we include Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, along with North Africa, Israel, Iran and the Arab East. Many calculations treat Turkey as part of NATO (Europe), Pakistan and Afghanistan as part of South Asia, and Ethiopia and Somalia as part of Africa. Undefined references to the Middle East are thus not always strictly comparable. By our measurement, they tend to understate the amount, value and proportion of weaponry in the region. The general trends, however, are unmistakable by any calculation.
Parallel to the growth of Middle East arms imports is a rapid increase in military expenditures. In less than 20 years, these have grown tenfold in value -- from $4.7 billion in 1962 to $46.7 billion in 1980, nearly nine times the world average. When the states of the world are ranked by military spending per capita, six of the top seven are in the Middle East. The top ten countries in terms of military spending per capita are: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Brunei, Kuwait, United States, Soviet Union and France. By the end of the 1970s, the region was spending between 13 and 15 percent of its gross national product for the military, compared with 8.3 percent for the Warsaw Pact countries, the next highest. [2]
The best indicators of the militarization of the region are the time-series estimates of expenditures, equipment and manpower. These are necessarily selective: Medium tanks, for instance, are only the most easily identifiable of many different types or armor/artillery. The aggregate figures do not measure the increase in sophistication of weapons sent to certain countries. Nor do these figures take account of vast differences in qualify of training or the general skill and education level of the society in question. Military expenditures show trends, but are only approximate. Real costs of equipment and personnel vary greatly, in ways that cannot be expressed in exchange rates, and categories for comparison are often difficult to establish. Expenditures also do not include aid from other countries: The spending total for Israel, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and others is actually much higher.
The pattern and trends presented are nevertheless unmistakable and alarming. Military manpower grew by 64 percent from 1972 to 1982, rising from 2.1 million to 3.5 million. If Israel’s battle-ready reserves of some 300,000 are included, the Middle East now has almost twice the total military manpower of the US, and is approaching the 4.7 million total for the US and all NATO countries except Turkey. During the same period, operational combat aircraft in the region grew by more than 50 percent, from 2,900 to 4,400, surpassing the size of the combined European NATO air forces. As for medium tanks, the main battle armor unit, the regional arsenal grew by 140 percent, from 11,250 to 27,000, considerably more than all US and NATO medium tanks combined.
Arms Race Factors
Conflicts between states in the region have been the major element in the regional arms race. The state of war between Israel and the neighboring Arab countries is only the most visible of these. Iran under the Shah embarked on the largest military buildup in the region. Iran’s grab for the role of regional gendarme, and the messianism of the Islamic Republic after 1979, have been one key factor in the arms race in the Gulf. Here US policy has played the paramount role: The provision of F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers to Iran, for instance, required the dispatch of AWACs and F-15s to Saudi Arabia several years later. Within the Arab world, Syria has faced both Iraq and Jordan as potential military antagonists. Libya, arming rapidly after 1970, contributed heavily to the arms race in North Africa. Algeria and Morocco, Ethiopia and Somalia, and North and South Yemen have been belligerents arming against one another. In virtually every case, these locally rooted conflicts became part of global superpower competition. This process has been intensified by the region’s oil resources and critical geopolitical location.
Local military establishments have also grown in response to internal political conflicts. Armed movements of national minorities have had the largest impact, especially the Kurdish movement in Iraq and Iran, the Eritrean movement in Ethiopia and the Western Sahara war of independence against Morocco. These often involve other states. The United States, Iran and Israel supported the Kurdish movement in Iraq in order to harass the regime in Baghdad. Libya and Algeria support the POLISARIO in Western Sahara. Several Arab states supported the Eritrean movement against Ethiopia. The political influence of the military within the states of the region has also fostered militarization. Some regimes are directly based in the military, including Syria, Libya, Egypt and Sudan. In the case of Iraq, the civilian-led party rests on the support of its officer members to control the state apparatus. Among the monarchies like Jordan, Morocco and Pahlavi Iran, the close identity between the throne and the top officers makes the armed forces the major institutional pillar of the regime. The monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf are still another case. Here the military establishments are quite new, and heavily dependent on mercenary forces at all levels. These countries, along with Libya, have accounted for some of the largest military expenditures in this effort to build up their military forces from a very low level.
While Saudi Arabia and the city-states of the Gulf were importing their armed forces almost entirely from outside their borders, other states of the region were developing their own military industries. Israel and Egypt are the most important cases, with Israel already a leading arms exporter. Iran under the shah made major agreements with Northrop, Bell and Vickers to assemble warplanes, helicopter gunships and tanks, but these and more ambitious plans crumbled with the Pahlavi dynasty. Turkey, with the largest industrial base in the region and the second-largest standing army in NATO, has long produced light arms and munitions. A 1979 agreement with West Germany expanded factories for rifles, machine guns and missiles, and naval shipyards. Agreements for licensed assembly of submarines and patrol boats were signed in 1980. Current negotiations for the purchase of 160 F-16 or F-18A advanced fighters include second-phase co-production arrangements to assemble the warplanes in Turkey and eventually to produce many of the parts there. In order to provide Turkey with badly needed foreign exchange for this deal, both Northrop (F-5G) and General Dynamics (F-16) have competing proposals to market around $2 billion worth of Turkish agricultural and manufactured products in third countries where they have interests.
