Human beings struggling for power, position and wealth is nothing new. The English and French did not invent the process, but in their individual ways, they have refined the art form. This is a rather delicious story for the connoisseur political junkie.It combines the English respect for law and order and legal process, the corruption of the Saudi Government and the French, well, being French.
Did I mention that one great big lovely industrial mountain size heap of money is involved? Almost $150 billion dollars. That will either clear your vision or cloud it. The French are rarely myopic when it comes to money.
The basic story is that the government of Saudi Arabia is set to tear up its £76bn agreement with Britain for Eurofighter Typhoons and hand the contract to France if the British, Serious Fraud Office, opens up secret Swiss bank accounts allegedly linked to members of the Saudi royal family. The Saudis and Chirac are amazed that anyone would consider such a thing and are hoping the British will come to their senses. (Chirac is excluded from the British coming to their senses part). Chirac has other ideas for the Saudis.
Saudi Arabia is considering buying the Rafale fighter plane, made by France's national contractor Dassault. It is understood President Jacques Chirac has stepped up his lobbying of the Saudi authorities. I think it can also be said the when the Saudis asked Chirac if there would be any chance of a French investigation of Saudi finances he gave them an immediate "ce ne sera problème, pas un", or as "day say in dabronx, 'fugetabout it'".
French angle for Saudi billions The Telegraph
By Helen Power and Sylvia Pfeifer, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:25am GMT 26/11/2006
The government of Saudi Arabia is set to tear up its £76bn agreement with Britain for Eurofighter Typhoons and hand the contract to France if the Serious Fraud Office opens up secret Swiss bank accounts allegedly linked to members of the Saudi royal family.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
Senior British government sources last night predicted that the Saudi authorities would stand by their promise to cancel the recently signed order for 72 Eurofighter Typhoons if the SFO goes ahead with plans to open up potentially embarrassing bank accounts as part of its long-running investigation into allegations of bribery.
The Eurofighters are being built by a European consortium including BAE Systems, Britain's largest defence contractor. Now, Saudi Arabia is considering buying the Rafale, made by France's national contractor Dassault. It is understood President Jacques Chirac has stepped up his lobbying of the Saudi authorities.
"I think they [the Saudis] genuinely will follow through with this threat," said a government source. "Chirac is waiting in the wings. They are desperate to sell the Rafale."
But a senior defence official said the SFO is unlikely to pull back from its investigation focusing on allegations that BAE bribed Saudi defence procurement officials with millions of pounds-worth of lavish gifts including holidays in Europe and a gold Rolls-Royce in the 1990s to ensure the Saudis continued to buy from Britain under an original defence contract, Al-Yamamah.
"The Saudis don't understand how they can sign a big contract with the UK Government, yet here we are, accusing them of dodgy dealings. The Government can't simply quash the SFO investigation. It is between a rock and a hard place," he said.
The row could have far-reaching consequences for Britain's lucrative trading relationship with Saudi Arabia and threatens tens of thousands of UK jobs. It would also impact BAE, which has denied any wrongdoing.
Although the Al-Yamamah contract is structured as a country-to-country deal, the company has benefited substantially from the agreement in recent years. Mike Turner, the company's chief executive, was quoted last year as saying: "We've had £40bn from Al-Yamamah in the past 20 years; this could be another £40bn."
The lucrative contract, to supply Saudi Arabia with Tornados, was negotiated by Sir Richard Evans, the former chairman of BAE, in the 1980s, with support from then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. At the time, it was Britain's largest export deal.
Another senior government source indicated that feelings are running high in the Desert Kingdom because the government of King Abdullah cannot understand why, when it was at pains to run an open and transparent procurement process on Eurofighter, it is being penalised for an old military contract dating back to Margaret Thatcher.
The SFO launched its investigation three years ago. Since then the Saudi authorities have become increasingly concerned at the way in which members of the royal family have become embarrassed by investigations into alleged accounting irregularities.
The Sunday Telegraph first reported two years ago that the royal family had warned the Government it would never deal with the British arms industry again if any of its members were dragged into the inquiry.
Mr. Bush sponsored the Saudi entrance into the WTO. Contrary to WTO rules, Saudi Arabia has boycotted Israel. Now, the Saudis are prepared to repudiate a deal with the Brits. It's starting to look like Mr. Bush's faith in Saudi Arabia was misplaced.
ReplyDeleteThis would be consistent with Mr. Bush's trust of Mr. Putin. Mr. Bush also favors Russia's entry into the WTO.
Is there a pattern here?
"Mr. Bush also favors Russia's entry into the WTO."
ReplyDelete---
Not so fast Allen!
Only after getting assurances that the Sovs would supply missiles to Iran.
"bread and roses,"
ReplyDeletechildren's laughter and singing tomorrows.
That's it.
