After Trump Calls Gulf Nation “High Level” Funder of Terrorism, US Sells Qatar $12 Billion in Fighter Jets

"Ah yes. Take that, Qatar! Feel the wrath of the Trump..."

By Common Dreams
Global Research, June 17, 2017
Common Dreams 15 June 2017
Region:
Theme: , ,

Just days after President Donald Trump publicly scolded Qatar for being a “high level” exporter of regional terrorism in the Middle East, its government announced Wednesday the signing of a deal to buy $12 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets from U.S. weapons makers.

The Pentagon justified the massive sale by saying the jets—reportedly 39 of them—would increase “security cooperation” between the two countries.

Pointing towards the glaring hypocrisy, journalist Jeremy Scahill quipped,

“Ah yes. Take that, Qatar! Feel the wrath of the Trump…”

Last Friday, Trump told reporters at a White House press conference that

“Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”

The president then said he had decided to take a harder line with the country.

Oil-rich Qatar is home to a major U.S. airbase in the region and a longtime ally, but the latest weapons sale comes amid boiling tensions in the region centered around ongoing wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen as a well as a diplomatic crisis between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

And NBC News notes:

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar last week and accused it of supporting terrorism and regional unrest.

Despite these allegations, Qatar is a crucial ally to Washington in the Middle East. It is home to 10,000 American troops and a major American military base that acts as the center of U.S. operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like Scahill, historian and Middle East expert Vijay Prashad, said the weapons sale in this context, if not surprising, is telling:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Featured image: credits to the owner
Articles by: Common Dreams

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [email protected]

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: [email protected]