Oil and Arms
The explosion of oil revenues in the region accelerated the Middle East military buildup. Many states had vast financial resources at their disposal and few plans for investing or spending them. Military expenditures bought prestige and apparent power, with much less social disruption on local societies than economic development programs.Military expenditures were also promoted by the Nixon Doctrine, which called for the US to supply “tools” and “experts” while client states would furnish the troops to defend Western economic interests. Strategists in Washington have argued that arms exports are a “cost-effective” way of projecting power abroad. Richard Betts, an analyst with the Brookings Institute, mentions the “cheaper indigenous manpower”of Third World states as a factor, citing estimates that Turkey can maintain 12 troops for the amount it costs the US to maintain one soldier. [3]
This was not the only economic rationale for arms sales. Western governments saw them as one way to reduce the petrodollars surpluses “sloshing around the short-term capital markets of the world.” [4] More concretely, Jacques Gansler, then deputy assistant secretary of defense for materiel acquisition, told Congress in late 1976 that arms sales “helped us to maintain the viability of the declining [military industrial] base, reduced procurement costs and improved our international balance of payments.” [5] Payments for arms delivered (not including construction, training and services) have run between 4.5 and seven percent of total US export earnings since the late 1960s. [6]
For particular companies, the importance of exports was much greater. The rapid increase of arms sales abroad began during a period when the Pentagon’s procurement declined -- from $42 billion in 1968 to $18.7 billion in 1976. [7] In 1976, the ratio of foreign sales to total revenues was 59 percent for Northrop, 42 percent for Bell Helicopter and 26 percent for Grumman. [8] In the same year, 70 percent of US Army Missile Command purchases were for export, and “US military aircraft production was greater for foreign sales than for domestic military needs.” [9] The rising cost of developing and producing the AWACs command and warning planes prompted the Carter administration to look for foreign customers in order to extend the production run and spread out costs. Of the $128 million that the Saudis are paying for each plane, about $60 million goes to the US Treasury as partial repayment for government research and development expenditures. “This is becoming true of all high-technology military equipment,” says James Grafton of Boeing Aerospace, builder of the AWACs. [10]
The economic stakes for individual companies are likewise a factor in the corruption accompanying weapons sales. Whereas the US and allied governments tend to use arms sales as diplomatic bribes, the warplane manufacturers resorted to cash “commissions” to promote the flow of orders for big-ticket items like advanced fighter-bombers. This is not a phenomenon unique to the Middle East, as the cases of Holland’s Prince Bernhard and Japan’s Prime Minister Tanaka demonstrate. In the Middle East, though, the high prices of modern weapons systems, the large quantities sold and the extensive service contracts appended to most sales have led to a scale of bribery that may amount to more than a billion dollars a year. This enrichment of princes, commercial middlemen, politicians and military officers has fostered a powerful "arms bourgeoisie" that is committed to the unchecked import of Western arms. [11]
Political Motives
For the arms-exporting countries, the imperative to push sophisticated weapons abroad is primarily political. Military aid and sales are seen as a major policy instrument. In view of the weakness of civilian political forces in the region, arms sales represent a point of leverage over the national politics of the recipient states. In the United States, the “nation-building” potential of the military is a persistent theme in the literature of “modernization” theory. Pentagon officials have argued that “modernizing the equipment of the Egyptian forces and establishing close relations between the US and Egyptian military” are essential to “the profound shift in Egypt’s orientation.” Arms sales bring advisers and technicians, often by the thousands. A Congressional study in 1977 found more than 2,000 American military personnel in the Persian Gulf region. [12] In Saudi Arabia alone in 1978 there were some 10,000 Americans working for civilian defense contractors. Since then, thousands of Americans have been withdrawn from Iran, while others have gone into Egypt. A similar pattern obtains for Soviet weapons deliveries. The CIA estimated that in 1979 the Soviet Union had 2,480 military advisers in Syria, 1,820 in Libya, 1,065 in Iraq and 1,250 in Ethiopia. [13] Gen. F. Michael Rogers, then head of Air Force Logistics Command, wrote in 1977 that ties developed by military sales “provide a subtle leverage when one considers the long-term logistical support required for modern weapons.” [14]
Neither the leverage nor the motives are always subtle. In the heated political fight over the Saudi AWACs sale, National Security Adviser Richard Allen argued that the sale “assures the presence of the United States in Saudi Arabia’s security future.” [15] On the basis of extensive interviews and a review of internal Pentagon documents, Scott Armstrong concluded that the deal was conceived as the linchpin of “an ambitious plan to build surrogate bases in Saudi Arabia, equipped and waiting for American forces to use.” [16] Oman, Turkey, Morocco and Somalia are other cases where US base access is a primary factor motivating arms sales.
