This is one of the most astounding accusations against Hillary Clinton I've yet heard: That Hillary, during her tenure as Secretary of State, helped procure weapons sales to nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman because these nations donated generously to the Clinton Foundation. Is this true?
The story has been reported in various left-wing sources, including an article in Mother Jones. But when I did some digging, I was stunned at what I found. The truth, it seems, is stranger than fiction.
It's true that sales in arms to the Middle East, and to Saudi Arabia in particular, more than doubled in 2011. (140%) In particular, a large sale of fighter jets to the Saudis made Israel rather angry. At roughly the same time, donations to the Clinton Foundation from these nations also skyrocketed. This seems suspicious. Is there a connection?
There is. But it's not what you think.
First, we need to understand how foreign arms sales are done. They are not brokered through the State department! It is the Department of Defense who brokers such sales, and they do so because foreign governments are not allowed to purchase directly from manufacturers (such as Boeing or Norfolk-Grumman). Instead, any government who wishes to buy arms from the U.S. must go through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is a special agency within the Department of Defense which deals with the sales of arms and military training to foreign governments. After the DSCA is contacted, a proposal is drawn up. This gets approved by the Defense Secretary if he/she feels that it is in the national interest, and the president is advised. If the president disagrees, he can nix the sale. If not, it then goes to the State Department.
And here's where the Hillary angle comes in. The State department gives its determination if the sale is in American interests diplomatically. If it does, it gives an approval to the sale. This is just what Hillary did in 2011 with increasing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and others.
But does it end there? NO! According to law, the DSCA must then give notification to Congress regarding the sale 30 days in advance. (15 days in advance if the arms buyer is a NATO ally.) Congress can then vote to disapprove the sale if it so desires. The president can veto such a vote, but if Congress has enough votes to override, the deal is dead.
So that's how it's done! And knowing this, we can now ask ourselves, if Hillary really did trade arms deals for Clinton Foundation donations, how did she get the DoD to go along? How did she sway the Pentagon and the DSCA? For that matter, how did she prevent Congress from voting against the deal?
The answer is simple: She didn't!
But if not, what caused the spike in arms sales? Why did so many in the Pentagon think such sales were in the U.S. interest? And why did it coincide with such large donations to the Clinton Foundation?
The answer is even more simple: The Arab Spring!
In December 2010, Tunisia overthrew its government and instituted a democracy. Jealous that little Tunisia could pull it off, Arabs began staging popular uprisings all over the Middle East in 2011. In Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Saudi Arabia, throngs of people began crying for revolution. Iran began plotting ways to take advantage of the situation to its advantage. Saudi Arabia, in particular, began to get nervous.
Requests for arms sales from the U.S. shot way up.
The Pentagon, seeing what was going on, approved the sales to the Saudis, Kuwait and other oil-allies for the obvious oil-related reasons, and because there was little guarantee a democracy would arise if these nations fell. The Republican controlled Congress went along with this because oil interests own them. The State Department, meaning Hillary, signed off on them, knowing that destabilization would not likely lead to democracy - least of all in Saudi Arabia.
Okay, fine, but did the Saudis and others give so generously to the Clinton Foundation in hopes of influencing the government?
Here's the kicker, because it shows some real genius. They probably did! Yes, the Saudis probably hoped their donations to Clinton's charity would grease the wheels of American arms sales.
Except it couldn't. They had no idea that Hillary was not the hand at the helm. They were as ignorant of the process as the average American voter was. (And still is.)
Now, watch this: Would Hillary be the type of low-down person to take advantage of that situation and allow the Saudis and other corrupt governments to contribute so generously to her charity foundation, knowing full well it wouldn't matter? Why, you bet your ass she would!
Would Hillary ever bother to say, "You know, fellas, these donations are nice and all, but I don't handle the arms sales. Other people do that. I just sign off on what goes to Congress for final approval. This is a waste of your money."? Of course she wouldn't say that!
She swindled them! By doing nothing! She let them give their money away! To her! Beautiful!
Now that, my friends, is a master at work!
That, my friends, should be our next president.
I feel bad for publications like Mother Jones. They put A and B together, and thought they had a news story, not realizing that there were pieces C, D and E yet to be added to the puzzle.
But that's been this election year so far: People shooting off their mouths when they haven't done their homework.
Eric
*
No comments:
Post a Comment