This is how friends act

I was over reading some posts on Free Republic and I came across this interesting article from the Asia Times. Essentially, it is speculated that we may be moving a significant force east out of Jordan and into Western Iraq. Supposedly the forces came in secretly through Aqaba and the Jordanian government has kept it quiet for internal political reasons.

The official Jordanian government line is that the only troops we have in country are the 2000 troops needed to run the three - yes three - Patriot missile batteries we have sent there for protection.

What's really interesting here is that no one seems to be questioning the fact that it takes over 600 people to run a Patriot battery - at least according to the Jordanian spokesman. Now I have not seen a Patriot battery up close, but I'm thinking that we can operate it with fewer people than we need to run a nuclear sub. Maybe I'm wrong, but........

This sounds like a blatant and unimpressive "cover-up" by the Jordanians. The population of Jordan is generally opposed to the war, but this sounds like the government understands where their true interest lies. So they clandestinely allow us to do what is needed and they spread obvious fictions to their people in order to maintain the peace.

King Abdullah, like his father before him, understands the importance of his country's relationship with the US. So he is doing what he needs to do to nurture that relationship. If this story is even a slight bit accurate, this would indicate the actions of a true friend. Maybe we should take the $15 billion that we were going to give to the Turks and give to the Jordanians. These actions would be worthy of a significant increase in foreign aid to our friends.