Arms sales are also related to a state’s capacity to perform mercenary functions for the supplying power. In spite of all the talk in Washington about “Soviet proxies,” the US has developed this aspect of military relations with particular success. The shah intervened in Oman to crush the revolutionary movement in Dhofar in 1975, using US equipment and training and Iranian troops, exemplifying the Nixon Doctrine in action. On a less visible but more sustained level, Pakistan supplies officers and troops to most of the Arabian Peninsula states: Three out of five Omani infantry battalions in Dhofar province are Pakistani Baluch, and there are credible reports that thousands of Pakistani troops are currently stationed in Saudi Arabia in exchange for Saudi financial aid amounting to more than $1 billion per year. Pakistani pilots provide critical support for the air forces of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Pakistan’s president-general, Zia ul Haq, acknowledged in early 1981 that Pakistan had military and training "missions" in 28 different countries. [17] Jordan, as an Arab state, plays an even more critical role in the Gulf, supplying officers (even the chief of staff of the UAE armed forces), military intelligence personnel and infrastructure and training missions throughout the peninsula. Crown Prince Hasan complained recently that the Hashemite contribution to US interests in the Gulf was “poorly understood” in Congress:
The psychological and political acceptability of Egypt and Israel in securing the Gulf and the Red Sea areas is very limited if not nil.... We have a proven record of achievement in Oman, the Yemens and the other Gulf states.... We now play a major role as a military adviser to the Arab world and the Gulf. [18] Jordan’s role is no doubt better appreciated in the Pentagon. Jack Anderson recently reported a “secret plan” to equip and train elite Jordanian military units which could be used as a “mini-RDF” in the event of insurrections in the Gulf. [19]
The countries of the Middle East have also served as arms conduits within the region. In most instances, these transfers seem to have occurred with the approval, tacit at least, of the supplier: In 1976, Iran shipped US warplanes to Jordan, which in turn transferred them to Morocco; Saudi Arabia supplied Somalia in 1977-1978; Egypt has provided US-financed arms to Afghan opposition forces since late 1979; Libya has shipped Soviet equipment to Syria. Israel's supply of spare parts and equipment to Iran in its war with Iraq probably had US approval. The Reagan administration has very recently supported Egypt's sale of 35 F-4 Phantoms to Turkey. [20] Jordan’s weapons shipments to South Africa almost certainly involved US equipment.* Less often, governments transfer weapons against the wishes of the supplier: Libya’s transfer of Mirages to Egypt during the October War of 1973, and US small arms to Saudi Arabia which turned up in PLO hands in Lebanon are cases in point.
Fighting Capacity
Neither expenditures nor increases in manpower and equipment are reliable indicators of a country’s fighting capacity. The country which has spent the most -- Saudi Arabia -- is probably the least capable militarily, and certainly in terms of indigenous military personnel. Any military capability of the Gulf states is heavily dependent on the large corps of foreign advisers. This is true even though between ten and 30 percent of the male citizen labor force is engaged in military service (compared with three percent in the US). [21] The emphasis of these governments on the most sophisticated combat equipment only magnifies this discrepancy. Whereas an F-4 Phantom requires between 29 and 41 persons per plane, 80 percent highly skilled, the F-15 (Saudi Arabia has ordered 60 of these) requires about 80 persons per plane, 95 percent highly skilled. [22] The competition of the civilian sector in Saudi Arabia’s highly charged economy for competent skilled labor is already causing serious recruitment problems for the country’s military planners. [23] One Pentagon official familiar with the Saudi situation observed that “like the Iranians, they have gorgeous facilities, fully stocked. But let’s face it, they’ll be run by contractors forever.” [24]
On the main Middle East battle front, between Israel and Syria, a similar discrepancy obtains. This is due chiefly to Israel’s domestic technological and industrial base. As Anthony Cordesman puts it, “Israel only has to buy military technology and not advice and support,” which translates into “a more than 2:1 advantage in total defense expenditure over all its Arab neighbors, and something like a 4:1 advantage over Jordan and Syria.” [25] Israel spends approximately 60 percent of its defense monies on training -- $27,000 to $36,000 per man per year since 1973. Comparable figures for Syria, by Cordesman’s estimate, are $4,000 to $7,000. Even if Israel’s reserve forces are counted, Israel’s figure is still more than double Syria’s. Syria has produced some effective fighting units, but these are a minority of its total force structure. No Arab state has approached Israel’s integration of logistics, tactical forces and command and control.
Measuring the Arms Trade
Data on the policies of the arms suppliers is partial and unsatisfactory. The United States government is probably the single most important source of information. What data it releases, and in what form, is determined by larger political objectives. For example, a recent report from the State Department lays major responsibility for Third World militarization to the Soviet Union. This is done by breaking out base construction, co-production financing and military training from the US totals as a “uniquely large element” of US programs in the Third World. Costs of US troops stationed in Third World countries -- also a uniquely large element of US military posture -- are excluded altogether from the totals.
