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US senators connive with Obama over Saudi arms deal

A Yemeni man inspects the damage at a factory targeted by Saudi airstrikes in the Yemeni capital Sana'a on September 15, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

The United States Senate finally endorses a military deal with Saudi Arabia worth of $1.15 billion despite initial opposition to the move forwarded by administration of President Barack Obama.

A legislation introduced to obstruct the move was killed by the lawmakers in a 71-to-27 vote Wednesday.

The bipartisan legislation had been introduced by Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy in an effort to stop dealing with an aggressor , engaged in war crimes in neighboring Yemen.

Back in August, the Pentagon said that the US State Department had approved the potential sale.

The deal was also strongly censured by human rights activists in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the main rivals.

"This resolution will say to the president that we disapprove of the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia," said Kentucky Republican Senator Paul, one of the lawmakers behind the resolution of disapproval, earlier.

According to Murphy, Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism is one of the factors contributing to formation of extremism and Takfirism across the region as well as the rest of the globe.

"If you're serious about stopping the flow of extremist recruiting across this globe, then you have to be serious that the ... brand of Islam that is spread by Saudi Arabia all over the world, is part of the problem," Murphy said.

Saudi Arabia launched a military aggression against Yemen in March 2015 in a bid to bring the country’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, back to power and undermine the Ansarullah Houthi movement.

According to Chicago-based author and radio host Stephen Lendman, the White House’s inclination towards making the deal with the monarchy, while it is engaged in war crimes in neighboring Yemen, surpasses far beyond just making profit.

“All of the wars in the Middle East are US wars with no exception,” he told Press TV in a Tuesday phone interview.


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