FEATURE Partly to protect the interests of U.S. Corporations in the region and partly to profit from lucrative arms sales, the United States is engaged in a Middle East arms buildup of dangerous proportions. tion obtained with the AWACSs is given to the Saudis On a selective basis. For instance, the AWACs de- tected the June 1981 Israeli_attack on the Bagdad Nuclear reactor, but the Saudis were not informed of it until the next day. * Egypt’s role in U.S. plans for the region grew tapidly under the late Anwar Sadat. Sadat opened Egypt to foreign corporate investment, weakened its industrial infrastructure, and turned Egypt’s Military into a tool of U.S. corporate interests. Hos- hi Mubarek has proven to be an equally faithful ser- Vant of those interests. — Eudes neta - With a military force of 350,000, a total popula- tion of 40,000,000, and the largest working class in the Arab world, Egypt is an extremely important country. Its political neutralization from the Arab liberation front was a change of the first magni- tude, tipping the regional balance of power in the direction of U.S. imperialism by several important degrees. U.S. military aid to Egypt was literally Non-existent until the 1970s. Since then it has Jumped dramatically. Egypt now serves U.S. politi- Cal interests not only in the Middle East, but in Afri- Ca as well, where Israel has almost completely lost Its moral authority. Besides Egypt’s role in desta- llizing the Arab liberation movement, it has acti- Vely interfered in the revolutionary process in Ethiopia, Angola, Afghanistan, and Libya. (That bya, with its army of 50,000, would present a : threat to Egypt, with its army of 350,000, is some- thing possible only in the creative world of U.S. Journalism.) _ For such services to U.S. interests, the Egyp- tian comprador class has been richly rewarded. From 1978-1980, Egypt concluded over $3.5 billion in ‘S. military sales agreements, much of it under- Written by U.S. aid. Taken together with the Israeli aid package, Egypt and Israel get almost 50% of all a foreign aid at present, most of that military * Despite its own lucrative arms industry with Such unsavory clients as South Africa, the Phil- 'ppines, Chile, Guatemala, and El Salvador, most of Israel’s heavy and sophisticated weaponry 1S Still supplied by the United States. If one includes € FY 83 projected budget allocation to Israel of $2.48 billion, Israel has become the highest all-time recipient of Congressionally approved foreign aid, topping even South Vietnam. Of the $25 billion allo- Cated te Israel since World War II, $18.5 billion has been for military use. These statistics, as high-as they are, still do not Teveal the whole picture. For example. of the $25 U.S. Rapid Deployment Force troops began landing in Egypt Aug! Sudan, Oman, and Somalia. billion cited above, $5.95 billion has been ‘‘for- given.”’ This means that Israel need not pay this amotint back. Furthermore, as Rep. Mervyn Dy- mally (D-Calif) has noted: ‘‘The remainder is loans with 10-year grace periods, 20-30 year amortiza-— tion, and with interest rates below market levels.”’ A March 13, 1983, article in the Detroit Free Press notes that there are no strings attached to the economic. aid the U.S. gives Israel. As a result, the Israelis can use that aid as they see fit. There is growing concern that a good chunk of the $6.5 bil- lion non-military economic aid has been used to help the Israelis construct their illegal settlements in the West Bank, Gaza, Golan, and probably south- ern Lebanon. But these statistics, which place U.S. aid to Is- rael at twice the amount the U.S. has given the en- tire continent of Africa, and 25% higher than all U.S. aid to Latin Ameria, still do not complete the picture. According to a March 11, 1983, article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, an extensive General Accounting Office study of U.S. aid to Israel com- pleted in February 1983 shows that U.S. aid to Is- rael is even higher than previously documented. Billed by the GAO as the most comprehensive stu-. dy it has ever undertaken, the politically sensitive report shows that the total amount of aid to Israelis _ 30% higher than previously stated. But there is more. Writing in Great Britain’s New Statesman (August 20, 1982), Claudia Wright reported, ‘‘Pentagon figures just released in re- sponse to a Freedom of Information Act request re- veal a massive surge of military supplies to Israel in the first three months of 1982 as Israel planned the invasion of Lebanon.”’ Wright went on to point out: At the very least, an extraordinary coin- cidence has occurred between U.S. weapons delivery schedules and Israeli military plans for Lebanon. Starting three months before the invasion commenced, the Pentagon must have known that Israel was stockpiling at a massive and costly rate. It is inconceivable that U.S. officials failed te anticipate what this stockpiling was for. . ust 1 for extensive war games, which will also include ARABIA Wright’s suggestion of U.S.-Israeli collabora- tion in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon is strongly — reinforced by an article by Zeev Schiff in the Spring 1983 issue of Foreign Policy magazine. Schiff, de- fense and military editor of Haaretz (an Israeli newspaper considered the semi-official voice of the Begin administration), documents U.S.-Israeli con- tacts before the June invasion. The main point of the article is that Israel could not have conducted its war-in Lebanon without full U.S. backing. It re- veals high-level consultation—if not planning—be- tween then Secretary of State Haig, Israel’s then Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, and Chief of Israeli Military Intelligence Major-General Yehoshua Sa- guy. Of course, nothing is more revealing of U.S. support of Begin’s and Sharon’s Lebanon war than the FY 83 allocation to Israel. The current proposal of $2.48 billion is actually a $300 million increase over the 1982 package—and the most unambiguous seal of approval possible of everything from Is- rael’s builldozing of the Rashidiyya and Ein al Hel- wa camps in the South to its encouragement of the Phalange massacres at Sabra and Chatilla. * The goals of the U.S. military buildup in the Middle East are concrete and visible: first, to de- stroy movements of national liberation like the PLO, which radicalize the region and stand in the front line against the interests of the multinatio- nals; and second, to destabilize nationalist and anti-imperialist regimes. If the forces of national liberation should be in a position to strike a blow for their national independence in the oil-producing re- gion, the U.S. stands ready to send the marines. There is always the danger that conventional war will escalate into nuclear war. Today, the U.S. conventional military forces are equipped with nu- clear potential. In the Middle East, they are backed up by nuclear weapons in the Mediterranean, Per- sian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. A lasting and just Middle East peace is an es- sential requirement of our time if we are to avoid a nuclear catastrophe. Se ae ea pos a Basten ee Meee Soe es PACIFIC TRIBUNE —AUGUST 26, 1983—Page 5