The same report provides an interesting regional breakdown, based on deliveries of categories of weapons rather than dollar values. Keeping in mind that this region is defined to include states like India and Sri Lanka while excluding Turkey and the Horn of Africa countries, it shows the Middle East receiving a very high proportion of major categories of Third World arms shipments, with the USSR consistently supplying a greater number than the US. These figures do not indicate differences in sophistication within these categories, and certain categories which might show a different trend, such as air-to-ground missiles and “smart bombs,” are ignored entirely. A Congressional Research Service report based on the same data notes that the most sophisticated items in US inventory are generally restricted to NATO and major industrial allies. “Only seven Third World countries appear to be receiving US weapons of similar sophistication. These are, in rough order of total sophistication, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea, Pakistan, Venezuela and Morocco.” [26] A “second tier” of 13 countries, receiving items like Sidewinder air-to-air and Maverick air-to-ground missiles, F-5E fighters and M-60A tanks, includes eight Middle East countries: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Tunisia.
A calculation by the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) of arms imports to the Middle East and North Africa by supplier, covering a slightly different time period and not including the South Asia countries, provides a different measure of relative responsibility for arming the region. The SIPRI data pinpoints Soviet shipments to Libya since 1975 as a major piece of its total supplies to the region. This, combined with the cancellation of more than $6 billion worth of US arms deals with Iran following the revolution there, helps to explain what the CRS report estimates to be the rough equivalence of US and Soviet arms sales to the Third World over the last five years. [27]
Information on other countries’ sales comes from what independent sources like SIPRI can cull from the public record, and from whatever classified intelligence data the US government decides to release. Even US government data on US military sales is often inconsistent from year to year. This information is generally released in terms of dollar value. A recent report by the General Accounting Office, US Security and Military Assistance: Programs and Related Activities, offers the best available picture of US priorities in the region as measured by the dollar value of military programs.
By far the greatest portion of US arms sales falls within the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Cash Program. These are agreements by foreign governments to purchase military goods and services from the Department of Defense, in which the purchaser is supposed to cover all costs associated with the sale. The Defense Department may fill orders directly from its own stocks. More often, the Pentagon contracts with an industry supplier for the item or service. Costs tend to be higher than if the purchaser went directly to the company. Congress had imposed a ceiling of $25 million dollars on sales that could be contracted commercially, which was removed in 1981. Many Middle Eastern governments prefer the FMS route in any case because it involves a contractual responsibility of the US government.
The FMS Financing Program is the major “security assistance” program. This mostly consists of credit guarantees: Loans guaranteed by the Pentagon are made by the Federal Financing Bank. The standard repayment period is 12 years. Egypt, Israel, Sudan, Greece, Turkey and Somalia have special 30-year schedules. A smaller amount of FMS Financing is covered through direct Pentagon credits, which in FY 1982 were available only to Israel and Egypt. Over the 1974-1983 period, Israel has had $5.9 billion of its direct credits “forgiven.” Egypt and Sudan have been “forgiven” $600 million and $50 million respectively. [28]
A third category of significant US military assistance in the Middle East is Economic Support Funds (ESF). This program of loans and grants is administered as economic aid by the Agency for International Development, but its purpose is “to promote economic or political stability in areas where the US has special security interests.” [29] Thus AID’s Congressional Presentation for FY 1982 rationalized Egypt’s ESF program as necessary to cope with “increasing discontent over the economy.” Israel’s ESF funding “encourages stability and modest economic growth in the face of the tremendous burdens caused by Israel’s need to devote a large percentage of its resources to defense.” [30] The Middle East accounts for 87 percent of the ESF program, and most of this is for Egypt and Israel.
Commercial sales cover purchases of military goods and services contracted directly by foreign governments from private manufacturers. Israel has accounted for more than 11 percent of total commercial military exports over more than three decades. The importance of this category of transfers will likely increase for Middle East countries, now that Congress has eliminated previous ceilings on such transactions. There are two other programs of military assistance that are not large in dollar value but indicate a level of US priorities in the region. Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Morocco and Jordan have been the chief regional beneficiaries of the International Military Education and Training Program, geared to establish close ties between the military establishments of the US and the recipient countries. The Overseas Military Management Program provides Pentagon supervision of military programs abroad. Israel, despite its top rank as a military aid recipient, has virtually no US supervisory program. The largest programs in the Middle East are Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and the Yemen Arab Republic.
Taking Stock
None of the official declassified sources of information on arms sales provide accurate data on weapons and munitions actually delivered or on order. In an effort to provide a more concrete sense of what weapons are going where in the region’s military buildup, we have constructed a preliminary register of US deliveries and orders for present major recipients of US arms in the region. Information is not available to provide a similar account of deliveries and agreements of the Soviet Union, France and Britain. This means, for instance, that the arms supplies which have fueled the Iraq-Iran war in the Gulf are completely absent from this register. Most of Iran’s weapons came from the US prior to 1979. Iraq’s main supplier has been the Soviet Union. Both US and Soviet arms, and particularly spare parts, continue to reach the combatants, often through third parties but at reduced levels. According to US intelligence, China is supplying both states with small arms. [31] Iraq is now a major customer for French aircraft, artillery, missiles and other equipment, taking 40 percent, or nearly $2 billion worth, of French military exports over the last two years. [32] One top Pentagon official asserted recently that North Korea had provided about 40 percent of Iran’s $2 billion worth of military imports in 1982. [33]
A complete and detailed picture of the arms race in the Middle East is impossible to construct, but its most significant and broad features are there for all to see. First, the huge buildup in the sheer quantity and sophistication of weapons comes as a result of forces and pressures internal to the region and of the economic and political needs of the major suppliers. Second, this buildup has contributed directly to hundreds of thousands of casualties among the peoples of the region, most of them civilians, and the destruction and waste of vast amounts of economic and social resources. Third, the unique local beneficiary of this competitive process, in purely military and strategic terms, has been Israel. There is nothing like a “military balance” in the region, where Israel continues to augment its unchallenged supremacy.