Evanier: As I said earlier, because the Communist Party was so decimated when I began to hang around it, I was given a rare birds-eye view of things. As a novelist, I accumulate impressions and feelings, not factual documents. Even in the mid-and late `50s, with party members fleeing in large numbers, it was impossible not to recognize the huge number of front groups, institutions, hotels, camps, publishing houses, unions, theaters and real estate that the party ran and owned--all paying full-time homage to the Soviet Union. International Publishers, a party publisher headed by Alexander Trachtenberg and James Allen, published hundreds of Soviet books and books on Communism each year. Every iota of the party network was bound up with the Soviet Union. You were tested by your unblinking loyalty to the correctness of the Soviet Union at all times.
Supporting the Soviet Union in every way was a moral obligation, and anything whatsoever that advanced the Soviet cause was justified. Subterfuge and deceit were moral because they promoted a higher morality: the realization of a Soviet America. You were speeding up the locomotive of history. The letters of the Rosenbergs, which I parodied in "Red Love," are purged of almost any truth about their allegiance to the Soviet Union. They write that they are for "bread and roses," children's laughter and singing tomorrows. That's it. And yet for the Rosenbergs, as for all Communists, serving Stalin was the most sacred act; Stalin was Moses. The few that were detached from the party and selected for espionage work were the chosen ones.
But apart from the symbolism of it, everything I encountered in the Party was Soviet. Every living moment was spent in devotion to a Soviet tomorrow. Yet how they loved to deny the thing they loved and accuse McCarthyites, red-baiters and Nazis of slandering them. Earl Browder denied the Party's connection to any underground apparatus to the end of his life. His room on the ninth floor of party headquarters adjoined that of J. Peters, who helped coordinate the underground of the party across the United States. They passed each other in the hall every day, but ostensibly they were ships in the night. "I pledge myself," Browder said in 1935 to two thousand new Party members taking the oath, "to remain at all times a vigilant and firm defender of the Leninist line of the Party, the only line that ensures the triumph of Soviet Power in the United States."
FP: How come you use humor so often in your fiction?
Evanier: Reviewing "Red Love," Kirkus Reviews wrote that it was "irreverent, unflinching, and almost disgracefully entertaining." That was exactly my intention: to puncture the Left's myth of the sainthood of the Rosenbergs, who got such a kick out of trying to destroy the United States. While I use humor throughout my fiction as a way of hooking and seducing the reader and entertaining him or her, it's a particularly devastating tool in political fiction. Humor and satire is the Trojan horse that takes the readers by surprise and makes them see matters in a new and unexpected light—a ridiculous and revelatory light. It takes us to a new level of understanding. The wonderful new film satire "Borat" features a lead character who is a thorough anti-Semite who refuses to fly because the Jews "might restage their attack of 9/11." As John Podhoretz writes, "Borat is a satire of anti-Semitism--a riposte and retort to it in every conceivable way, akin to Jonathan Swift recommending cannibalizing children as a solution to the problem of Irish hunger in `A Modest Proposal.'"
Secret Asian Man
ReplyDeleteSECRET AGENT MAN
(P.F. Sloan / S. Barri)
There's a man who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger
With every move he makes another chance he takes
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name
Beware of pretty faces that you find
A pretty face can hide an evil mind
Ah, be careful what you say
Or you'll give yourself away
Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name
------ lead guitar ------
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name
Swingin' on the Riviera one day
And then layin' in the Bombay alley next day
Oh no, you let the wrong word slip
While kissing persuasive lips
The odds are you won't live to see tomorrow
Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name
Secret agent man
Allen said,
ReplyDeletere:
"So give the test to a man, and tell him to mind the baby, keep an eye on the pot on the stove and answer the phone."
Very few 3rd, 5th, 8th, and 11th grade students have those problems. The statement does tend to prove the point, however.
---
Allen,
That was another Doug, but thanks anyway!
My guess is that both sexes minding the baby, keeping an eye on the pot on the stove and answering the phone in the 3rd, 5th, 8th, and 11th grades have lower than average IQ's.
...but as Borak and the rest of us in the know know, women have smaller brains.
My nomination for comment of the week:
ReplyDelete---
2164th said...
you may have missed the point, memory aside.
10:49 PM, November 25, 2006
...but as Borak and the rest of us in the know know, women have smaller brains.
ReplyDeleteThat study was inherently biased; women do not have an extension of grey matter that is vulnerable to being caught in a zipper.
allen said:
ReplyDeleteNow, the Saudis are prepared to repudiate a deal with the Brits. It's starting to look like Mr. Bush's faith in Saudi Arabia was misplaced.
Cheney flew right over there, and since there's not too many ducks in the desert, one must assume it was not to take King Abdullah hunting, but to smooth his Highness' ruffled feathers.
doug,
ReplyDeletere: "2164th said...
you may have missed the point, memory aside."
Priceless!
woman catholic,
ReplyDeletere: "smooth his Highness' ruffled feathers"
Why did I think of Andrew Sullivan as I read that?
re: "women do not have an extension of grey matter that is vulnerable to being caught in a zipper."
The other-other white meat.
"TWO TEENS CHARGED WITH SETTING 'ACID BOMBS' AT WAL-MART... "
ReplyDelete---
Kids these days!
When I was a kid we'd drop acid,
not blow it up.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletePhilip Roth's dad admonished him to "use his head."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately he followed the wrong one.
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