The Trump administration is moving forward with a $1 billion sale of advanced drones and precision-guided munitions to Morocco, Reuters reported. The report cited anonymous sources who said the administration sent a notification of the potential sale to Congress on Friday.
The news comes a day after Morocco and Israel agreed to normalize relations. On Thursday, Reuters reported that the US was looking to sell four MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones made by General Atomics to Morocco. Friday’s report said the sale also included munitions made by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing.
Congress could block the sale, but is not expected to oppose it. The Senate failed to pass resolutions on Thursday that aimed to stop a $23 billion weapons sale to the UAE that is seen as Abu Dhabi’s reward for opening up diplomatic ties with Israel.
While news of the sale to Morocco comes after they agreed to normalize with Israel, Rabat is no stranger to buying US arms. A report released in September found that Morocco buys 91 percent of its military equipment from the US, including F-16 fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters, and armored vehicles. In 2019, Morocco was Washington’s top customer in the Middle East and North Africa, agreeing to deals worth $10.3 billion.
As a reward for agreeing to normalize with Israel, the US recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. Morocco annexed the area in 1975 when the Spanish withdrew, and fought a series of wars against the Polisario Front, a group that represents the indigenous Sahrawi people and still claims the territory today.
Good and enlightening article. West Sahara seems to be an old but under reported post-colonial war, as East Timor was. Morocco obviously does not intend to do any more negotiating than they have to, but neither do they seem as vicious as the Indonesians were.
Interesting tidbit on Western Sahara and the Sahrawi. They are backed by Algeria, and part of the Maghreb, Northwest African tip of the Arab world.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/western-sahara-conflict-in-500-words
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb#/media/File:Maghreb_(orthographic_projection).svg
Kushner seems to be in charge of consolidating the Western front against the Eurasian century, Israel First in Africa as well as West Asia. Moderate odds are, his ‘expertise’ will be carried over into Harris-Biden.
Figures there would be more Palestinian parallels of displacement and usurpation, but also there appears to be an attitude that, if its Arab, its Israeli.
The UN has never recognized western Sahara as Moroccan territory. The Orange Orangutan ceding western Sahara to the American puppet ‘king” Muhammad was the quid pro quo for Morocco normalizing relations with the Jewish State. The ape pulled the same crap with East Jerusalem and Golan Heights.
Trump’s kowtowing will noticeably not win him back the White House. A second big U.S. Israel Lobby fail after the JCPOA.
Europe First Zionism superseding the primacy of American Zionism will be a tough pill for American Zionists to swallow; they may never shake a state of denial.
At the very least, there’s no reason Kushner wouldn’t rather receive the Nobel Prize for his ‘Middle east Peace’ Trump is merely fronting for.
“not win him back the White House”
At his age, weight, and state of health, he’s not going to be around for that. It is not a realistic fear.
The Trumpian movement is feared; they keep the Republicans a motivated threat. Trumpians may be the only political force able to force restraint on Harris-Biden interventionism at home and abroad.
The recent spate of U.S. aggressions are everything the Deep State can do short of a Presidential authorization to make war, something Trump won’t sign.
Seems to be an ad hoc program to delegitimize Trumpianism, starting with ‘no new wars’, that will pick up steam as the Deep State move Harris-Biden forward ahead of the next Congressional elections.
Cheating works, but they may not want to have to rely on overwhelming cheating every single election.
Be nice if Trump spent his final days pissing Biden off instead of doing things he will embrace. Pardon Snowden and Assange and stop kissing Bibi’s ass.
Quid pro quo. A genocide for a genocide. You can kill Palestine if we can kill Sahrawi. In the 70’s this would have only guaranteed a pact between Polisario and the PLO. What the f**k happened to solidarity? Arafat couldn’t have strangled it alone, could he? Only the bad guys work together anymore. This ain’t right.
Its not clear that the PLO ever even heard of the Polisario.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polisario_Front
Just as well they didn’t suffer the fate of the PLO or Kurds by becoming too well known or too useful to a greater power’s agenda.
Polisario was first by a generation, and the PLO was soon after hiding out right next door in Algeria. They used the same methods, taught by the same people out in the same desert training areas. It is hard to imagine they were not aware of each other on the most intimate terms.
Their public strategies could not be more different, with Polisario focused on a pure local revolutionary fight, the PLO, international politics.
If they knew one-another, there was no deep deep bond sharing revolutionary strategies or ideals.
If anything, the Polisario seemed to have learned not to engage in public spectacle and avoid notoriety as a ‘terrorist’ organization.
That could change though, as (NATO) Al Qaida on the Islamic Maghreb is apparently a thing and in need of a cause and recruits.
https://sahara-question.com/en/content/western-saharas-polisario-crime-and-terrorism
The Moroccan Western Sahara Wall or Berm is an approximately 2,700 km (1,700 mi) long structure, mostly a sand wall (or “berm”), running through Western Sahara and the southwestern portion of Morocco. It separates the Moroccan areas (the Southern Provinces) on the west from the Polisario-controlled areas (Free Zone, nominally Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) on the east.
It cannot keep out individuals determined to cross, in the middle of vast expanses of Sahara Desert, but it can and does cut off the economies and cultures that had been based on routine long migrations.
It was the first long walling off of a “disputed territory.” Then came Israel. Israel attempts a shorter wall in total miles that is more heavily guarded, but it intends to make it truly impermeable.
Finally, Trump’s Wall along the Mexican Border is similar in size to the Sahara, but is attempting the more impermeable Israel effect. It seems to be falling between the two stools.
Like Trump’s wall, which is more or less just better border enforcement, neither the Mexicans or Polisario would mind the barrier if it kept pushy northerners out to the same or greater degree it kept them confined to the south.
That national liberation group seems to live by smuggling nowadays; most revolutionary groups degenerate into just being armed gangs.
Going on the popular militia example seen throughout the failed Middle East, one lost young generation after another knew nothing but a life of tooling about with a gun and doing little of any useful work.
Algeria intentionally or not, provided poor guidance. The productive Sahrawi demographic is probably no longer capable of nation-building and so have come to be where they are today.
This was done by abandoning the independence claims of the Sahrawi people, the ethnic group of the Western Sahara that has had UN backing since about 1965, when the UN asked Spain to free it from colonialism.
It is interesting that today Spain formally objected to what Trump did, and said the matter must be handled through the UN peace process that already exists.
Trump did to them what he did to Palestinians and Kurds, and for the same sell-them-out purpose of serving Israel and Forever War.
Not necessarily; serving Israel, sure, but Moroccan is also making what bribes and deals it can to avoid becoming the next regime change target, while maintaining some independence.
Africa is an expanding proxy battleground between NATO and Eurasia.
What this Morocco deal is just more ersatz taking of other people’s land by fiat. All to curry favor with the Premier Land Theft Klepto Rogue Nuclear Entity. Can anyone believe they are taking this ACT on the road. One of these days or decades they are going to miscalculate and hit on a wrong party. Mini States should avoid trouble that could cause several strikes in retaliation in our thermonuclear WORLD…… Game Over for the little guys with NO STRATEGIC DEPTH.