Lastly, at the level of competition between the US and the Soviet Union for friends and facilities in the region, the lack of balance is even more striking. Any conceivable roster of allies, clients and “friendly neutrals” would show the overwhelming superiority of the United States in terms of weapons, troops and bases at its disposal. [34]
In today's Morning Papers: Hundreds 'locked in hold' of boat capsized off Libya.
Reports that "hundreds" of migrants were locked in hold of sinking vessel, as calls for action on smuggling mount.A smuggler's boat crammed with hundreds of people overturned off Libya's coast as rescuers approached, causing what could be the Mediterranean's deadliest known migrant tragedy and intensifying pressure on the European Union to finally meet demands for decisive action. Survivor accounts of the number aboard the 20-metre vessel varied, with the Italian Coast Guard saying that the capsized boat had a capacity for "hundreds" of people. Italian prosecutors said a Bangladeshi survivor flown to Sicily for treatment told them 950 people were on board, including hundreds who had been locked in the hold by smugglers. Earlier, authorities said a survivor told them 700 migrants were aboard. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said authorities were "not in a position to confirm or verify" how many were on board when the boat set out from Libya.
Eighteen ships joined the rescue effort, but only 28 survivors and 24 bodies had been pulled from the water by nightfall, Renzi said. These small numbers make more sense if hundreds of people were locked in the hold, because with so much weight down below, "surely the boat would have sunk", said General Antonino Iraso, of the Italian Border Police, which has deployed boats in the operation. The incident happened in an area just off Libyan waters, 193km south of Lampedusa island, according to a report in the Times of Malta's website. Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan, reporting from Catania in Sicily, off Italy's southern coast, said while the weather was sunny and clear on Saturday, it later turned overcast and cloudy, which meant that the seas were choppy. He said reports indicated that the approach of a Portuguese-flagged container ship sent by Italy's coast guard prompted people on board the boat to shift to one side, upsetting the weight distribution and causing it to sink.
The container ship's crew "immediately deployed rescue boats, gangway, nets and life rings", a spokesman for its owner said. United Nations refugee agency spokeswoman Carlotta Sami tweeted that according to one survivor, the boat had set out with 700 migrants aboard. When it overturned, "the people ended up in the water, with the boat on top of them", Sami said. Prosecutor Giovanni Salvi told The Associated Press that the Bangladeshi survivor said about 300 people were locked in the hold by smugglers when the vessel set out. He said some 200 of the boat's passengers were women and several dozen were children. Salvi stressed that there was no confirmation yet of the man's account and that the investigation was ongoing. Meanwhile, calls by Italy's Renzi for a more unified response from the EU were echoed by France, Spain, Germany and Britain ahead of Monday's EU meeting in Luxembourg, where foreign ministers scrambled to add stopping the smugglers to their agenda.
"Europe can do more and Europe must do more," said Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament. "It is a shame and a confession of failure how many countries run away from responsibility and how little money we provide for rescue missions." Europe must mobilise "more ships, more overflights by aircraft", French President Francois Hollande told French TV on Sunday. "Words won't do anymore," Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, told a political rally. Meanwhile, Renzi rejected calls by some Italian legislators for a naval blockade. That would only "wind up helping the smugglers" since military ships would be there to rescue any migrants, and they would not be able to return passengers to the violence in Libya. Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose nation joined the search effort, called it the "biggest human tragedy of the last few years". Since the start of 2014, Italy has rescued nearly 200,000 people at sea, including 11,000 arrivals in the eight days up to Saturday. At least 900 people have died trying to reach Europe this year, before this latest sinking. Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Next, Another White House Fence Jumper. A person carrying a suspicious package scaled a White House fence Sunday night, but was quickly apprehended. The person climbed the fence on the south side of the White House complex about 10:25 p.m., said Brian Leary with the United States Secret Service. The individual is in custody and charges are pending, Leary said. The person's name or gender wasn't released. The package was being examined and later deemed to be harmless, a Secret Service source told CNN. Last week, a U.S. official told CNN that temporary steel spikes may be added to the tips of the White House perimeter fence to help deter jumpers. If done, this will be a temporary measure to protect the grounds until a new permanent one is constructed. The official said that the proposal is not in place yet. The Secret Service has come under heavy criticism after two incidents compromised the security of the grounds. On March 4, two senior Secret Service agents who were reportedly intoxicated allegedly drove their car into a White House barrier. Last September, a man jumped the White House fence and made it to an unlocked door on the grounds.
Also, the Washington Post reported that the FBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decadesThe Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000. Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.
The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions. The FBI errors alone do not mean there was not other evidence of a convict’s guilt. Defendants and federal and state prosecutors in 46 states and the District are being notified to determine whether there are grounds for appeals. Four defendants were previously exonerated.
