Jobs and Saudi arms sales: The real story

Since World War II, U.S. dependence on oil has led every American president to cut quiet deals with one of our major sources, Saudi Arabia, to keep the flow coming. The key deal sweetener has been arms sales, billions of dollars’ worth of sophisticated U.S. weapons to the kingdom year after year. Periodically these deals erupt into public consciousness and become controversial. But never more so than now.

In recent years, American consciences have had to contend with stories of the Saudis killing innocent civilians in Yemen with American-made precision strike weapons. In 2018, for example, a Lockheed Martin-made bomb hit a Yemeni school bus, dealing death to 40 children. Such stories have sometimes made it to the front pages. Stories about the millions more suffering from the war’s ongoing famine usually don’t.