The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the nation’s courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said. The question now, they said, is how state authorities and the courts will respond to findings that confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques — like hair and bite-mark comparisons — that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989.
In a statement, the FBI and Justice Department vowed to continue to devote resources to address all cases and said they “are committed to ensuring that affected defendants are notified of past errors and that justice is done in every instance. The Department and the FBI are also committed to ensuring the accuracy of future hair analysis testimony, as well as the application of all disciplines of forensic science.” Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project, commended the FBI and department for the collaboration but said, “The FBI’s three-decade use of microscopic hair analysis to incriminate defendants was a complete disaster.” “We need an exhaustive investigation that looks at how the FBI, state governments that relied on examiners trained by the FBI and the courts allowed this to happen and why it wasn’t stopped much sooner,” Neufeld said.
Norman L. Reimer, the NACDL’s executive director, said, “Hopefully, this project establishes a precedent so that in future situations it will not take years to remediate the injustice.” While unnamed federal officials previously acknowledged widespread problems, the FBI until now has withheld comment because findings might not be representative. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a former prosecutor, called on the FBI and Justice Department to notify defendants in all 2,500 targeted cases involving an FBI hair match about the problem even if their case has not been completed, and to redouble efforts in the three-year-old review to retrieve information on each case.
“These findings are appalling and chilling in their indictment of our criminal justice system, not only for potentially innocent defendants who have been wrongly imprisoned and even executed, but for prosecutors who have relied on fabricated and false evidence despite their intentions to faithfully enforce the law,” Blumenthal said. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and the panel’s ranking Democrat, Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), urged the bureau to conduct “a root-cause analysis” to prevent future breakdowns.
“It is critical that the Bureau identify and address the systemic factors that allowed this far-reaching problem to occur and continue for more than a decade,” the lawmakers wrote FBI Director James B. Comey on March 27, as findings were being finalized. The FBI is waiting to complete all reviews to assess causes but has acknowledged that hair examiners until 2012 lacked written standards defining scientifically appropriate and erroneous ways to explain results in court. The bureau expects this year to complete similar standards for testimony and lab reports for 19 forensic disciplines.
Federal authorities launched the investigation in 2012 after The Washington Post reported that flawed forensic hair matches might have led to the convictions of hundreds of potentially innocent people since at least the 1970s, typically for murder, rape and other violent crimes nationwide. The review confirmed that FBI experts systematically testified to the near-certainty of “matches” of crime-scene hairs to defendants, backing their claims by citing incomplete or misleading statistics drawn from their case work.
In reality, there is no accepted research on how often hair from different people may appear the same. Since 2000, the lab has used visual hair comparison to rule out someone as a possible source of hair or in combination with more accurate DNA testing. Warnings about the problem have been mounting. In 2002, the FBI reported that its own DNA testing found that examiners reported false hair matches more than 11 percent of the time. In the District, the only jurisdiction where defenders and prosecutors have re-investigated all FBI hair convictions, three of seven defendants whose trials included flawed FBI testimony have been exonerated through DNA testing since 2009, and courts have exonerated two more men. All five served 20 to 30 years in prison for rape or murder.
University of Virginia law professor Brandon L. Garrett said the results reveal a “mass disaster” inside the criminal justice system, one that it has been unable to self-correct because courts rely on outdated precedents admitting scientifically invalid testimony at trial and, under the legal doctrine of finality, make it difficult for convicts to challenge old evidence. “The tools don’t exist to handle systematic errors in our criminal justice system,” Garrett said. “The FBI deserves every recognition for doing something really remarkable here. The problem is there may be few judges, prosecutors or defense lawyers who are able or willing to do anything about it.”
Federal authorities are offering new DNA testing in cases with errors, if sought by a judge or prosecutor, and agreeing to drop procedural objections to appeals in federal cases. However, biological evidence in the cases often is lost or unavailable. Among states, only California and Texas specifically allow appeals when experts recant or scientific advances undermine forensic evidence at trial. Defense attorneys say scientifically invalid forensic testimony should be considered as violations of due process, as courts have held with false or misleading testimony. The FBI searched more than 21,000 federal and state requests to its hair comparison unit from 1972 through 1999, identifying for review roughly 2,500 cases where examiners declared hair matches. Reviews of 342 defendants’ convictions were completed as of early March, the NACDL and Innocence Project reported. In addition to the 268 trials in which FBI hair evidence was used against defendants, the review found cases in which defendants pleaded guilty, FBI examiners did not testify, did not assert a match or gave exculpatory testimony.
When such cases are included, by the FBI’s count examiners made statements exceeding the limits of science in about 90 percent of testimonies, including 34 death-penalty cases. The findings likely scratch the surface. The FBI said as of mid-April that reviews of about 350 trial testimonies and 900 lab reports are nearly complete, with about 1,200 cases remaining. The bureau said it is difficult to check cases before 1985, when files were computerized. It has been unable to review 700 cases because police or prosecutors did not respond to requests for information. Also, the same FBI examiners whose work is under review taught 500 to 1,000 state and local crime lab analysts to testify in the same ways. Texas, New York and North Carolina authorities are reviewing their hair examiner cases, with ad hoc efforts underway in about 15 other states.
And, the Phildelphia Inquirer reports that the Eagles to sign Tebow in latest move of frenzied offseason. Tim Tebow is back in the NFL. And Chip Kelly's offseason just got juicier. The Philadelphia Eagles plan to bring in quarterback Tim Tebow and sign him Monday as they begin their offseason program, FOX Sports NFL insider Jay Glazer reports. Multiple outlets later confirmed the report. The Eagles are looking for a fourth quarterback for their offseason program. After spending time with Tebow's quarterbacks coach Tom House, the Eagles are convinced he's improved a lot, Glazer reports.
Tebow, who hasn't played in an NFL regular season game since 2012, was brought in for a workout for the Eagles last month. "I've always been a fan of Tim," Kelly told NFL Network last month. "We bring in a lot of players for private workouts, it's just he's the one that everyone keeps talking about. We brought in Terrelle Pryor for a workout and Thad Lewis in for a workout. When players are available for you to work them out, it's the same thing of going to the veteran combine or going to the super regional combine.
"It's getting an exposure to a player so that when you have to make a decision and say, 'Hey, what are we going to do now?' you say, 'I don't know anything about these players. Let's bring them in and work them out,' and it may be too late at that point in time. So all we're doing is just doing our homework." The Eagles traded for quarterback Sam Bradford earlier this offseason and signed Mark Sanchez to an extension. Matt Barkley currently sits third on the depth chart. Tebow hasn't played in the NFL since he was with the New York Jets in 2012. He was released by the New England Patriots before the 2013 season and spent last year working in television as an analyst for the SEC Network and ESPN.
Despite being out of the league, the 27-year-old Tebow remained one of the most popular players around. He has a legion of fans who follow him because of his strong Christian beliefs. The former Heisman Trophy winner led Florida to two national titles and was a first-round pick by Denver in 2010. He started 16 games during two seasons with the Broncos, including a playoff victory over Pittsburgh in January 2012. Tebow was traded to the Jets after Denver signed Peyton Manning.
Tebow had some success in Denver, but his inaccurate passing and lack of pocket presence was an issue. His strength has been running the ball or improvising. Tebow has completed just 47.9 percent of his passes for 2,422 yards, 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He has 989 yards rushing, a 5.0 average yards per carry and 12 TDs. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Also, Hillary Rodham Clinton will try to recapture the magic of her come-from-behind victory in the 2008 New Hampshire primary as she returns to the state that gave her first presidential campaign a second wind. Clinton again arrives in New Hampshire as the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. This time, she faces little opposition. Nevertheless, her campaign is determined to show early-state voters that Clinton is not taking that position for granted. As she did in Iowa last week, Clinton plans to forgo the packed rallies that marked her previous campaign and focus on smaller round-table events with selected groups of supporters. She’ll speak with employees of Whitney Brothers Inc., a small business that makes wood furniture, in the liberal enclave of Keene on Monday and hold a round table with students and teachers at New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord the next day.
New Hampshire has long been fertile ground for the Clinton family. In 1992, a second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary made Bill Clinton the “comeback kid,” refueling his effort to capture the nomination and, eventually, the White House. Sixteen years later, a win in New Hampshire salvaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign from a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and propelled her into a months-long battle for the nomination finally won by then-Sen. Barack Obama. Last year, when Clinton spoke to a rally in New Hampshire ahead of the midterm elections, she recalled the dark days of her 2008 campaign: “You lifted me up, you gave me my voice back, you taught me so much about grit and determination. And I will never forget that."
Anyway, the panel on Morning Joe is discussing things happening in Tehran, Iran. Thomas Edbrink is on talking about the 'Our Man in Tehran' series happening on the New York Times.
This is busy Monday and I am determined to make this week a good one.
Joe Manchin is on the Morning Joe show now. I agree with Joe in that we are going nowhere fast as a nation. There have been so called glimmers of hope of us for a years now and its all the same today. Scum bags and corrupt people rule this country. Case in point is what I wrote about above (FBI). Plus, it is what we talk about every day and how corrupt cops are today. We literally caught someone on tape stealing money during a raid in New York City and someone else was just planting evidence again, on camera and within days of happening of each other accordingly.
And, we can see about his background checks bill that did not work the last time but they are speaking about it as if it still has a chance to make it a law. I was talking about how many murders with gun happen in London and in Tokyo last night and comparing that to America. The difference is astounding. I cannot believe that drug abuse is the number one killer in West Virginia. That is what Manchin just said about it. That sucks. I never got into pills and I don't do any drugs today. Not even pot. I have not smoked pot in a long time. The problem is that the Pharmaceutical Companies make so much money making sure people are hooked on prescription drugs.
That Judith Miller woman that was on Bill Maher's show Friday night is on Morning Joe today. They (Bill Maher) did not at all discuss that she was in jail for 8 months or 85 days maybe what Joe just said and it was evidently for her not letting out her sources during the Valerie Plame issues or when that broke into the mainstream. She was good on the Real Time show Friday night. I assume she is pushing a book or something. I forgot it or never heard it if they mentioned it Friday Night. Yeah. She is the author of the new memoir entitled 'The Story: A Reporters Journey'. And, oops. I also forgot that Nicole Miller is on the show and on the panel on morning Joe. What I mean is that Judith Miller went off about how we got into the war and her sarcasm was evident about Nicole's old boss (George Bush Jr.). I was wondering how Nicole would take to it. It was sarcasm though.
Mark Werner is now on the Morning Joe show now. They are talking about end-of-life issues. Mark (Werner) has nice teeth. It sounds like a way to make end-of-life care federal rather than done by state. But I agree with him saying that with regard to Politics today, we have incredible capitalism coupled with a top down trickle down redistribution system in place and it does not work today.
After the Roger Bennett Futbal Frenzy segment today on Monday 4/20, Lindsey Graham is up next on the Morning Joe show today. He was up in New Hampshire of course which we already wrote about above but anyway, I assume we will get more (every GOP candidate took a dig at Hilary this weekend except for maybe Chris Christie) Hilary bashing out of him. Some of the Hilary bashing was constructive and some were rather adolescent and not about her platforms.
Regardless of it all, Stay in touch today!”
Endnotes
[1] Andrew J. Pierre, “Arms Sales: The New Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs (Winter 1981-1982).
[2] See Max Holland, The Militarization of the Middle East (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1983), Chart 6, and Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social Expenditures, 1982 (Leesburg, VA: World Priorities, 1982), Table II.
[3] Cited in Michael Gordon, “Competition with the Soviet Union Drives Reagan’s Arms Sales Policy,” National Journal, May 16, 1981.
[4] Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Policy and Research Stanley Katz, cited in Anthony Sampson, The Arms Bazaar (New York, 1977), p. 244.
[5] F. Michael Rogers, “The Impact of Foreign Military Sales on the National Industrial Base,” Strategic Review (Spring 1977), p. 18.
[6] Anne H. Cahn, “Arms Sales Economics: The Sellers’ Perspective,” Stanford Journal of International Studies 14 (Spring 1979), p. 127; and Gordon, p. 870.
[7] In constant 1978 dollars. Gordon, p. 870.
[8] Cahn, p. 136.
[9] Jacques Gansler, The Defense Industry (Cambridge, MA, 1980), cited in Gordon, p. 870.
[10] New York Times, February 14, 1982.
[11] Sampson (The Arms Bazaar) provides an extensive and detailed account of the corruption pervading the arms sales business. See also MERIP Reports 46 (April 1976), pp. 21-23, and A. Mansur (pseud.), “The Crisis in Iran,” Armed Forces Journal International (January 1979). A recent instance of such corruption among Egyptian officials, including relatives of both Sadat and Mubarak, involves state-granted monopolies for shipping arms from the US to Egypt. See the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, October 1, 1982, and Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, “Une autre revolution rectificative en Egypte?” Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1982.
[12] US Arms Policies in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea Areas: Past, Present and Future, Report of the Staff Survey Mission to Ethiopia, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, House Committee on International Relations, December 1977, pp. 8-13.
[13] Pierre, p. 272.
[14] Rogers, p. 17.
[15] Interviewed on the McNeill-Lehrer show, October 28, 1981.
[16] This larger purpose was apparently never made explicit even in the classified briefings to Congress. Armstrong quotes one official involved in pushing the sale: “We are only obligated to tell them what is being sold. We are under no obligation to make them understand it.” Washington Post, November 1, 1981.
[17] Christian Science Monitor, March 5, 1981.
[18] Armed Forces Journal International, November 1982.
[19] Washington Post, January 13, 1982.
[20] Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1983.
[21] John Cummings, Hossein Askari and Michael Skinner, “Military Expenditures and Manpower Requirements in the Arabian Peninsula,” Arab Studies Quarterly 2/1 (Winter 1980), p. 43.
[22] Ibid., pp. 44-45.
[23] US Security Interests in the Persian Gulf, Report of a Staff Study Mission to the Persian Gulf, Middle East, and Horn of Africa, October 21-November 13, 1980, to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, March 16, 1981, pp. 9, 58-59.
[24] New York Times, January 27, 1982.
[25] Anthony Cordesman, “The Financial Side of the Mideast Arms Race,” Armed Forces Journal International, November 1982.
[26] Caleb Rossiter and Richard Grimmett, “US Arms Transfer Policy: The Implications of Recent Trends and Events,” Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, August 18, 1982, p. 8.
[27] Ibid., p. 2.
[28] General Accounting Office, US Security and Military Assistance: Programs and Related Activities (GAO/ID-82-40) June 1, 1982, p. 14-15.
[29] GAO, p. 18.
[30] Shirley Zebroski, “US Foreign Assistance to the Middle East and North Africa: Programs, Rationale and Amounts, FY78-FY82 (Proposed),” CRS, June 22, 1981, pp. 2-3.
[31] Washington Post, January 13, 1983.
[32] Washington Post, January 8, 1983.
[33] New York Times, December 19, 1982.
[34] For one such listing, see the table entitled “Allies, Threat Nations and Neutrals in Defending Southwest Asia,” Armed Forces Journal International (December 1981), p. 65.
